Grumps wrote:
My mother has a 37 year old hot-air central heating system. She has
been paying regularly for BG maintenance. This year, during the annual
inspection/safety check, they condemned the system as unsafe. It has
been 'capped off' and now has a nice red warning label on it.
The reason for this was due to;
1) The safety cut-off valve being faulty (something that stops the
gas if the flame goes out).
2) The flame is yellow (should be blue).
3) The flue has cracks (these are in the loft space).
All 3 items cannot be repaired or replaced.
BG will immediately refund this years premiums. But I'd like to know,
if they knew that the system could not be effectively maintained, why
have they been taking premiums for the last 10 years (or more)?
Obviously I have no proof that all of these parts became unobtainable
in just the last year, but I'd welcome comments as to what we could
do.
Could all of these items fail in a single year? Maybe it's just me,
but it seems that previous checks were not carried out properly.
Indeed, the plug that supplies power to the fan had a loose wire,
which would appear to have been unchecked for years (maybe the checks
don't go this deep).

BG will be quoting on replacement systems. I have told my mum to get
a few more quotes. She had not even considered getting other people
involved.

It's an old Potterton system. Do they still make hot-air systems?
Ideally she'd just like this system repaired, failing that, a new
hot-air system would be preferable to radiators. Are these systems
still popular?

Thanks for any comments.
I don't 'have it in' for BG, but some things they say/do just seem to
get my back up.

Grumps,

I've had the three star service with BG now since 1986 and the only time
that they ever failed to carry out a repair was when the parts were not
available any more (knackered cast iron balanced flue spigot on a wall
mounted Potterton Neat-a-Heat) - and they condemned the boiler because of
that (although only after a week of trying to get the part).

If you look under their Terms and Conditions, you will see that they will
repair a boiler/heating system until the parts become unavailable and then
you have to pay for a new boiler, they won't.

I had them fit a new boiler around 1998, they quoted me a fair price
(everything all-in) and during the install, I asked them to fit 3
theremostatic rad valves as an extra to the contract whilst the system was
drained down- and they supplied and fitted these free for me.

Brian G