Can you trust your boiler engineer
Which? reporters have conducted undercover research to discover how well ten heating engineers carried out a service to their faulty boiler…and were shocked by the results.
Who were assessed?
Five engineers were selected from the major companies and a further five from independents. The big companies that were assessed included British Gas, Corgi Homeplan, Home Energy Services, Homeserve and SSE
How were they assessed?
In order to determine the workmanship of each heating engineer hidden cameras were installed and the boiler pressure was deliberately set too high.
Each engineer was assessed on whether they carried out sufficient check as per the gas safety regulations, the boiler manufacturer’s service instructions and adhered to any extra customer pledges made by the company they worked for.
How did they perform?
The boiler’s operating pressure was deliberately set too high, but six of the engineers failed to notice this. In fact two did not even bother to remove the boiler case, and another engineer removed the case for less than 15 seconds.
Under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 engineers are obliged to conduct a series of mandatory checks including examination of the flue, inspection of the operating pressure or heat input, a check of the supply of combustion air and to to ensure the safe working of the boiler.
Out of the ten boiler engineers only two engineers met the legal requirements. A staggering eight engineers that were assessed failed to carry out one or more of the requirements. None followed the manufacturers service instructions properly and two of the three companies with extra customer pledges failed to deliver on them.
The “shocking” findings have been presented to the Gas Safe Register and they are campaigning for a crackdown on engineers who carry out incompetent work.
Safety should be a priority and owners should not be put at risk by poor workmanship from the boiler engineer. A faulty boiler can be a serious threat and, worse case scenarios can be fatal.
Here at My Plumber our boiler engineers are accredited installers of both Worcester Bosch and Vaillant boilers. We’ve been trained to a high standard by both manufacturers on how to carry out boiler repair, boiler servicing and boiler installation so you can be confident in our professionalism.
Find out more about our boiler services:
Can you trust your boiler engineer
Need help? Hire the London Property Service experts today by giving us a call on 020 3078 5920.
