boiler blues

Blo....dy, bug..ring, boilers.

I'm sure I'm not the only landlord that has these thoughts.

After paying out £187.50 in October to fix my boiler I had a call yesterday from the tenant to tell me that it had packed up again.

Now this was not an old boiler. Fitted 4 years ago the Worcester Bosch in boiler years is still considered to be youthful, rather than middle aged given the average 15 year lifespan.

The first engineer verdict was scrap it. Appartently it was furred up with limescale which afflicts all water using devices in Notts.

I could of dropped off my chair. There was me thinking I'd bought the Rolls Royce of boilers to be told that after 4 years I was going to have to start again and pay out £1200 into the bargain.

On further investigation I was told by a very amenable and knowledgable plumber that he doesn't work on Worcesters any more. He thinks they're reputation is over blown and they are very difficult to work on. Worth knowing for the future.

Boiler breakdown insurance cover

He recommends an Alpha given they have 5-7 years parts and labour guarantee.

Anyway, despite the terminal prognosis on my boiler by the first plumber (registered with the Gas Safe Service) I decided that I wasn't prepared to condem my boiler to the scrap heat quite yet. I phoned Worcester Bosch who promised to fix it unless there were problems to the backplate or shell. Almost impossible given the boilers age.

I therefore put my faith in them to fix the problem and opted to go for their £210 repair service.

It turns out that the problem was not as the first plumber had diagnised but a faulty circuit board.

This brings home an unfortunate fact of life for many landlords. Even when the sun is belting down we still need functioning boilers for the tenants hot water. When they go wrong they are bloomin expensive and landlords should always get a second opinion because even so called experts get it wrong even when they have all the right qualifications.

For more info on whether to get boiler insurance