Gas appliance service

[stratplus]

Hi all, out of interest what do you people charge for a service and what does your service involve?
I currently work for a company where we are paid £22 to service a property which could have a boiler, two fires and a visual on a cooker. Obviously the fires are removed, flues thoroughly checked but on a combi room sealed boiler is a fga and all the basic checks enough. We are expected to complete up to 12 properties per day.
Your thoughts please!!!

 

[mountainman]

Not great money IMO but has anyone offered you more for the same type of work?

 

[REDSAW]

my thought is, whats your hourly rate?

 

[zeebeedee]

12 a day? How many hours you working?

 

[stratplus]

Its housing association work with poor access rate tbh. Some days only get 4 or 5 in but still have to visit the potential 12! There is no real hourly rate just get paid per property serviced. If tenant is out we get nothing. Houses not in same street either.
I've seen BG offer a similar rate.

 

[Blake]

£264 a day, I say that was ok in the current climate. I personally would not enjoy or wish to carry out services on 12 properties a day. I only book in max 4 gas checks a day as I never know what probs I may find.

Assuming you work a standard 7.5 hour day, that mean you get 37.5 mins per property, I personally take that to service a boiler let alone potentially a boiler, fire and cooker.

 

[Blake]

Well your reply before I posted screwed my reply and maths!

 

[Blake]

The thing we housing associations is that it takes the tenant 30 mins to find the gas card, then 30 mins to get the bus to the shop which is only around the corner, and then by the time they have bought there quota of scratch cards and special brew a 30 min service turns into half a day.

 

[stratplus]

Lol! Yeah, as a rule we try to allow 30mins per appliance. If we got in all 12 then we're stuffed!! £22 just dosen't seem alot for a potential 4 appliances plus your own fuel.

 

[Blake]

Ok, so it's not great, but unless you are willing to go it alone and take a gamble on the whole work/no work thing then it pays the bills. As we all know, times are hard, and there will no doubt be someone else willing to take the work off of you.

Out of interest, how many actually have fires?, the times I have done them, none ever had fires.

 

[stratplus]

Very true. I would say 70% have one fire, usually a robinson willey, nice and easy as long as the fixings aren't shot.

 

[Blake]

Are you expected to carry out remedial work if there are any issues with the catchment space etc? or do you just cap off and issue a notice etc?

 

[stratplus]

No, just cap or isolate depending on the situation and warning notice. Its all the paperwork that takes the time tbh.

 

[kirkgas]

Hi all, out of interest what do you people charge for a service and what does your service involve?
I currently work for a company where we are paid £22 to service a property which could have a boiler, two fires and a visual on a cooker. Obviously the fires are removed, flues thoroughly checked but on a combi room sealed boiler is a fga and all the basic checks enough. We are expected to complete up to 12 properties per day.
Your thoughts please!!!

if you are doing what you describe in 12 houses a day in a normal shift, i will make the following statement "you aren't doing it properly and are risking peoples lives" not having a go at you personally, but even at a fee of 22 x £12 which is decent money, its impossible to do the work

 

[kirkgas]

Very true. I would say 70% have one fire, usually a robinson willey, nice and easy as long as the fixings aren't shot.

ive worked in social housing for longer than i care t remember so have worked on 1000's of RW fires, they are bog standard easy to work on etc, BUT there is the flue run to check, loft and outside so to say you are cutting it fine is an understatement, i wouldnt do it its as simple as that

 

[kirkgas]

i used to arrange 10-12 houses for my engineers every day as we know access is always poor (most days we were right, and on the days when everyone was in we simply rearranged, after doing it long enough we knew the area to arrange 12 to get 6-8 in, and in the good areas we arranged 8 and got 8) but these houses only had boilers with the visual on the cooker, on the ones with BBU's i expected the guy to do 6 every day, but these were all in the same street day after day

 

[AWheating]

would not want to have to service bbu and fire with a stop watch on my back counting down. As for the amount of work done its going to depend on what is paid for i guess. I would assume being HA its a service rather than safety check so i would think the min should be service to manufactures instructions. If your are only dealing with modern appliances then you can be quicker as it can be just fga,gas rate and visuals etc....

its the nature of the beast but i personally would not want to be under such pressure, its bad enough dealing with some tennants.

 

[Bernie2]

Hmm!

Remember working for a company who appeared to think you could do a load of BBU's in a day on HA work. I went to a few houses and on inspection nearly all the BBU's where dangerous with blocked heat exchanger fins and all kinds. It appeared to me they had never been cleaned properly for quite some time. I also went to houses were new BBU's had been fitted to find no register plates. It was a mess and entered it on the report sheets. The result was I seemed to become exceedingly unpopular as the company I worked for was the same company who had been servicing them.
So I was virtually ostracised for making a nuisance of myself. The problem is standards of independent supervision in these companies tend to be low, with the engineer being the one that gets the blame if anything goes wrong not the company. But the engineer can have problems fighting with his boss who wants the cash from as many services as he can get the engineers to do in a day to pay his bills and the HA that wants them done as cheap as possible.






It is why I woudl advocate giving the Gas safe registration to the individual not the company.

 

[villa_tom]

I just wouldn't do it. When I contracted at a firm that did HA properties I would leave in the mornings with 20+ jobs as the access rate was rubbish. If I got into a property with a boiler and two fires then I would make my excuses and leave pronto. I was on 28 per cp12 so there was no way on this earth I would be doing 3 appliances for that.
As for doing 12+ a day, I personally don't do it and I won't be pressurised into doing it either. I've worked hard for my qualifications and private gas safe etc and no clown in a suit sitting behind a desk in an office will make me change the way I work. In the end, I'm responsible for what's on the cp12 I sign and its my bum on the line.

 

[stratplus]

Tbh the engineer turnover does seem high. usually engineers being sacked for leaving leaks!!

 

[desrob]

i'm in the same frame of mind as villa tom,and to be honest i think 4 a day would be my maximum

 

[acecharly]

I 100% agree with kirkgas.... if you do 12 services in a day then your not just risking not paying your bills, your risking your registration and more importantly the lives of the people your supposed to be keeping safe. Just do all the tests your ment to, if that means 4 a day and youre not hanging around and youve done your job properly and you get the bullet take them to a tribunal.

Housing associations....pffft

 

[zeebeedee]

12 is far too much in a day especially as mentioned with bbu's but 4 a day is a little slow it doesn't take 2 hours to strip a bbu and clean the heat exchanger

 

[REDSAW]

12 is far too much in a day especially as mentioned with bbu's but 4 a day is a little slow it doesn't take 2 hours to strip a bbu and clean the heat exchanger

it took me 2 1/2 hours yesterday to do one (it was a bit of a pain) although 1/2 hour was chatting and giving advice.

 

[Mike Jackson]

When I was doing LLGS checks for an HA I would book up 12 a day knowing full well that I would be lucky to get 8. This was on estates where it was walking from one door to the next and all the properties had a fan flued or balanced flue boiler. When I was travelling between properties I would book 6 in to allow time for travelling as I still needed to drive from one to the next even if they were out.