Questioning Vokera diagnosis

[teflondan]

Hi Guys

I have had a strange problem with a Vokera Linea 25HE boiler in a house that i rent out. Its a bit of a long winded story but would appreciate it if you could stick with me.

A couple of day ago the boiler stopped producing hot water but the central heating worked fine and no fault code was indicated, so a engineer was called out by the letting agent.

The engineer arrived and stayed for two minutes (on a saturday afternoon) and didn't even take the cover off the boiler, his diagnosis was that the fan was oscillating and that the fault lied with either a thermister or a 'dropper'.
He described symptoms of the fan ramping up and down when the burners fire up and down, now the boiler has operated this way since installation.

I spoke to the engineer on the monday and he told me that he had spoken to Vokera and they had never come across this fault before and that they would need the engineer on site to diagnose over the phone.

Now as you can imagine this sounded odd to me and i sounded like he was trying to rip me off so a called my friend who is a british gas engineer for a second opinion. He inspected the diverter valve/motor and checked everything, he could not find anything obvious and retested the boiler and it worked fine!!

So basically i would appreciate your advice as to whether his original diagnosis was correct or not, and whether he was trying it on?
As you can imagine i begrudge paying £90 for 2 minutes work and then paying another £90+ for him to be on the phone to the manufacterer!

I really have a bad feeling about this guy and he was rude to the tenant aswell.

Also i am an air conditioning and refrigeration engineer who works for a facilities maintenance company so i have a good basic understanding of boilers and heating systems but i think he thought he was talking to someone who had no idea at all.

Your thoughts about him and the diagnosis would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks in advance

Danny

 

[wnjswozo]

should of called your mate out first,ring letting agent,give them your mates number for any further breakdowns i,m sure he wont mind being on call for you.
the guys turned out on sat afternoon,does,nt matter if he there 2 secs,you,ve got to pay him.the boiler you,ve got is not the best,and sometimes you can go out press reset,hey presto it works

 

[Puddle]

Well manufacturers will not of heard of fault would they 😛,do not think him ringing from boiler will help apart from telling engineer what is in fact wrong

If you have had checked all working ok,leave for now,I would say fault maybe diverter/motor sticking,maybe just pressure was low

The people who cover weekends could be different from the agent normal engineers but just because they work for the estate agents management side does not mean they are any good

the only thing the agent is bothered about really is managing as much of your money as possible into their bank account

In his defense ,I have been known to be rude to tenants too,they can have that effect 🙁🙂

As for charge,for a Saturday,thats what you pay,he left boiler working with hot water when they had none,the issue is the other works needed

 

[teflondan]

should of called your mate out first,ring letting agent,give them your mates number for any further breakdowns i,m sure he wont mind being on call for you.
the guys turned out on sat afternoon,does,nt matter if he there 2 secs,you,ve got to pay him.the boiler you,ve got is not the best,and sometimes you can go out press reset,hey presto it works

I never thought about that to be honest! i will ask my mate if he fancies doing that!

I sorry though i begrudge paying him for not even taking the cover off, and as my friend proved it could have been fixed on the day!

All he did was turn it off, so then of course all of the seals contracted and it dumped its water all over the kitchen worktop🙁

Puddle
From what you say boiler lads seem to have the same problems with idiots at the end of helplines as AC lads do 🙄

I know this guy is a partner in the company and is on the gas safe website.

What are your opinion on his diagnosis that the fan was 'oscillating' ?

Regards

Danny