Boiler Broken Landlord Woes

holymonk

holymonk

holymonk

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Joined
12 Oct 2011
Posts
1,490
Hi

So I go to have a shower this morning and its running cold water... have a look at the boiler and it has no power at all... after changing the fuse in the wall with no success I attempt to call my letting agent (Landlord lives in the USA and they manage it all).

Low and behold they are now shut for Christmas (prompted to go on their website and call the emergency number) I do this - it doesn't ring just tells me unable to connect.... this continues all day.

I am bloody fuming to be honest, this is an independent company who mainly specialize in lettings and I cannot even contact them. I have written a ****** email and left a VM at this office - without success. They are an independent letting agent (to be fair until now I have not had any issues) But I cannot go without hot water especially all over Christmas.

If I call out British Gas, does anyone know what the charge will likely be and do you think I can then pass this onto the agent to pay ?

I managed to get my dad to have a look at it who replaced a fuse inside the boiler - it now turns on but wont fire up...
 
I'm not a gas man but when you lose power in a boiler it will cut the gas supply. There will be a reset somewhere for the gas.
What's the boiler?
(I don't condone fiddling with boilers by the way)
 
BG do fixed cost 1 off repair, could try that no fix no fee afaik.

I would feel justified to go ahead and get it fixed and pass bill onto letting agent as you cannot contact them to arrange or authorise the work.

Have you checked fuse box, maybe boiler on own circuit? is there power at the spur etc? definitely replaced with a good fuse not a blown one, you can get bad one from packet etc?

Ps. Also do you have an immersion heater as a backup?
 
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If you have power. Ie led light on. Make sure their is demand for it to start and fire up. Either by turning the hot tap on or room thermostat up and timer on.

First thing that should be happening is the pump running. Take the front cover off with a screwdriver. Don't take the internal cover off that houses the main gas burner if you can help it unless you're confident you can fix it back on and understand how to test the seal for leakage. Obviously you don't want carbon monoxide leaking out.

Test your thermostat inside the boiler for continuity and the thermistas for the right amount of resistance. Normally around 11.000 to 13.000 at around 20c. Just while you're on.

As it's dead from the start it's probably something simple. Let me know how you get on
 
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Yeah. Please do not attempt boiler repair. Use a gas safe engineer. It doesn't have to be British Gas. Use a local chap who will probably charge less and be able to pop round quite quickly. Just Google gas safe engineer. If you do fiddle with it and the letting agent find out they might have grounds to refuse to pay the bill as you could have caused more damage. Not to mention that you might be putting your own life and the lives of your neighbours in danger should, god forbid, something go wrong.
 
djferrick said:
Yeah. Please do not attempt boiler repair. Use a gas safe engineer. It doesn't have to be British Gas. Use a local chap who will probably charge less and be able to pop round quite quickly. Just Google gas safe engineer. If you do fiddle with it and the letting agent find out they might have grounds to refuse to pay the bill as you could have caused more damage. Not to mention that you might be putting your own life and the lives of your neighbours in danger should, god forbid, something go wrong.
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Yeah this, don't open the case just get a gas engineer round and send the bill to incompetent agents
 
I had my boiler pack up last year (26yr old boiler!) So had to call out British gas. For a one of price if they can fix it within half an hour its 99quid, before 2hrs its 199 after that its 499 if I remember correctly. The guy managed to replace a circuit board on mine which itself cos 149 so I got my money's worth out of the repair.

Edit

Also check the boiler information booklets. There may be a service history that the landlord has in place already?
 
Mickie said:
If you have power. Ie led light on. Make sure their is demand for it to start and fire up. Either by turning the hot tap on or room thermostat up and timer on.

First thing that should be happening is the pump running. Take the front cover off with a screwdriver. Don't take the internal cover off that houses the main gas burner if you can help it unless you're confident you can fix it back on and understand how to test the seal for leakage. Obviously you don't want carbon monoxide leaking out.

Test your thermostat inside the boiler for continuity and the thermistas for the right amount of resistance. Normally around 11.000 to 13.000 at around 20c. Just while you're on.

As it's dead from the start it's probably something simple. Let me know how you get on
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Don't make me laugh. Only a certified gas engineer should be undertaking any 'work' on a boiler.
 
Cosimo said:
Only a certified gas engineer should be undertaking any 'work' on a boiler.
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Agreed.

As others have suggested, get BG to fix it and pass the bill onto your landlord. He's probably got some kind of insurance policy anyway so he'll not be out of pocket by much. I'm sure he'll understand doing it this way as you were unable to contact your letting agents or him.
 
In the real world, if a private homeowners boiler fails on the Saturday before Christmas, he too would expect it to be difficult to get hold of someone there and then.

Sometimes the private homeowners might have to wait until Monday when people are actually at work. Oh the humanity.
 
kitch9 said:
In the real world, if a private homeowners boiler fails on the Saturday before Christmas, he too would expect it to be difficult to get hold of someone there and then.

Sometimes the private homeowners might have to wait until Monday when people are actually at work. Oh the humanity.
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Except this situation is totally different and not just 2 days to wait.
 
kitch9 said:
In the real world, if a private homeowners boiler fails on the Saturday before Christmas, he too would expect it to be difficult to get hold of someone there and then.

Sometimes the private homeowners might have to wait until Monday when people are actually at work. Oh the humanity.
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If the letting agents are closed for Christmas and the emergency number isn't even ringing there's not much chance of him being able to contact them on Monday either.
 
Reeve said:
If the letting agents are closed for Christmas and the emergency number isn't even ringing there's not much chance of him being able to contact them on Monday either.
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Very few letting agents man their emergency numbers 24/7, it's usually normal working hours as that's how people operate in real life.

What's the point of a 24/7 number when they won't be able to organise a plumber during normal working hours anyway?

Pudney said:
Except this situation is totally different and not just 2 days to wait.
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How is it different, it's a guy in a house with a normal minor problem that people face everyday. We've all had boilers / power / whatever problems in the house, just deal with it whilst not expecting miracles. Sometimes things take a little time to sort and sometimes it's inconvenient. There's nothing the letting agents or landlords can do to prevent it happening apart from getting the thing serviced and checked yearly which they legally are obligated to do.

If the phones are not ringing Monday, get a plumber out don't take the Mick and get it sorted and pass the bill on.
 
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You should have a copy of the Gas Safety Check which'll have the contact details of the company that did it, this'll possibly be the route the landlord would take to repair it, give them a call, pay for it and dock it out the next rent payment, keep everyone informed even if it's by email if you can't get hold of them.
 
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