British Gas Cowboys?

[HustleRussell]

My Mum has (If I remember correctly) British Gas ‘homecare’, which means they come in annually to do a safety check. This time they’ve affixed a scary looking yellow tag to the boiler basically condemning it. It actually says ‘do not use this appliance’ and ‘do not remove this label’. Obviously my Mum was a bit worried by this. I looked at the report the engineer left and it said the boiler was dangerous because the flue was rusted and could cause combustion gasses to leak into the room, and we should have a new boiler ASAP.

Forgive me for being a bit cynical but does that not sound like a bit of a bks reason to condemn the boiler?

I’ve not had the cover off the boiler so I’m not sure if you inspect the flue from there or whether he’s poked a borescope down the flue from outside, or if it is indeed total bks. I’m surprised they’d make the flue out of carbon steel even if galvanised given that the part where it attaches to the heat exchanger must get properly hot.

The boiler was there when we moved in 10 years ago so it’s getting on a bit but we’ve no particular cause to change it.

I’ve put a CO detector in for the time being as we are for the time being continuing to use the boiler.

[HustleRussell]

Thanks everybody for the input. The usual spread of different views on this which is great.

It's not a posh boiler, it's an Ideal Classic 350 something or other and all I know is that it's at least 10 years old. BG classified it as 'at risk'. I think the engineer did ask if we wanted it disconnected but obviously it's flipping November and as ever we were not expecting out otherwise problem free boiler to be immediately condemned.

Screechmr2 said:

HustleRussell said:

My Mum has (If I remember correctly) British Gas ‘homecare’, which means they come in annually to do a safety check. This time they’ve affixed a scary looking yellow tag to the boiler basically condemning it. It actually says ‘do not use this appliance’ and ‘do not remove this label’. Obviously my Mum was a bit worried by this. I looked at the report the engineer left and it said the boiler was dangerous because the flue was rusted and could cause combustion gasses to leak into the room, and we should have a new boiler ASAP.

Forgive me for being a bit cynical but does that not sound like a bit of a bks reason to condemn the boiler?

I’ve not had the cover off the boiler so I’m not sure if you inspect the flue from there or whether he’s poked a borescope down the flue from outside, or if it is indeed total bks. I’m surprised they’d make the flue out of carbon steel even if galvanised given that the part where it attaches to the heat exchanger must get properly hot.

The boiler was there when we moved in 10 years ago so it’s getting on a bit but we’ve no particular cause to change it.

I’ve put a CO detector in for the time being as we are for the time being continuing to use the boiler.

I can't believe you are calling someone a cowboy for looking after your mother's safety. If the flue is corroded it can cause serious combustion issues, I've had ones corrode through, only a small hole but that is enough for them to start producing 6000+ parts per million of carbon monoxide. If the engineer missed it and something happened they could be prosecuted. Death by carbon monoxide has resulted in gas engineers being imprisoned.

Flues do corrode, I've seen plenty rot away. But I guess you must know better than any gasman.

Screechmr2 said:

immediately dangerous = it is spilling fumes or leaking gas

at risk = it might start doing it in future. poor combustion can enter a building at another point, even had them hospitalise neighbours before because the wind blew in a certain direction and the fumes entered their house.

'at risk' boilers have killed people. one day the boiler could be fine, the next it isn't. even a few hours can make a difference, just because at that 1 point in time it passed doesn't mean it'll be fine the whole time. a corroded flue can go from passing a combustion test to failing it miserably the following day, that's not to say it'll happen here but this is why the 'at risk' exists, by using this classification it means if anything now happens the gasman is not responsible, it's up to the user to take the chance.

calling someone a cowboy for following the regulations is ridiculous. i take it if your car failed an mot because the brake pads were completely shot the mot tester would be a cowboy?

Thanks for this, I should point out that 'Cowboys' was followed by a question mark and for want of a less tabloid-esque title, it seemed the best way to succinctly summarise the situation from my perspective.

Rightly or wrongly I have an inherent mistrust of the gasman because I wasn't there and have only heard the story from my Mum who was understandably pretty worried / surprised about it. It looked to me like a bit of an alarmist tactic.

I now know that flues can and do corrode and this does indeed present a risk so now I can change my stance and concentrate on verifying whether the flue is corroded and investigate solutions up to and including a new boiler.

Is there a way I can inspect the flue? how would the gas man have done it?