 | Ripped off by a plumber |
|
|
Question: I wondered if this was a common con, and whether I have any case against the plumber? About a year ago I called a plumber because the gas solenoid valve on my Glowworm Galaxie back boiler died. Just before the plumber left he switched the pump to maximum speed - didn't think much of it at the time (didn't know enough about plumping) and assumed he knew what he was doing... Two weeks ago one of the downstairs radiators started leaking - there was literally a fountain of water gushing from a hole in the rad which had corroded from the inside. Discovered the system has been "pumping over" for about a year. The CH tank was full of steaming hot water and 3" depth of brown sludge. Turned down the pump, cleaned out the tank, replaced the rad and added corrosion inhibitor. This morning another radiator started leaking, again, corroded from the inside. I'll take this up with trading standards and CORGI. In the mean time, is there anything else I need to do apart from replacing all the radiators? Is the boiler at risk too?
Answer: I'm not sure that you can say that this was a con, because he could have upped the pump setting in good faith to increase flow through the boiler. However he should have checked that it wasn't pumping over. I think that it would be hard to prove that he had deliberately set up a situation to cause radiator corrosion and hence more work. Can you be sure it wasn't longer? Turning the pump down again would be a reasonable indicator. How old are the radiators? If they are say 18 months old and pumping over was for a year then one might have an argument. OTOH, if they are 20 years old and perhaps there was no corrosion inhibitor for mush of that time then it would be hard to attribute the failure to the plumber. Try it, but I suspect you would be onto a loser. One can argue that the year of pumping over almost certainly caused corrosion. It would be hard to attribute 100% blame to the plumber. You could try taking him to the Small Claims division of the court, and might get something for doing so. It could be, but less likely. The system certainly needs a very thorough clean though. As you've deduced, changing all the radiators before they fail makes good sense....
|
 |
|
| |
Submit Your Question
Home