Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms certification and expertise

bit of a moan and rant so hang on...

I've always considered myself slightly above average intelligence (and have paperwork to back that up) but I'm no genius. Mechanically I think I'm pretty good but many others are considerably more competent. Professionally I worked my way up to a position of responsibility and accountability but had several senior colleagues to answer to. I guess I'm pretty typical of others here without being exceptional.

Now I had a problem with my central heating and to some extent still have. Where I live there no mains gas to we burn oil to keep warm and at £1000 per fill its not as cheap as it was a few months ago. Heating oil stinks, its basically paraffin and has a heavy, lingering stench that gets on everything. Of course our boiler sprung a leak. Didn't need to be much as just an oil soaked rag would stink the house out for weeks.

So we called in our 'Boiler Technician', he's got all the letters after his name and over 30 years experience. What he doesn't know isn't worth knowing is it? He couldn't find a leak so there wasn't one but the air valve did need adjusting and he fitted a new jet just in case. £60 and he was on his way. The oil smell returned within 6 hours, so he came back and decided further investigation was needed and tried to shut off the oil. The tap on the tank had seized solid and if he forced it all the oil could spill out into the garden and patio. He wouldn't risk that so did no further work and left.

I joined a plumbers forum and asked about freeing off the tap. Answers ranged from 'you can't' though ' I wouldn't touch it' to 'call in the professionals'. So I bought a new tap, studied how it worked, took it apart and put it back together again. My conclusion - it was possible with care.

So I changed the tap, took 3 days on and off but not really a problem.

Boiler still stinks but now I could stop the flow of oil to investigate. Called our boiler man to give him the news about the tap and he took umbrage and made an excuse that he was far too busy to come back this month give him call in the summer.

Decided to have a look myself - opened the boiler burner after shutting off the tap and straight away spotted a drop and damp patch of oil. The pump leaks at the rear flange. Back to the forum, ' need a new pump', 'can't be repaired', 'you need a professional'. So I pulled it apart and discovered and nicked O ring on the rear flange face. Cleaned everything up, applied some DIRKO (if you don't know what it is you need some in your life for certain) and put it all back together.

Currently no leak and no stink. I don't anticipate the fix will be permanent and would like to fit a new pump.

Here's the rub.

I can buy one but I'm not allowed to fit and commission it because I don't have the correct qualifications!

That all sounds very frustrating.

As far as fitting the new pump is concerned - are the rules such that you can fit a new pump as long as someone with the right tickets signs it off?

IIRC, this is how it works with electrical installations.

Buy it, fit it and if questioned claim it was there when you moved in.

Apparently it needs a gas analyser in the flue and a flap adjusting to give optimal burn. I don’t mind paying for that at all but I can see a qualified technician wanting to do the full job.

By the way, a genuine new oil pump is £85 direct from the distributors or £200 from the technician plus fitting! Approx £320 all in.

The pump would now take me well under an hour to fit and the adjustments would take under a minute.

I can understand your frustration, some, not all by any means, engineers like to build up their own importance by over complicating the job to justify what they charge or to hopefully receive an out of hours phone call to a breakdown they can charge a small fortune for!!

My worst experience of this was with British gas, when we built our house we were amongst the first to fit a condensing boiler. The installer knew little about servicing it and recommended we take boiler cover with British gas. Many breakdowns and call outs later we got an engineer who fully explained the problem. The condensate trap had to be flushed at every service, if not, condensate built up, boiler would shut down and the front panel needed removing to press the reset button. None of the previous engineers would do this flush, even though it was clearly mentioned in the boiler manual. None of the subsequent engineers would do it either even when asked so I did it myself as soon as they had gone. I suspect they were a bit confused as to why they never got another breakdown call out to this particular boiler.

Another problem, we have an unvented hot water system. When we ordered the boiler we specified a valve be fitted to allow the boiler to work in an unvented system. "This boiler isn't suitable for this system sir" they said at every service, they would slap a sticker on the boiler saying it was unsafe and not to use despite me telling them it was. Many complaints later I had to obtain a letter from the boiler manufacturer (at my cost £40) stating what I already knew. British gas accepted and said I could remove the sticker and use the boiler. It gave me immense pleasure to tell them " they put the sticker on therefore they would have to come and remove it" which they did , even though I'd never stopped using the boiler😁

I could go on but will spare you.

One other thing that I find curious, everybody seems to be an engineer these days, the person who does the boiler, fixes your washing machine, services your car and more. Are they really engineers? I would say technicians, but could be wrong. If called myself a timber engineer could I charge more?🤔

'Timber Engineer' ....I prefer 'Organic Mechanic' 🙂

Yep, it's immensely frustrating that you're now compelled to use a 'professional' for relatively routine stuff anyone could do (and always did). Though I do sometimes look at how helpless many people are when it comes to anything practical and wonder if it may be a good thing in many cases 🙂

K

My neighbour is absolutely useless with the most basic of tasks, and I really do mean hopeless. Fit a 13 amp plug - forget it. Excruciating watching him try to erect a self assembly greenhouse (yes, I did it).
I can only hope that in his day job he shows a bit more application and knowledge.
His job........a surgeon. He saws people's limbs off and does all sorts of bodily plumbing.
Frightening.

I always find it interesting that the local hardware shop sells lots of plumbing fittings and electric power points etc. I see the average person like me buy heaps who legally can't touch the items they are buying. I feel if I am not allowed to fit the item then why am I allowed to buy it?

What I have done more than once is buy the items, run the cables though the walls and then get an electrician to make the final connection.

I have mentioned it in the past. There is a huge difference between so called Tradesmen who have done a eight week course and time served Craftsmen who have trained for 4 or 5 years.

Over the years, we have been very careful to cultivate a network of genuinely skilled tradesfolk on whom we can rely for stuff we can't do ourselves. It's alway concerning when one of them decides to retire and we have to find someone new.

These days we have an additional criteria to the usual stuff about knowing what they're doing, being reliable, etc. They have to be at least 20 years younger than us so that they will outlast us!