The Boiler Man in Four Marks, Alton

Stay well clear!!! Absolute joke.

We ran out of oil and needed our boiler fixed. Usually it’s a matter of pulling the oil through (bleeding) and then we are up and running again. Prior to Ray coming round I changed the nozzle, cleaned and tested the ignition leads and checked the photocell. All were working absolutely fine. After an inspection of the boiler he told the Mrs that we needed a new pump. He said he would fit it for £160 pounds. She agreed and he proceeded to fit the pump. He told her that he needed to adjust the wiring and in the process tripped the electrical supply. He left the house without fixing the boiler and told her that it needed a new photocell and control box, he could fit this for £130. I arrived home to hear this and as you can imagine I was slightly confused because I had already tested the photocell! I called Ray to explain this and told him I was testing the control box also. He told me that he had wired the solenoid to output 1 instead of 4 as there was a problem with it. After testing the control box and discovering there was absolutely nothing wrong with it, I retested the photocell and as initially thought it was fine. I went to the boiler to discover the wiring he said he had put into output 1 was hanging out of the termination block. I reconnected this to output 4 and fired the boiler up with no problem. I called to tell him that I had repaired my boiler but got his answer phone. I left a message explaining the situation and also asked for my pump and solenoid back. A couple of days later I received an invoice (no courtesy call or apology) for £192 and not the £160 he had told the Mrs. Bearing in mind the pump would have cost him less than £50 and an unskilled worker could fit in around half an hour.... I wrote a rather unimpressed/annoyed email to him asking for my pump back once again and expressing my concern regarding his rates.

I paid the invoice begrudgingly on the 26/02/2014 as I am a man of my word. The Mrs said she felt sorry for his apprentice! Seriously anyone fancy a career change: become a so called heating and plumbing engineer...