Plumbers/heating engineers - please help!?

Question

Please can anyone tell me where "gate valves" are fitted in a central heating system. I have had an excessive bill from a plumbing company who did very little other than mend a leaky pump. They have charged me £141 inclusive of VAT and I think this is excessive. They claim to have "supplied and fitted new gate valves to boiler". As far as I am aware it was just the pump that they repaired - about an hours work at most. How much is reasonable for this job?

Thanks guys. What they replaced was a small brass-coloured part in the middle of the pump. They did not drain down the system. The guy was there for about an hour though I got the impression he was faffing round for a lot of it. (These are the same guys who quoted me £500 to replace a circuit board).

Answer 1

they are all rip off merchants, can't give you any technical advice but if you check who in surveys are the happiest people in work you'll find these lot are top of the list they seem to get away with charging ridiculous amounts for small amounts of work with no repercussions from any governing body. It's simply not good enough it's time we made a stand
and refused to pay these amounts.

To any plumbers reading this, don't bother trying to justify yourself as I won't even see your comments

Answer 2

A heating system can have many gate valves, typically used for balancing the system, and as service stops fitted on both sides of pumps etc. It sounds like the plumber replaced the pump impeller " the brass thingy inside the pump" if they had to drain the boiler most plumbers would install service valves if it were not too difficult. If only the impeller was changed and the service valves were already in place it sounds like a rip-off to me. You could call some local plumbing contractors and find out what their service rates are. Most plumbers however charge one way travel and then the amount of time on the job, but this does not excuse billing for something not done. You could also consult the better business bureau.

Answer 3

Gate valves control the flow of water, they take the form of a disk placed in the path of the water which is pulled to one side. That means the body of the valve has to be pretty big (about twice tall as valve body is wide) and normally they have a round handle to turn many times to open or close them. They would be used to bypass water, to fill the boiler and perhaps to tune the flow of water between branches. If they fitted new valves, the new ones should have a brighter clean color (not dirty) which may be brassy dull in finish and the value of the valves should be itemized on the bill.
If they had to take the pump out, then the valves would be used to cut off the water supply (so the heating system would not drain) and if the valves were defective or missing, they might have to add them to bring the system to current code.

Answer 4

There are several gate valves on a heating system, and there is usually one either side of the pump, to facilitate easy removal. The valves look like a stop valve, but with a wheel on the top to open and shut them. I am pretty sure that these very rarely need replacing. It could be that the valves were leaking, but this would not require replacement of the valves, so I suspect you were ripped off, although I cannot say wether the price they charged was justified by the time they spent on the job.

Answer 5

Hi,
I just had a quick look through all the responses to your inquiry and i think a bit of jargon busting is required.
The only 2 gate valves on the heating system are for isolating the central heating circulating pump, and are located on ether side of the pump, if there was a need to replace them (very unlikely ) the heating system would have to be drained down, the valves are there so they can be turned off, so the pump can be removed for repairer, with out draining down the heating system
I think you have been had!! Get another opinion.
Take care, Skew.
,

Answer 6

I don't know how much that converts to in American dollars but in responce to the first answer I would first like to ask how much they would charge to come from their place of bussiness using their vehicle, fuel, insurance, milage, tolls, ect. Then spend an hour or so working on a faulty appliance, labor, tools, materials, training, ect. and then returingg back to their place of bussiness again. Paper work, billing, taxes, overhead, advertisement, ect. It's not as simple as just an hours work. There are several types of valves. Gate valves are more expensive than regular stop valves. Depending on size using basic 1/2 inch plumbing I would say 10-15 dollars each to purchase. There is also some expence for solder, flux, gas and cleaners. Maybe another few dollars. Labor could be anywhere from 40-60 per hour and there is usually a service fee to cover all the other expences I mentioned before of like 40 -50 dollars. So if I where to come out to your home and replace 2 leaking gate valves on your heater system it could cost anywhere from $105. to $145. US. Assuming it only took 1 hour. At 40-60 dollars per hour it goes up rather quickly. If this seems expensive then I ask you why does it cost so much to go to a doctor or hospital? For all the same reasons I mentioned. Good thing doctors don't do home plumbing, Right? Then again if we want we can all go to school for plumbing and fix it ourselves, Right? Then we would probably need an electrician!.

Answer 7

the brass pump section would cost somewhere between 80 and 150 dollars in the U.S. or more depending on the horsepower of your pump.a brass pump section may cost more than that but they could have just used a cast iron pump section which is much cheaper......there should have been gate valves on either side of pump to turn water off so they could change pump.....these would have round handles on them so you could turn valve on or off....if they had to replace any valves they would have to had drain your system refill it with water and bleed air from every register in your home....the labor charge here would be 60 dollars or more for the service call plus about 35 dollars an hour labor...so here that same job could cost anywhere from 150 to 250 dollars or more depending on what horsepower your pump is and whether they put a brass or cast pump section in

Answer 8

andrew 12 is dead right easy to know , your bill will have shown pump valves fitted each side of pump . combie boiler pump can cost £65 roughly plus fitting & wiring up ,if thats what was done . even draining system fitting valves each side of pump ,refilling bleeding & testing would have taken approx an hour +materials & time to collect same . question what would a garage have charged for same thing on a car

Answer 9

A gate valve is a means of shutting off the water by turning a wheel on top of the valve. Usually coloured red.

Answer 10

Gate valves here:
http://www.boilersupplies.com/gateglobe/gateindex.html
Usually near storage heaters.
They are not that cheap - but given that most plumbers charge £40+vat per hour for labour as a minimum, if the job was 1.5 - 2 hours then you were charged about right.

Answer 11

gate valves are what you use to turn the water on and off with. they are usually shaped like a small wheel and are red in colour, if the pump was leaking and they couldnt turn off the valves (which sometimes happens) they would have probably replaced them for your own convenience.