Dear Plumbzine,
I wish to raise a concern that has been on my mind for some considerable months.
Are installers and heating companies misleading its customers by fitting combination boilers with plate heat exchangers while offering a supposedly five, seven or ten-year manufacturer warranty on parts and labour when they know the most common part to fail on a combination boiler is the plate heat exchanger? This is caused by blockage due to sludge/particulate or lime scale, both of which are not covered by the manufacturer warranty.
The misleading/mis-selling is to do with the fact that most water regions in England are hard water areas and these areas are precluded from the warranty of certain parts.
Clearly boilers with plate heat exchangers should not be sold in areas with hard water, or if there are, only if the installer/ specifier is assured that a water softener is fitted to the property.
Regards,
Colin Salter