Friday, January 14, 2011

He came and went

The  engineer who was supposed to service our boiler eventually arrived yesterday morning.

When I showed him the boiler, his first words were “muy bien” which was encouraging but then quickly changed to “no es possible” and  “mal” as he saw exactly where the boiler was situated.

After a brief test to see that the boiler did in fact heat the water up (he ran the tap in the nearby sink), he told me that he could not perform the service and that the lady who had called me from their office would call again to arrange a further appointment.

About an hour later, I got the call. It was just as well I was sitting down because the work, which she had previously told me would cost 78 Euros was now going to  cost me 398 (you read that correctly -THREE HUNDRED AND NINETY EIGHT EUROS). I asked the lady twice just to make sure I had heard correctly.

She explained that the price would include all parts and labour. What parts I wondered, the man hadn’t done any more than look at the boiler casing. As far as he and I knew, there may not have been any parts required. Of course he muttered a lot whilst he was here and sucked air in through his teeth a bit so there may have been something he said in his rapid Spanish that I missed. 

So it is back to the drawing board as far as a service is concerned. There are quite a few houses on this estate that have boilers in a similar location to ours, I just wonder how they have faired getting an annual service done. I would be interested to know of others experiences.

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