He is very good. Plumbers or heating Engineers are completely underestimated in most places IMHO. The electronics alone (I have a very basic Electrical C&G qualifications from my days working in theatre sound and lighting) are complex and I appreciate the mathematical skills required to be a real electrician. Heating engineers nowadays need that and a lot more relating to pressurisations valve controls etc and legal requirements as well as the fact that the workload in Italy is 25% electrics/ 25% plumbing / building skills and 50% regulation compliance and documentation. Legal liability to service check domestic boilers every 24 months rest with heating engineers. (1000 euro fine minimum if they dont follow up) We keep a logbook that they must completed and then he has to go up to the commune with a pile of documentation and readings to be recorded on a central register. We actually have an Esse wood oven in the kitchen and a wood stove in the living room (both brought from the UK ) that we use. In this extreme weather both have been fired up and have kept most of the house cosy (Both floors due to the internal flues warming the walls upstairs). The far end of the house we put the underfloor on alternate days to keep it aired as we dont use it much in winter months. The upstairs underfloor kicks in in extreme weather early morning when the fires have gone out. Oct Nov early December and March April, we tend to only need to light the living room fire early evening. May through Oct no heating required. Just as well as LPG is very expensive here. Even with woodstoves we rack up about 1800-1900 euro gas bills per year and about 350 euros for wood burning logs on top of that. (No domestic rates to pay though on prima casa) Some Brits with bigger houses moan they cannot keep them warm or cannot afford to keep them warm. Made sense to us that with 95% time being just two of us there was no point in buying a massive house. Some of them though (mostly from the South or London area) like to keep up appearances and buy big villas, restore them without regard to insulating them properly and find they are spending 4000+ on gas to heat them and that is only getting them to about 18C.
I've read the whole thread and I can honestly say I don't even know what type of boiler I've got. How can you tell if it's a condensing boiler or not? What other types of boiler are there?
My mate is a plumber / heating engineer. I could give you his number. He is good and decent with his prices.
I used these recently, small family firm. Barry’s Gas Services 07377 722 311. Boiler serviced, new bathroom radiator fitted and a gas pipe capped off £100 total. Think Boiler service was about £35.00 to £40
On Dear! Alzheimers is setting in. I just had to Google 'heat trace' 'cos I did not know what it was until I realised I had used the term in my first response to the OP. In fairness it was back in 2018 but still...
