Mono Monday - Every Picture Tells a Story

The control pad of the electric heated throw lent to me by a friend. The story this picture tells is a sorry tale. Please learn from my misfortune.

This has been Day 10 of having no heating or hot water since my boiler broke down after being serviced by a Vaillant engineer. After nearly a week it turned out that Vaillant, to whom I have paid an extortionate sum of money for a 24/7 breakdown cover which isn’t actually 24/7, no longer stock the vital component which is needed to make it work again. They should never have renewed their contract with me knowing that there was a good chance it could no longer be repaired due to discontinued parts. Despite pleas from the engineer, Vaillant have washed their hands of it, leaving him to track down and order the near-obsolete part from eBay himself to fit it outside of my contract with them. We are currently waiting for the part to be sent. If I had known all of this ten days ago, I would have ditched Vaillant and the engineer there and then and ordered a new boiler from a local plumbing and heating firm - it would have been installed and working by now. You live and learn. I refuse to pay for a new boiler to be supplied and fitted by Vaillant no matter what discount they offer, and I am lodging a formal complaint procedure to cancel my contract with a full refund of my premium plus compensation for the considerable disruption caused. I have a history of similar experiences with British Gas, who were equally useless. Due to the difficulty of getting parts, I will be having the boiler replaced by a local firm when the weather is less frosty, but for now I just want my old one to be fixed (which it can be, once we have the right part).

Moral of this story - ** do not use Vaillant for service and breakdown cover ** (or British Gas, from whom I received literally hundreds of £’s of compensation over several years).

Thank you to gillyH and LesleyAlsford for co-hosting the Mono Monday challenge for March, with this week’s theme of ‘Every Picture Tells a Story’.