Service the boiler?

10/21/2009 - 04:54

I wanted to share our experience with readers regards our water heater situated on the front balcony of our apartment.Yesterday our friendly boiler serviceman called to tell me that he would be doing his rounds next week and would visit to service our water heater. Although I didn't know (but I had an idea) Italian Law requires you to have the boiler serviced by a qualified technician at 12 monthly periods. After servicing the boiler he/she will issue a Certificate to that effect, and this is communicated to the Comune / Provincia. Should you fail to have this service, the authorities can (and will) issue a fine. The handbook of the boiler should be readily available near the installation, and the Certificate should be contained within the handbook.As a matter of interest, we live in a rented apartment, and the expense of this service falls on us, not the owner of the property. (about 90 euros).

Topic

Property

Location

Ascoli Piceno Province

Colli del Tronto

Marche

Comment

You are right Andrew, both our boilers are on a yearly service contract, which also includes free emergency visits (but not parts). Each has its own book which is stamped after each service, I understand spot checks can be made to see if this is up to date, but dont know how often it happens. The cost is 60euros per boiler with the company we use, who are excellent.A

I understand it to be a requirement every 2 years?Seems like a 'why not' to me as it costs us circa 70euros .....(10cents per week !!!!!??)..............one of the few bargains me thinks !!!S

When the technician comes along I'll check out the timescale and post.

Hi all,I hope the following information helps.As a registered heating and plumbing engineer including Tecnico di caldaie here in Italy, I am only too happy to answer any query's anyone may have regarding my line of work.Boiler services are an annual requirement by regulation, but every second year they must be flue gas analyzed and the results and printout of the results recorded on the libreto di impianti (which is the boiler service book) and the completed copy of the allegato G form which must be filled in during every service.The service records (form allegato G) are then lodged with whichever company your province has contracted to collate the data.The legislation that covers this area also states that all gas appliance eg cookers etc, must also be serviced at a period indicated by the manufacturers instruction for the appliance.If I can figure out how to, I will upload a copy of a Libreto di Impianti and an Allegato G so you know what to look for.Whilst on the subject of gas, the regs also state that your gas installation pipework must be pressure tested for tightness every 10 years or after alterations and new installations.One other thing of interest is that boilers running on other fuels such as gas oil, wood boilers (including termocamino), pellet and sansa etc are also covered by this regulation as they also produce CO 2 emissions. I hope this helps.Regards,Steve.

Dear Steve. - we moved into our home in Italy in December and a technician was asked to come to the house to check the boiler and make sure that it was working:1. The cost of this was Euros 100.2. We did not receive the documentation that you speak of and the boiler stopped working about four days later. The man came back but said that he could not get the spare parts but sent us another bill. Should the company (for whom the man works) have produced the documentation and secondly, should one expect the company to put in another bill when we have no hot water or heating. Best wishes Naomi

Thanks for that Steve, good to get a definative answer.A

Steve,when i bought my house, there was no libretto (the boiler is about 10 years old). What can I do in these circumstances? Thanks,Penny

Hi Penny,This is not a problem.Your Tecnico can provide you with a new one if you ask for one in advance of the service, if you have any problems I could post you one when I place my stationary order.The one thing to take into account is that all boilers should have been registered with the provinces contracted office, and the deadline in my area was some months ago.My advice is to arrange a service asap and when the servicing company submits the allegato G they will have to register the installation at that point, but try to inform the Tecnico that this may be the case as there are slight differences to the registration requirement dates from province to province.Also if you know anyone else that may not have had their systems serviced, they may unwittingly be in the same situation so as above, arrange a service asap, as we do not yet know what penalties may be levied.RegardsSteve.

Thanks for the info Steve. I'll see how I get on.

SteveThank you for the information, it is very useful and explains what I was assuming from the bits of information I was picking up. I had worked out it seemed to be necessary for us to have our boiler serviced when we last visited in September and I was going to arrange to have it done in November when we planned to visit again. We now cannot get to Italy until the end of December. Therefore we will be well outside the 12 month period.If they do a spot check we should be ok as no access will be available until we next visit. Is there anything else we should do or is it best to just to try and arrange for the service when we are next in Italy?Brian

Hi Steve feel a bit frustrated im a fully qualified gas registered engineer/ plumber in the UK, we have recently purchased a property in Pietrasanta will still need to have the boiler tested by qualified engineer there, we install kitchens and bathrooms but we are finding it hard to source reasonably priced kitchens bathrooms and tiles.In the uk you can source everything on line or from merchants, can you recommend anywhere, are you in the area?