Consumer advice required - Brivis heating in Canberra

The issuewith Brivis is that they have a Melb call centre ,no idea about canberra and how easy it is to get around this town.
They have problems finding experienced techs,because the good ones are contractors and do other work.Territory Gasfitters 0405557777,Hockings Gas services ,Rons Service all excellent.
Pyrox are a little more difficult Try Ron.

If you need your Brivis serviced by someone who can call Steve fromTerritorry gas
0405557777 .He is reliable

Your lucky. Friends of ours had their Brivis heater stop working today and the best estimate for a service appointment is end of July or early August!

Its always a good idea to test fire your heater in early April to find any problems early.

Our Brivis gas central heating system stopped working overnight last Sat so I requested a service call with Brivis via their online booking facility (first thing on Sun 16 May 2010). On Tue 18 May 2010, mid afternoon, I received a response advising that a service has been booked and their technician is scheduled to attend on 7 July 2010. Have these people not spent a night in Canberra at this time of year????

somethinglike2001@yahoo.com.au said :

heating is not an essential service as far as i am concerned – nor cooling – many people live in areas that are far colder or hotter – than we experience – ie England Canada and areas of the US and Europe- covered in snow – or Africa – India – humidity and heat – a lot of these homes do not have central heating nor air conditioning – ever thought of a jumper coats socks and blankets if you are that cold – or cool water and less clothing – I am sure you were not the only ones cold or hot when you call for help in the middle of a cold or perhaps hot season for heating or air con you simply have to wait your turn – it is all about adapting

Or……something even more extreme……getting your heating fixed?

But I’ll be sure to explain your harden up advice to my 3 month old if we run with no heating all day

S4anta said :

I reckon this problem has to do more with a lack of qualified tradies (people wanting to go into other professions rather than pick up the tools) rather than Brivis just having the usual lack of customer service. They are a big business and have to cover quite a large territory including the ACT and the wider economic region.

Think you may be right

heating is not an essential service as far as i am concerned – nor cooling – many people live in areas that are far colder or hotter – than we experience – ie England Canada and areas of the US and Europe- covered in snow – or Africa – India – humidity and heat – a lot of these homes do not have central heating nor air conditioning – ever thought of a jumper coats socks and blankets if you are that cold – or cool water and less clothing – I am sure you were not the only ones cold or hot when you call for help in the middle of a cold or perhaps hot season for heating or air con you simply have to wait your turn – it is all about adapting

Our Brivis MPS was installed in June 2007 and worked fine for many years. We had it serviced every second year (Brivis’s recommendation at the time) until we had a fault with it. From that year on, it has been a bitch of a unit.

Three or four years ago, we had it serviced. Great. But then a few weeks later on a Fri night, my wife thought she heard a bang in the night. Ignored it and went back to sleep. Woke up before 8am and could smell gas. Woke me up. We looked at the Networker control and it showed fan working but errors showing. Opened the back door (heater underneath back deck) and gas spell was awful. Run around front of house and threw gas lever to off. Switched electrical mains off. Went back to heater and turned power switch off.
Went back inside and opened all doors and windows. Told wife that despite it being -5C that morning, we were not using electricity at all until the gas smell left the house.
Some weeks later, the Brivis techo could finally fit us in. Different techo from the service guy. Eventually he stopped inspecting the unit and came inside to speak to us. He attempted to yell at us about not having the unit serviced – because the gas hose was perishing (had perished, gas had leaked out, exploded, and punched a hole through heat exchanger so unburnt gas was being blown into house) and a service would have picked that up and replaced it. Showed him the sheet from the service from Brivis a few weeks earlier. He said Sorry, you have done the right thing, Brivis will pay for all the repairs. They sent us bills for those repairs – we faxed them copies of the worksheets and politely asked if they wanted to sit down with us and consumer affairs folks as mediators to work through it. They wisely did not respond and we never heard from the Brivis debt collectors again.
Since then, every year either the “low” or the “high” board fails and so we have at least 1 week each winter without central heating.

Thanks everyone for your comments (except Ruffnready – bet your heater was working).

It seems I lucked out this time. Brivis turned up at 8.00 this morning and put in a new ignition module. $110 for the part, no attempt at a second call out fee.

So far.. so good.

When my heater was new (back in 2001) it took Brivis 5 attempts to fix it properly. Each time there was a 5 day wait and of course had to take time off work to wait for them to arrive. Luckily it was a waranty job, but still not happy jan.

In regards to the OP I sure the hell wouldn’t be paying someone a 2nd time to come out. Let them do their thing then send them on their way. To me they miss diagnosed your fault the first time, so you have paid for something you didn’t need. If they carry on take em to consumer affairs, or what ever they are called now days. Even the threat of that can make companies back down.