Boiler repair in Barcelona

Who can repair the boiler and how to check

Maintenance of a boiler is carried out by an authorised maintenance company.¹ Do not open the casing or touch the gas. If your boiler will not light, makes strange noises, loses water or switches itself off, call an authorised company and describe the symptom.

What to ask for before accepting the visit:

• That it confirms it is an authorised maintenance company and proves its authorisation.¹
• That you can check it yourself in the public RASIC search, with which the Generalitat allows you to check which companies are authorised and registered.⁶ This page does not certify any company: you do the checking.
• A written quote or prior notice of what it will check and of what happens if parts need replacing.
• A job report or invoice for the work done.

The price of a repair generally depends on the model and age of the boiler, the part that needs replacing, access to the appliance, the time of the visit and whether a return visit is needed. We do not publish figures here because we have no price data for Barcelona.

Bear in mind that repairing is not always the best option: sometimes the fault is not worth fixing and the company will propose replacing the boiler. In that case ask for a quote for both options and compare them calmly, without deciding during the same visit.

Gas inspection and maintenance

There are different checks that get confused and are best kept apart.

Preventive maintenance (the boiler service). For wall-mounted gas boilers of up to 70 kW, the RITE sets a minimum of one preventive maintenance check every 2 years in homes and annually in all other uses.¹ If you are looking for boiler maintenance or a boiler service in Barcelona, this is the minimum reference under the regulation, and it is carried out by an authorised maintenance company.¹

Technical inspection of the gas installation. Anyone who uses natural gas at home must pass a technical inspection of the installation every 5 years. Failing to do so may lead to the supply being cut off for safety reasons.³ The distributor must give 3 months' notice and allow a period of 45 days to decide whether the inspection is carried out by the distributor or by another authorised company.³ In other words, you can choose.

Having the boiler service up to date does not replace the gas inspection, nor the other way round.

If your gas does not come from a distribution network (for example, butane or propane in a tank), whoever is responsible for the installation must commission a periodic check every five years from a gas installation company, which includes the gas appliances when the installed power is up to 70 kW.²

On the maintenance contract: thermal installations of between 5 and 70 kW are maintained by a maintenance company, and the RITE expressly mentions the obligation to take out a maintenance contract above 70 kW.¹ For a domestic boiler in that 5 to 70 kW range we do not state that the contract is mandatory.

Common faults

Many people search by symptom: a boiler that loses pressure, makes a noise, will not light, shows a red light, or who to call when it breaks down. On those symptoms we cannot give you useful information: the official sources consulted (RITE, gas installations regulation, Agència Catalana del Consum, Protecció Civil and Nedgia) do not detail symptoms or causes of faults in domestic boilers, such as loss of pressure, noise or indicator lights.¹

For that reason we give no pressure values, no probable causes and no steps to fix it here. It is a gas installation and diagnosis is a job for an authorised company, not for you.

What the sources do contain are the safety warnings. If you smell gas, open doors and windows, switch off the appliances, close the main shut-off valve and, if the smell persists, leave the building and call the distributor's emergency line from outside.⁴ If you have symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, switch off the appliance, close the gas valve and call 112.⁵

If there are none of those signs, you can look at the list of companies on this page, ask several for a quote and check their authorisation yourself before accepting the visit. The page does not certify any of them.