British Gas Boiler Service

[riptide]

Well I think I am going to cancel with British Gas. Just received the agreement for next year and is now almost £20.00 a month for the boiler agreement. I would not mind but they normally only spend 10 minutes for the service which on reading other websites is not nearly enough time. They just check the output on the boiler, make sure everything is working by asking me if there have been any problems indoors and that is it.

I will probably cancel and something will go wrong but over the time I have had this agreement they are well over a thousand pounds in profit, same with all these insurance policies.

Is it expensive to have a boiler service, surely not over £200.00.?

[ummmm]

You'd be as well off putting your £20 a month aside for emergencies.

Heating engineers are not cheap......

[Pinkypie]

I pay £12.50 a month but I'm with the company that makes my boiler Worcester-Bosch

They are very good, I have to say and I've never waited over a day to get anything fixed even on New Years eve!

[ummmm]

Worcester Bosch are very good.

[Old_Geezer]

Is it just covering the service, or do you ensure against emergency call-outs and suchlike for the £200 too ?

[Old_Geezer]

Um....... 12*20 = 240 not 200. Confused. That's some rounding issue :-)

[ummmm]

My mate used to work for BG....even he wouldn't recommend them.

[wolf63]

I was paying BG £25 for my service contract. My boiler died after about 15 years of good work and I approached BG for a quote - can't remember how much it was but it was well in excess of £3000 and they wanted extra money for scaffolding to allow them to access the pipes outside the flat.

I approached a local plumber who installed a Worcester boiler for about £2500. It came with a 5 year guarantee which meant that if I paid £70 to have it serviced each year they would do all repairs for that 5 year period. As I had previously been paying the £25 each month for the same cover I was mega-happy.

[ummmm]

Not only are BG a complete rip off....if the stories my mate told me happens all over, then you'd be lucky to even see an engineer.

They used to have competitions on how many 'sorry we missed you' cards they could post. This meant some of them actually crawled to the letterbox so they wouldn't be seen...

[Cris_in_Hull]

I've heard similar things about leaving the calling cards - the old joke was that they'd knock with a feather duster so as not to get heard. I work for a company in Hull who do boiler servicing/repairs. Our contracts have a high level of £13 per month and that covers the annual service and all repairs. Plenty of customers who switch can't believe the difference in price between us and BG.

We also are unimpressed with the way certain companies have switched to 'an annual safety check' rather than giving the boiler a proper service. Such corner cutting will inevitably lead to problems further down the line as the impurities that build up in the heat exchanger don't get cleaned away on a safety check.

If you're in the HU postal area by all means check out the details of our ServiceCare contract. http://www.naturalgas...s.co.uk/domestic.html

[riptide]

Thanks all for your comments, shame I do not live near Hull cris would have definitely got in contact. I am concerned that as my boiler has not been cleaned properly over the last few years by British Gas, if I do not get someone to clean it all out on the service that they might come up with problems. How British Gas can call it a service when all they spend is 10 mins I really do not know. Still think I am being ripped off so will probably cancel the contact when it is due for renewal. I have the bore hole system on my gas that comes out of the wall downstairs instead of up from the ground so I know if I cancel BG will not take me back as they do not service this system anymore, not that it is particularly brilliant anyway. With the prices the way they are, will probably keep a storage heater going in the liviing room and just have the gas on in the morning so do not wake up to cold house.

[dennisb66]

My service contract is with EON,I pay £16.50pcm which covers the boiler and the complete system inc radiators and no restriction on number of emergency call-outs.

[barb1314]

I was talking about this with my OH yesterday. We pay £29.90 for heating/boiler cover and also plumbing/drains. I also don't know what to do. We only took the cover out when our heating failed at Christmas about 7 years ago. It started at about £15 a month and has since doubled. I am of the same opinion that the minute I cancel,the boiler will break down. Luckily we have a neighbour who is a Corgi registered heating engineer/plumber and he is brilliant. Over £300 a year for 7 years and we could have saved for a new boiler by now! Still not sure what to do. Might look at Worcester Bosch too as that's also the make we have.