British Gas Homecare?

[23Jan]

We and the PIL’s both have British Gas Homecare at about £40 a month, mostly for the boiler cover as they are in their 70’s and we started our policy when our kids were very young and had an older boiler.

MIL’s heating has gone off today and we are a couple of hundred miles away so can’t pop in but British Gas are quoting a date of Jan 18th for a call out.

When I check for us, if our heating had gone off, they wouldn’t come out until Jan 23rd?! £40 a month seems a very expensive cost for that level of service!

Is that standard? What do other people do/have other cover? I don’t know any heating engineers…

Can you ask on a local Facebook page for recommendations for heating engineers? I use a local chap who services my boiler annually and who'll generally come out within 24 hours if it's an urgent breakdown. Only exception was the bank holiday weekend when our heating went off on Friday night but when I messaged him Saturday morning he apologised he wouldn't be able to come until Tuesday as he'd moved house that day. Ordinarily he said he'd have come out on the Saturday.
I don't think I spend anywhere near £480 pa on maintenance of my boiler!

That seems a better idea! Nearly £1000 pounds between us seems really wild to be spending!

We don’t have any cover. If the boiler breaks we get someone local that is well recommended in to fix it. You’d be better putting the £40 a month into a savings account for emergencies. If our boiler broke tomorrow and needed replacing there are lots of companies now like Boxt and British Gas that would offer a monthly payment plan if we couldn’t get hold of the ££££ outlay for a new boiler. I think a lot of these monthly care schemes are a waste of money.

My in laws have Home are and have had similar issues. But they insisted on a sooner appointment due to their age, and that brought the date forward. It's a poor service, honestly.

*Homecare

I've experienced similar delays as a tenant, as this is the cover my landlord had. Weeks waiting in the depth of winter with young children.

Now that we own our home, I chose "Your Repair", purchased via TopCashback so got a great deal. They've been fantastic. We get an annual boiler service included and pay less than £30 per month for a high level of emergency home cover - electrics, plumbing, drains, etc. The price is held for 3 years too.

We've used them for a boiler repair this month during the very cold spell, and the local engineer came out the next working day. He did a temp fix immediately and returned a week later with the part.

We've used them for our drains three times, also with a speedy response. The first time was within 3 hours on a Sunday afternoon!

I definitely recommend them and I'm hoping our next renewal price isn't too much, as we are now on the last year of the held price.

We found the same last year so after we found a reliable guy to look at it instead, we cancelled the cover and now put the money in a pot (in case to cover emergencies). We also have free emergency home care on our home insurance to cover for leaks etc. bg we’re great for the service etc, but call outs only quickly mid summer when no one’s using it.

We had no hot water or heating and they weren’t going to get to us for a month!!!!
They then kept postponing our annual service.
We ended up cancelling our homecare and just saving the money for repairs, they were appalling.