Or is it reasonable to have to take out a service contract at £240 a year to get an engineer to fix my boiler

[olderandwider]

OK. Boiler is broken. So, no heating at all (apart from one small fan heater, sob). We have an immersion heater so at least have hot water.

Rang British Gas, who are offering a next day one off fixed price repair service on their website. Except, due to the cold weather (it's winter, it snows, quelle surprise) they say it will take until next Tuesday to send out an engineer. 6 days!
But lo! If I take out a £20 a month service contract they can find an engineer for me tomorrow. I will also pay £99 for the repair, so all in £340 quid!

Just seems a rather cynical piece of marketing to me. I used to have BG maintenance cover, but stopped as we rarely needed it and also when we did once call for a breakdown engineer, we were told we were not a priority as we had hot water!

I know I could call another engineer but worried about astronomical charges and lack of references. Just have to suck it up, but still,, grrr!

I found BG ridiculously expensive but compared to london, yeah, they might be alright

We had a BG contract and in the first year we saved over a 1000. I think it was well worth it personally.

We moved to N-Power recently for half the cost.

Sorry but this is exactly the circumstance when boiler cover would have helped.

We had the same problem last month. Hubby was raging with them on the phone that they didn't have someone available but if we signed up for their monthly plan suddenly there was someone - either they have an engineer in the area or not! Even waiting a couple of days extra with BG it was going to cost £189 for the call out and that was if he was able to fix it in half an hour. We waited a little longer (still had hot water, the boiler was just leaking a lot so we had to keep changing buckets so not like we were left freezing for two weeks) and got a local guy who came outside of his normal hours so that we could get back from work and only charged £105 including part to fix the thing. Definately avoid BG, they sound like a right bunch of chancers.

We had a BG constrast and watch the service go down over the years. They used to do a proper service ie actually take the front off the boiler and by the time we cancelled they were just taking a reading of the emissions.
The last straw was when the boiler broke down 2 days before christmas and although it was supposed to be 24 hour call out, they couldn't send anyone until 2 days after. DD was just 3 months old, so for all they new we would have had a freezing cold christmas. Thankfully we planned to go away anyway, but DH returned early to wait for them, they finally turned up at 7 oclock at night.
We cancelled after that. We found a good company called Heat Complete which we used until they went bust. Now we use a plumber who comes and services once a year and when we need him.

we have a british gas contract and they have just tried to postpone our annual service tomorrow as they have lots of urgent calls. We have had this contract for 10 yrs and the service is already 3 months overdue.

I asked when they wanted to postpone the service till and they said the next slot would be 24th December.

What a cheek they are trying to put our boiler service off by almost a month so they can pick up some new trade now the weather is cold.

This the link for anyone who wants a heating engineer in herts/ bucks

www.actionheating-aylesbury.co.uk/

We have had BG contract for a good few years, and been generally happy. Can't get a service for a week, though. Still, very happy and has certainly paid off for us.

lol pointy, yes I'm starting to wonder if that's what it is

Can recommend Martin Clarke if NW London is any good to you.

020 88668329

www.martinclarkefireplaces.co.uk/central-heating.htm

Am married to a plumber. He thinks BG, or any other heating plan, breakdown service plan, etc is a rip off. especially find it targets older customers who are scared of boiler breaking down.
Get a plumber from the Gas Safe register who have taken over from Corgi.
Also make sure you have boiler serviced every year without fail. Always find most probs occur with customers who have new boiler fitted then ring up 3 years later with a problem when they should have had a service before. Treat your central heating system like your car and look after it.
British Gas will always take advantage because they can afford to piss their customers off, whereas a small local firm cannot.

07884 188161 ABD Plumbing is based in Wimbledon - excellent.

Have not had experience of BG contract, but do remember them being under scrutiny on Watchdog.

They must spend millions on TV advertising but the small print always says about exceptional circumstances and any time the weather is cold and they have more calls than they can cope with, the delay falls under exceptional circumstances.

Now, if they spent some of the advertising budget on salaries for extra staff they might cope better in the winter (but they would have too many people on their books during the warmer months)...