Considering using British Gas boiler care?

[tmiperiod]

Sounds like a good deal?

Is it as good as it sounds? Advert says £2.50 pm?

Aibu?

I really would avoid them. We have used them for years and so have my parents. I am currently in a dispute with them about my boiler. You couldn't make it up they are so difficult to deal with. We are very close to referral to the ombudsman. I had always trusted them for peace of mind and to be fair they have been useful in the past but right now they are utterly dismal. Really awful. I have no clue what is going wrong but I suspect they will be losing a lot of customers if it continues.

I would avoid aswell...never heard anything good about these boiler cover schemes....far better to find a decent local plumber or heating engineer....someone who is known within the community and has a good reputation.

Op is researching for her and her dh's business not wanting to join (see her earlier post).

We've always had it, no issues, they replaced a water cylinder free of charge, come out really quickly. About £25 a month.

@tmiperiod I would never use BG - I've seen the mess they made of my NDNs wall when he changed from a BF boiler to a Combi...The rattling you can hear is my late bricklayer dad.

We always use a lovely local company.
They're less expensive, but that doesn't matter, because they're lovely and they actually care about their clients.

I've used them for a really long time and I have the no excess version plus it includes some of my appliances. True that it is not as good as it used to be but for me it has worked out well overall. When you have a tricky appliance that needs fixing every couple of months it's good value.
Pretty much every engineer that has come out has been good, only a couple of exceptions.
I usually manage to get my monthly payment reduced each year.

Their annual service is usually 23 months; they’re limited in what they can do, they miss things, they cancel appointments at short notice and there are better companies and I’d certainly look at local companies.

The service we had from BG was so chocking (12 years ago) that we refuse to use them for anything.
however, we have also been ripped off by independents, so now we are with AA

I agree but finding one is ridiculously difficult.

I thought I'd found one, but he turned out to be an expensive useless twat!

@tmiperiod The difficult thing, as a customer/client, is to find someone like your DH. If I did, I wouldn't care whether he offered a home care plan or just came & did what I needed, when I needed it!

I had mine serviced by a company (not big like BG, but decent sized) and had issues, but the bloke who came out & his manager just ganged up & fobbed me off.

my boiler is WB & one of the engineers/technical support guys was absolutely brilliant, so I signed up for their care plan.

my boiler is now playing up, but not an emergency, I rang yesterday & they're coming Monday.

its £17.xx per month, includes call outs, parts & labour up to £1500 and £750 towards a new boiler if they can't repair it AND includes a service.

so, fingers crossed it's as good as it sounds. I'll report back.

your DH sounds lovely, so best of luck!!!

lots of social media 'reviews' and let's hope wird if mouth does it's thing!!

Used to be great.
Now really expensive and awful.
At my last house I called them out 6 times in less than two weeks. Each engineer couldn’t wait to leave, did the bare minimum patch up and it leaked again almost immediately. Save the money each month for when you need to repair instead. I was paying over 50 quid per month for the cover. A complete rip off.

They caused massive issues for some elderly people I know. Caused a flood so bad they had to move out their house for a while and basically they had to redecorate half their house and live with dehumidifiers for months.

They have been good to me. Got ripped off by an independent during the beast from the east cold snap in 2018, who left us with a broken boiler with a one week old baby. Ended up going through small claims, have never forgotten it. Signed up to BG home care after that and they ended up having to replace a part worth £600 which they did just for the cost of a call out. The boiler is very old now but the BG engineer serviced it recently and said they can still get parts for it, haven't tried to push a new boiler on me yet.

I'm glad some people are happy with them and sorry to go off topic as I see the original poster was talking about her partner and a business idea. All I would reiterate is that now BG are seriously going down hill and I would strongly advise against using them if anyone wants to private message me for more information please feel free. As I said I am a customer having had a boiler installation last year and since discovered it was wrong. But did manage to get a fix after contacting CEO. My parents on the other hand are still struggling to get anyone to take them seriously. I am astonished that it isn't bigger news. I guess with everything else going wrong at the moment with cost of living crisis etc. it is getting sidelined. All I can think for our case is roll on ombudsman....but it shouldn't have to be like this. Such disgusting customer service.

There absolutely are deals for £2.50 per month.
It isn’t the full HomeCare service which includes a boiler service and no excess, but a basic boiler and controls insurance with a £99 excess.

So for £30 a year, you’ve got basic cover. The real question is whether they will actually come out and sort out your problem in reasonable time.

It's about £30 a month. Had it for years. I'm not renewing after a terrible experience last week. I've started using a local tradesman.

We have had BG homecare including plumbing , drains and electrics for many years , I’ve never had an issue with the service and normally use it a couple of times a year . For example this year we’ve had them out to deal with a slow running bath , and again to repair some taps as well as the annual service and something else to do with the central heating system . I have never found that I have a long wait

We were glad we had it one seriously cold day when the heating failed. They were out that day, diagnosed the fault, he had the part in his van and got us back up and running. We asked without home ate how much it would be he said ‘well it Sunday so there is a £100+vat call-out, part was £120+ vat, 2 hours labour is £70 an hour +vat and it time and a half…’.

We tried a different supplier and they came to do a service and ‘couldn’t access the fuse’ (I can get it out no problem 🤷🏻‍♀️) so they refused the contract. We have had it serviced by BGas several times and bc an independent bloke who had no issues.

I've tried to book an "annual" service this week, last was first week of January 2022. Apparently it is not yet due and they will let me know when I can book

My feeling, is that if you need them in a non-busy time it’s fine. BUT if you have a boiler breakdown in a very cold snap, when loads of people are having boiler breakdowns and problems, you can’t count on them for speedy service. Too many people report being left more than a week without hot water or heating, including vulnerable people. And if you’re not officially vulnerable, despite paying your fee, you can wait much much longer.

The trouble is, if you get a boiler breakdown in a week like the cold one we’ve just had, it’s almost impossible to avoid stress. You’re either on a call and on hold to British Gas for over 2 hours, to then find you can’t get an appt until after Christmas, or you have to ring round loads of local plumbers who are also rushed off their feet. It’s a bit of a no-win, but especially annoying if you’ve paid your monthly fee for years.

Does anyone have advice about a way to genuinely guarantee someone will come out quickly in an emergency and during a cold spell? I’m considering going for the very basic £2.50 BG boiler and controls cover, which doesn’t have a service included and has a £99 excess. If I then find they are slow to come out, Inwont be as furious as if I’ve paid £30+ per month.

My mum has it covering the boiler, central heating system & drains, it is about £34 per month.

We've had it for years and very happy with it. So much so, we've just extended it to include our problematic living room gas fire.

After several previous "heating engineers" have tried to fix the damn thing and failed, the BG engineer came to do it's first service, did a thorough job of dismantling it and putting it back together, and it's been absolutely fine ever since. He found that it had been installed incorrectly and that it was actually dangerous - something that the original "Gassafe" installer had bodged and that subsequent Gassafe engineers had failed to spot!

Other than that, we've had to call them out for boiler faults a few times over the years - always prompt turn-out and able to fix the problem. Before we signed up for it years ago, we'd really struggle to get anyone to come out and fix faults as, typically, they always fail in the worst weather when lots of people need call outs!

Hey I'm the OP

I think the best thing to do is to have an established relationship with a local and trusted plumber
That said my husband has had no space this month and is totally totally stacked out as he was in November too.
I think if you get your boiler put in and serviced by someone good to begin with you won't have problems
My husband has (yet) to be called about a mistake he has made where the heating or boiler have gone wrong! If there are issues he always goes out that day to see what's going on and mostly the issues are due to parts failing which are under warranty because he registers the boilers properly and then services them

Ask on Facebook who is the go to guy locally and give them a call to come out
Then put it in your diary to repeat every year and continue to have your boiler properly serviced

We have been covered with them for years. Have always found them to be excellent. Saying that we had a new boiler and tank fitted through them 18 months ago. Thankfully haven’t had to call them out so chances are they have got worse which is a shame.

if you get your boiler put in and serviced by someone good to begin with you won't have problems
this is a ridiculously simplistic opinion , boilers get old and often get problems . The only time I’ve used a local plumber recently was when I had some new pipe work and radiators in our new extension . The chap had good reviews and came recommended, the pipe work was fine but he was unable , after repeated visits to try and sort it out he couldn’t get much heat in the rads . In the end we got BG to sort it out , they were here for about 30 minutes , job sorted .