Boiler through British Gas, anyone had one?

[mummatotwo]

looking like my Dad's 35 year old bolier is to be replaced. Am going with Bg just wondered how long it took to agree and install as I need to get one fitted etc... within next 7 days!!

You can rely on BG to be the most expensive

Try to get a Vaillant or a Worcester-Bosch, they are popular and good-quality boilers. Sometimes the BG brand-name is glued onto the front of a boiler they have bought in quantity, be sure to find out what make it really is.

Sadly the beginning of the cold season is not the best time to buy a boiler.

I've heard too that British Gas is extremely expensive. Why not try a local firm.

British Gas are extremely expensive and their timescales are unreliable. I would seriously ask around for recommendations for local firms, although this time of year they're all pretty busy.

we replaced our boiler in April & BG's quote was 2½ times what we paid a local plumber

(the boiler quoted for was a Worcester but with the BG plate on the front)

ideally get a recommendation from someone local, or failing that look up \link{http://www.gassaferegister.co.uk/\gas safe} (used to be corgi)

British Gas is mega expensive - really best to try a local heating engineer. recommendation from other people in your local area is best - someone self employed and gas safe registered will be good, otherwise they don't say in business long !

Actually, PJ, whilst it might be a good rule of thumb - it isn't always true. I had more quotes from independent plumbers than I care to remember. (We needed an entire central heating install - so a big job.) I was struggling to choose one (they were all hideously expensive and I just didn't get enough positive vibes from any). My dh persuaded me to at least get a quote from BG. So glad I did, as blow me down with a feather they were mid-priced. So we went with them, which was just as well as the job ended being much more extensive than anyone thought. I'm sure an independent would have charged us for this, but BG have a price promise so didn't.

Probably it's just because we are in an expensive part of the capital with rip-off tradesman, of course!

well, for reference:

BG quoted £4.5K (which did include 2 years of their service plan, so net cost c £4K, but still £4.5K upfront)

3 good local plumbers all quoted well under £2K for the same job

& the one we went with quoted £1.8K for the same boiler as BG

We replaced a boiler several years ago. Unfortunately it was this time of year and the old one had broken down so we were in a hurry, and went automatically to BG. Ended up spending over £3k on the boiler plus a huge APR on their finance. Could have kicked ourselves for not trying elsewhere.

We are replacing ours next month and we are paying £3500, but we are getting the £400 rebate. The most expensive quote we got was £4100 and he was going to reuse the thermostats.

We had fulll central heating installed by BG about 4 years ago.

As another poster said - was good that we chose them, as the job ended up being much more complex and time consumng than first anticipated. (Old house, concrete floors etc).

We paid a fair bit, but I don't consider that it was excessive for the man hours they put in.