Boiler service charge - what would you do?

[TortillaTot]

For a few years now we have had our boiler serviced yearly, with a Maintenance and Support Plan. I think when we started it was around £20 per month, just after the end of our Worcester Bosch warranty. It’s now going to be £50 per month, covering repairs up to £1,500. The full year’s protection will be £610 which seems ridiculous. What alternatives should I look at?

We just use a local plumber who charges £50 for the service. He's also done all our plumbing repairs for 10 years now and luckily we've never needed anything expensive doing (yet) with the boiler just little bits here and there so to pay £50 a month would be a complete waste of money in our situation. We had a new boiler installed for less than 2k so I'd just save those monthly payments for when/if the time comes you can repair or replace if need be.

It is ridiculous. An annual service from a local heating engineeer will cost c £95. You can call them out if you need to fix something and it’s unlikely any repair will come to over £600. Three years of “protection” saved and you could buy a new one.

I would just get it serviced regularly which should be a couple of hundred pounds a year and save the extra you would be in case you need a repair. Once you have 1500 in a savings pot then you can revel in the fact that you have beat the system

I was with Worcester Bosch (or their company that provides the servicing anyway) and likewise ove the last 5 years it's gone up from £20 to over £50 a month.

I've just swapped via one of the comparison sites, got all my plumbing, radiators and boiler covered (previously was boiler only) for £18.

I have emergency breakdown cover included with my buildings and contents insurance which also covers drains and lost keys etc and was only around £15 extra for the year. In the last 6 months I have had them out 3 times for the boiler and on each occasion they have fixed it for free.

Thanks everybody, your comments are very helpful!

I signed up with Your Repair which is £7/month which covers annual service + boiler & controls + leaky taps + leaky toilets + electrics. I pay a £120 call out fixed fee anytime there is a fault

HomePlus cover:

Best boiler cover: From under £4/month, compare to save – MSE

My home insurance had a boiler add on but had so many exclusions it wasn't worthwhile.

I haggle with British gas every year using price comparison sites. U switch? Anyway, I pay £13 pm for boiler repair insurance and that includes an annual service. It paid off as one year loads of things went kaput on my boiler including a pump and circuit board so it was worth it but it's not a Worcester Bosch.

We do homecare with British Gas so annual service is included and then they are there if we need a call out. As above do need to haggle every year.

We pay £80 for a service. A seal had gone this time costing £8 and engineer said it was often the case that if that had gone something simple in the heat exchanger/fan (can't remember) might go causing damage, so said he'd also had a look at that - cost £108 this time. There are a few instances that the fan goes around 10 years, but he said that more often than not if you got past that time, it'd be ok for life. We've been here ten years and it's the first time we've needed a part.

Not sure if it's a premium rate call out, but he said that if he ever came out and thought it was really expensive repair/could be a couple of parts he'd refer us to Worcester Bosch who would charge £360/80 for assessment and repairs. Might be worth you checking this out.