Thoughts on British gas services

Cardew

There must have been more threads on the subject of BG home care than any other.

If you read them all you get a wide variety of opinions - from rubbish to excellent.

As far as I am aware nobody has come up with an alternative scheme that offers anything better.

It seems you either pay your money as a form of insurance(and on the whole get good service) or save the premiums and take the associated risks.

I am one of the many who have posted here who have had excellent service over the years from BG. It is certainly not cheap, but for me it is worth it.

trafalgar_2

Cardew wrote:

I am one of the many who have posted here who have had excellent service over the years from BG. It is certainly not cheap, but for me it is worth it.

me too...........

djohn2002uk

grumpyoldgit wrote:

:mad: :mad:
I isolated the power supply, turned off the water supply and called British Gas believing that my cylinder and immersion were covered by my 3 star care agreement as part of the domestic heating system.

I have just checked and found that Immersion Heaters do not come under cover untill you take out either Homecare 300 or Homecare 400 (both of which include plumbing and drains) OR you can add plumbing to Homecare 200 as an extra. The 3* agreement is the equivalent of the Homecare 200 so does not cover plumbing or immersion heaters. Therefore I would suspect that BG have reimbursed you for the cost of the cylinder replacement but not for replacing the immersion.
No doubt you will have noticed that I too have had a zone valve replaced, also a programmer (again electrical) but both are integral parts of the heating system. I have also had a cylinder replaced, into which the old immersion was installed but the replacement was BGs idea after they noticed a small leak whilst replacing the programmer.
As a guide as to what is covered you only have to take what a plumber would fit when installing a complete Heating and Hot Water system. He would only fit an immersion heater if requested as an additional item purely for standby purposes and not as part of the standard system.

Beancounter

Cardew wrote:

There must have been more threads on the subject of BG home care than any other.

If you read them all you get a wide variety of opinions - from rubbish to excellent.

As far as I am aware nobody has come up with an alternative scheme that offers anything better.

It seems you either pay your money as a form of insurance(and on the whole get good service) or save the premiums and take the associated risks.

I am one of the many who have posted here who have had excellent service over the years from BG. It is certainly not cheap, but for me it is worth it.

Despite reading this thread I have just signed up to Homecare 200. In previous houses we have had cover from BG and never had any problem with them. We looked at similar contracts but couldn't find 1 that gave better cover than BG. It is a little more expensive but looking at for example n-power......no call centre staff after 5pm on a Saturday! Long cold weekend if yout Ch breaks down Saturday night!

mummytofour

I have the bg top package with draisn and electric too, peace of mind is priceless.

julybride

My tennants called yesterday to say they have a problem with the pilot light!!!! So i was lucky to be covered! Lets just hope i expereince the good side of their service.

John_Gray

The British Gas "Homecare" engineer was in today to do the annual half-hour service on the boiler.
Usually when the heating goes on in winter we find that several of the radiators have a "stuck pin" in their thermostatic valve, which an engineer comes in to sort out.
And every couple of years our "motorised valve" gives up, and requires replacement (will be done late next week, since not an urgent problem).

All the above "free" under the contract. And they don't care that I now get my gas supply from someone else!

John

tin_kitten

I've had their boiler cover for a couple of years and think it's great. They do my annual service, replacing parts as needed, they guys always come out when they say they will and when our boiler died a couple of weeks ago at 8pm I called them up and they apologised profusely for not being able to get someone out to me that night (I have a 18 month old son so we get put to the top of the list) and they had someone out to us at 10am the next day, despite it being a Sunday!

Also, every time they come round they bleed all our radiators for us, even though we only pay for the boiler cover.

canny_yorkshireman_2

hm wonder what will happen when the engineers go on strike and you have a super water tight call out that is not reponded to can you counter claim for poor service?

[Deleted User]

I have today cancelled my Homecare contract. My boiler was supposed to have the annual service on Nov 3 - BG cancelled and could not offer me a date till 28th Nov - which I accepted.

Got home today to find an answerphone message saying that due to an emergency (next Monday??) the appointment was cancelled.

After waiting 30 mins on the phone - I eventually spoke to a very obnoxious person who stated the next appointment is not till mid January.

He went on to say that they are prioritising emergency callouts - which is fair enough - but when challenged about what resources are being put to the non emergency routine contract work that I and many others are paying for - he could not say.

I told him about the Watchdog appearance by the BG boss - which made no difference - and then cancelled my contract.

He then insisted it could only be cancelled in office hours and that someone would have to phone me back.

So he was quoted the BG opening statement of 'this call is monitored' etc... and told to pull the tape if they are in any doubt. He was further told that my direct debit was being cancelled tonight - which it has been.

I have decided tom put the money away into savings and use if needed for any future callout.

I have never had to call them out yet and my boiler is only 2 years old. Many of my radiators are only 11 months old. I have figured that I will be bloomin' unlucky if any it packs up yet!