Looking for an alternative to Britisg Gas HomeCare 200

NPowerUser

Had central heating installed last January and British Gas have sent me forms for their HomeCare 200 plan.

No bills, no labour charge and an annual service for £18.39 a month, with a 50p a month discount if you pay monthly via DD.

I am currently with NPower for gas and leccy, can anyone recommend an alternative that is cheaper that British Gas but offering the same cover?

notbritishgas

Npower have a scheme similar to BG homecare.
www.npower.com/web/hometeam/HeatingCover/GasHeating/index.htm
As you can see they are cheaper than BG, but they do not have their own workers, instead they use a company called Homeserve.
No experience of how good/bad they are compared to BG.

Cardew

There are hundreds of posts on servicing schemes and Martin has written an article.

BG Homecare is the biggest and there are mixed views on how effective it is; although everyone agrees it is very expensive.

As far as I have seen there is no universally praised alternative scheme and some are an absolute disaster.

Frankly I wouldn't bother in taking out one of these schemes - especially with a system a year old(if it was going to give problems it would happen in the first year).

Put the money in a bank account and pay for any repairs(if any) as the occur.

allan673

i agree with cardew, just have the boiler serviced every year. and keep the money in the bank.

Cardew

allan673 wrote: »

i agree with cardew, just have the boiler serviced every year. and keep the money in the bank.

Or, if you have any mechanical knowledge, have a look at the servicing schedule(available on-line) and see what is involved, it really is very simple; mainly cleaning.

That is a cue for someone to play the safety card!!!

Canucklehead

NPowerUser wrote: »

Had central heating installed last January and British Gas have sent me forms for their HomeCare 200 plan.

No bills, no labour charge and an annual service for £18.39 a month, with a 50p a month discount if you pay monthly via DD.

I am currently with NPower for gas and leccy, can anyone recommend an alternative that is cheaper that British Gas but offering the same cover?

Good evening: You had the CH installed last January...how long is the boiler warranty? If your appliance has a decent parts/labour warranty use it, but in order to maintain the validity of the warranty you must have the boiler serviced by a RGI with the details of the service added to your Benchmark Service Log. Boiler manufacturers are tightening up requirements for installation, notification and warranty conditions. The cost of a service will depend on where you are in the UK and the type of boiler: after the warranty has expired you can revisit your options.

HTH

Canucklehead

LadyGLouise

its very easy to say pay for any repairs as and when needed but then some repairs are emergencies that occur out of business hours and hence cost a lot of money due to out of hours call-outs, so unless you personally know someone who can fix these things for you, you have the laborious task of sifting through classifieds and phones books or making phone calls to find an engineer to (a) come out to your house and (b) find the cheapest quotes etc, which still end up being expensive anyway, i would recommend shopping around and finding the best boiler/home appliance cover to suit your needs and not rule out home appliance cover all together

Cardew

LadyGLouise wrote: »

i would recommend shopping around and finding the best boiler/home appliance cover to suit your needs and not rule out home appliance cover all together

Welcome to the forum.

This thread is 3 years old, and there have been literally hundreds of posts on this subject since.

The difficulty is that there is no consensus who has the ' best boiler/home appliance cover'.

Some people find British Gas excellent, for others they have been a disaster.

Most of the other schemes do not have a dedicated workforce but simply a network of local plumbers - and the service you get can be 'patchy'.

This subject is really a discussion on 'insurance' and many people on MSE have come to the conclusion that you are better to 'self-insure' and ask around to find a reliable RGI fitter.

On balance if you set aside the £250-£300pa it costs for a decent service plan, you will come out on top in the long run.

macman

There are very few boiler 'emergencies' that actually require an emergency call out. Temporary loss of hot water or heating is not an emergency as long as you have basic alternatives in place, (i.e. a kettle, and a fan heater or convector).
Burst pipes or major leaks are the only real emergencies that I can think of, and turning off the supply and draining down is a job that anyone able-bodied person can handle if they know where to look before the event.
If you have a burst and you have to wait only one hour for a BG or Homeserve engineer (dream on), the the damage is already done.