Boiler cover (British Gas) - haggling?

MancBrel

About 2 years ago British Gas fitted a new condenser boiler to my home. They gave me free boiler cover for 12 months as well. After this expired I received calls offering me "a good deal" for taking out cover. I wasn't interested and did not go into any details with them.

Now, after discussing this with my wife, we have decided to get cover. I was wondering if anyone has any experience of "negotiating" with them, in relation to the cost of the cover? I'm looking at a £13 a month boiler only cover, that includes the annual service (I have just paid £100 for one, which promted us to look at this cover!).

Your wisdom will be gratefully received.

Many Thanks

Gerrard_8_lfc

You cant haggle with BG as a new customer only existing customers can if they wish to cancel.

£13 a month is the price for homecare 100 covering boiler and controls plus an annual service.

or you can go for the homecare 100 flexi which is £10 per month but has a £50 excess. Southern electric also do boiler cover which works out about 50p to a £1 cheaper than BG.

Eydon

Personally I wouldn't touch BG service with a bargepole (and I speak from experience).

I too had a new condensing boiler fitted by BG seven years ago in my previous house. I was lucky because at the time they were offering a free five year warranty - and boy did I need it.

Anyhoo, for the first 18 months the boiler worked without any problems. And then I got a call from BG to say that under the terms of the warranty they were supposed to offer me a free service each year. They apologised for missing the first service and arranged to send an engineer. He came, he serviced the boiler, he left. Two weeks later I woke on Christmas Day to a freezing cold house and a tank full of tepid water. The boiler had packed up.

Now, all credit to BG, I phoned them on Boxing Day and I got an engineer the same day. He took one look at the boiler and said something along the lines of "well there's your problem mate - you haven't had your boiler serviced". I had to show him the paper work from two weeks before before he would believe me. He then admitted that not all BG engineers knew how to service a condensing boiler.

Twelve months later they came to service my boiler again, and within two weeks it had packed up. Same story.

The following year they came and service it again, and within two weeks it packed up. This time due to a part failure which had been caused by carbon build up. And now the fun started. Over the next twelve months BG replaced every single component within the boiler. The only bit left of the original boiler was the outside case. Things were so serious that I actually had the mobile and home phone numbers of the BG Area Manager.

When the boiler finally gave up again I flipped. I said that I wouldn't settle for anything less than a new boiler. And eventually they agreed.

So I guess what I'm saying is, their Customer Service was pretty good, but their engineers were lousy.

And also, I think £100 to service a two year old boiler is a bit steep. You didn't use BG by any chance did you? My current house has an 18 year old conventional boiler and I've just had it serviced by a local Corgi plumber for £50 - and it was it's first service in at least eight years.

MancBrel

Thanks for the info.

Re my service. It was a local firm, not BG. It's a long story, like yours! Basically the boiler was working fine until an Engineer appointed by United Utilities and BG came round to change our gas meter. He told us we had a leak, then left us without gas. We got the local firm out, who after several tests convinced us that we didn't have any leak, then only billed us for half what they had quoted an hour earlier. When they left the house we discovered that the boiler was no longer working. All in all the whole thing cost us £540, for the initial call, a replacement fan and a service. On Friday we had a working boiler. Then some kid comes round and switches it off (tells us what a good boiler we have!) and the rest as they say, is history!