British Gas Homecare

Wrexhamed

We subscribe to the highest package. They came yesterday and found sludge in the pipework near the boiler. They would charge approx £600 to do a power flush. Can anyone give me any advice on whether they have had this done or whether we would be better going with a local plumber?
Any advice gratefully received.

Alias_Omega

Ill tell you my story..

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Combi boiler, on providing heating and hot water to the sinks / bath. No other gas services in the house.

We took out Homecare 200 through Qudico for some cash back, the charge was £12 a month i think.

We had a fault with the boiler, the house was ex-council and the boiler was about 4 yrs old. The fault was that the water would get hot, then run cold, then hot again.

On the inspection, the engineer came out and had a look at the boiler. We needed..

A new PCB
A new valve in the boiler
A powerflush

Amount to repair the system before they could cover us - £786.

We of course cancelled the cover and received a full refund.

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Then, we rang british gas for a fixed fee repair of £140 (or there abouts). The same engineer came out, and fixed the PCB without replacing it, he changed the cold water filler loop and changed 2 valves in the boiler.


We were absolutely shocked that the same guy can come around and repair the system for a fixed fee, so now that we rent our house out. We wont go with homecare, but instead either use the fixed fee repair scheme from British Gas if we think its an expensive fix, or we will ring a local plumber for non-boiler related faults / repairs.

Madness..

27col

From the posts on this forum and elsewhere, BG do seem to be fixated on power flushing. I have just taken out Homecare200 after having my boiler for 10years insured with a local company. I have to wait nearly a month for the service visit and am waiting for them with a certain amount of trepidation.

ormus

its the latest buzzword. a nice little money earner for BG.
even regular plumbers are doing it.

funny how all those millions of CH systems lasted for yrs without any flushing isnt it?

dannyxx25

i had a quote off BG for a new central heating system, £5,000 with a £400 "discount" (4 rads) local plumbers were about £3,000 mark. I've seen BG quoteing people £300 for parts that are £20. Moral of the story is you cant trust them. Check for liquid solutions that may break down the sludge cost less than £50.

System

oh dear i was going to look into signing up for this

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=30034333&posted=1#post30034333

roger196

You only need a powerflush if the rads are blocked. The symptom of this is hot at the top and cold at the bottom. The sludge forms an inverted V in the rad. The cheapest way of removing this is to take rad off wall(drain system, turn off valves each end, use plenty of rag to catch black sludge), into garden and flush through with garden hose. repeat with remaining rads.
Another way is to remove one rad. Attach garden hose to each of the pipes, plastic hose when warm will just slip over 15mm pipe, fix with jubillee clip. One hose to garden tap, other hose to drain. Then flush each rad in turn with others turned off. Use lowest water pressure possible to get flow through as full mains water pressure can damage valves etc.

When you refill, add inhibitor about £15.

kmmr

I have posted in the past on BG Homecare - I'll see if I can link the link - but in general I have found them to be quite good.

Just avoid the powerflush discussion! They will suggest it, you ignore it like it hasn't been said, and everyone moves on. Ask them to investigate if it's anything else, or prove it is sludge... or just distract them with Tea. :-)

And don't give up, they will eventually fix most things in my experience, even if they say they can't at the start!

System

Thanks kmmr
This is reassuring as I was looking to sign up to this

iamcornholio

You can buy a new boiler, and a take holiday while it is fitted for the price BG want to scam off you for a power flush.

I love the way it is nicely worded into the homecare contract so that if the engineer "recommends" a powerflush, then you must have one before any other work under the agreement is done

It seems very similar to the RAC scam when they would "recommend" a new battery to every motorist they went out to.

Or to when a chav druggie "recommends" that you hand over your money, watch and mobile phone to him

System

So they can basically say you need a power flush and then not fix anything? Is this likely on a 4 year old boiler or is this normally something they say regarding older boilers?

I have no idea now whether to go ahead with the cover or not..