British Gas heating cover...

PaulJM

I use British Gas's boiler cover to cover a combi boiler we have.

I hate buying insurance, for anything, and would not insure a single other product that I buy, as I've never had to pay out as much money for anything else as the insurance would cost, but having tried to cover costs of a combi boiler each and every way over the years - paying for it as and when it breaks, getting cheap cover, attendance only, etc - this seems the best way.

After our boiler was on the blink again, I called BG this morning, and got an engineer a few hours later (and it's an intermittant fault), he's ordered a load of parts, and will come back tomorrow, when I finish work, to re-install.
Having used EON a couple of years ago, and finding them a frustrating mess, and trying to source my own engineer for another boiler in another house a few times, I think this is a really good service.

It's not just the cost - as I know it can seem expensive - I've probably paid them £200 in a year for the insurance, which is a lot - I've had three faults, both times parts have been needed, and this time the motherboard plus all the ignition elements - I'm sure that would have cost me more.
It's been the same with every house and boiler I've had.
I guess they must make a lot of money out of it overall, but when it's a combi, and it's your water and heating, if you don't know a boiler engineer, how else do you get someone reliable to fix this stuff?

I'm pretty sure a combi boiler is not equiped to deal with a 4 bed house with 5 people in though.
This boiler is a "SIME" and it really is a load of rubbish.
I had a Worcester boiler in my last house, and although more reliable than the one that was installed in this one, it still wasn't up to the job.

Anyway, for comment, but also, this is probably the first time in a long time that I've actually been happy with service, from any company I've dealt with (which is saying something - they were awful a few years ago!)

pimento

I won't hear a bad word about British Gas. I've been with them since I left home in 1984 and have never had a problem with them, not once.

They're coming to do our annual boiler check on Friday and to have a look at a slow leak from one of our rads. The egineer lives just around the corner (we're in a small village) and the whole thing is wonderful. Was the same when I lived in London.

I guarantee that if I wasn't insured, my boiler would go t!ts up on Christmas Eve and trying to find an honest plumber in Essex is like trying to find hens' teeth.

faerie_girl

Our Landlord has cover for the boiler, heating, water and electrics with BG. It's great because we just phone them up direct arrange the appointment. No trying to contact our LL who then has to arrange for someone to come out.

PaulJM

faerie_girl wrote: »

Our Landlord has cover for the boiler, heating, water and electrics with BG. It's great because we just phone them up direct arrange the appointment. No trying to contact our LL who then has to arrange for someone to come out.

That'll be costing him/her a fortune - you're right to be chuffed with it

rustyboy21

A combi boiler is good as long as you take into account it's limitations.

I have a 4 bed house, with 2 bathrooms, one a full bath and overhead shower mixer tap, the other downstairs which is a quadrant shower and a grohe thermo mixer unit. There are only 2 of us in the house.

If my OH is having a bath upstairs and it is still running, I can still have a shower, albeit a very low pressure one, but still at correct temp. If I want a high pressure shower, no one runs any taps ! then it is like a power shower the pressure is that strong.

You just have to make allowances for them. With 5 people in the house, you will be having the water running almost constantly, so anyone putting the washing machine/dishwasher on, will mess about with the pressure.

For a large house with large amount of people in it, for the future, you may be better with a heat only boiler and a cylinder/s, that will still give you hot water but you could run numerous taps at the same time, without losing the pressure much. The other suggestion would be a thermal store, which is a cylinder with boiling water in it, kept hot all the time and as you run a hot tap, it passes cold water through the coil inside the cylinder, which transfers the heat from the cylinder water to the cold water, there again, not a lot of pressure drop, if running a few taps.

People slag off BG, but as you have shown it works for some people, some it doesnt.

deanos

PaulJM wrote: »

That'll be costing him/her a fortune - you're right to be chuffed with it

Wont be costing him anything will be paid out of the rent