British Gas - are they conning me?

houghtongooner_2

Hi Everyone

I am new to this so please bear with me and apologies in advance if this becomes a long old rant....i will try and keep it as brief as possible!!

Basically, yesterday i had my BG homecare guy come out as i had a problem that the heating would not go off even though i had the timer switched to off and the thermostat at zero! The only way to stop the radiators being at 30+ degrees was to turn all the valves off.

Anyway, BG guy appears yesterday and he is someone who has been to my house in the past. Things seem to be ok, he says that the switch on something (sorry i am soooo not technically gifted) was sticking so that even though the timer was saying no to heating this was getting stuck on and that is why my radiators wouldn't shut down. Mr helpful says he will also give my boiler its annual service as it is due in the next couple of months. So, half hour later he says that my boiler is fine and switches it all back on. I left him to it and was watching a bit of telly. Few minutes later he comes back and calls me to the airing cupboard and tells me i need another part (this is a 3 way copper thing that sits just above the unit that was sticking). He says that its not closing properly and so my radiators are getting hot from having the hot water on. Matey tells me he has to drain my system to be able to change this bit and it will be a couple of hours. A bit inconvenient but what the hell.....

Two + hours later matey has finished and I hear the system back up and the sound of water which i am assuming is flowing back round to my radiators?? Half hour later of him running up the stairs about 15 times to the airing cupboard, down to the front room thermostat and into the kitchen to the boiler (which incidentally did not fire up again!) i now have no heating at all!! By this stage i am doing a bit of work upstairs and he calls me to the kitchen says there is a leak on my boiler 'that he has only just noticed' and is shutting it all down and capping my gas so i can't use it.

Obviously i was a bit stunned and just told him to do what he has to do. When i asked him how he had serviced the boiler at 10.30am and approx 3 hours later decided that it was leaking and dangerous he couldn't answer me but then just went on to say that i could die and isn't this a bit better? Incidentally, there is a BG Co2 meter inches from where it was supposed to be leaking from but again he couldn't explain why this hadn't picked anything up.

Oh and to top it all he had already tried to sell me a powerflush when he changed the copper bit saying 'look at all the sludge in there' for £900, yes £900!!! After the shut down he then asked if i wanted him to get a sales person round to quote for a new boiler so needless to say i told him to stick it where the sun doesn't shine.

Now, i know he is the one holding the Gas Safe card and i am a mere normal human being, but even my logic tells me he wouldn't have wasted 2+ hours draining down my system and changing parts IF the boiler was knackered when he serviced it at the start of the call out (he was here 4 hours in all)? My belief which i suspect i will never be able to prove is that he has broken/damaged something or couldn't admit he didn't know what he was doing so the easiest thing would be to tell me i could die of co2 leaking, turn everything off and do a runner leaving me with no heating or water??? I mean how do i disprove it when he is the expert?

Would welcome anyone's thoughts/opinions/advice please.

Thanks for your time

Chimpofdoom

I'm a bit dubious with British gas's homecare these days, seemed great at first but after 1 shady call out and 2 price rises, i'm questioning it somewhat.

Basically I had a problem with my boiler and controls (which were subsequently covered by my policy), so I called them out, guy replaced controls no problem.. said problem with boiler was probably somewhere else in the system and I should call a plumber as it would be cheaper (this was last summer).

Before the winter hit, I was getting annoyed, so called them out again, another guy came, looked at it, reported it was a pump issue next to the boiler, he replaced it as it was covered... problem solved..

Not long ago the prices went up and then just recently after my service.. they've jacked the price up another £10... no idea why...

blossom30

Hi houghton, I read your post and I am with you on this one . I stopped using BGs homecare years ago as I felt it was getting sales orientated so I looked up the gas safe register and checked a few engineers in my area and found a gem of a guy who is great. The gas safe register posts photos of the engineers so you can see what they look like before they come to your house. I get a service done for £50 which I think is reasonable and btw I had a BG sales guy out in my other house on the request of the engineer and the cost of installing a new boiler was double the price of what was asked by a local firm. so I dfinitely would shop around, Good luck shrewdalx

macman

Do what you should have done in the first place and get an independent local GSR RGI in to examine the boiler and system. Someone who knows your make and model and is not just interested in selling you an overpriced powerflush and getting his commission on a new boiler referral.

ollski

Macman a commission on a boiler lead is less than half an hours overtime for a bg eng., substantially less than the benefit an independant would gain form selling a new boiler!

macman

And a £900 powerflush?
Given the full circumstances, I would want a second opinion on the safety aspect and the condemning of the boiler.

spiro

By draining down part or all of the system this can cause the 'sludge' in the system to move around and reveal leaks. This can also happen when they do a power flush as corrosion on steel parts of the system can be dislodged producing leaks in rads. Not saying that is what has happened here but it could be one reason.

macman

But the boiler has been condemned because of a gas leak or CO leak. An engineer (not even a BG one) can condemn a boiler just because a rad or pipe is leaking.
My query with the powerflush was the absurd quoted cost, not the necessity for it.

houghtongooner_2

Thank you everyone for your replies.

Just a quick update.....i have an independent heating engineer (Gas Safe!) coming tomorrow evening

I have also phoned BG Homecare and told them i have stopped their direct debit as I am not happy with their work and am having a second opinion. When I told the girl what had happened she agreed with me that it had seemed a bit strange that he could have passed the boiler service then failed it a few hours later after making my heating worse!! I also said I was going to send a 'subject access request' to which she seemed a bit concerned! I read about them on another forum (funnily enough about BG ripping someone off for a new boiler lol), but it seems prudent to see what they have said about my system over the last 4 years if it turns out that they were trying it on.

Will give an update once the engineer has been tomorrow night....fingers crossed!

C_Mababejive

I can understand the OP being cynical as the received wisdom is that most if not all "tradesmen" are on the make or take.

Having fiddled about with gas and heating for more than 30 years i can say that it is quite possible for jobs to escalate !

The valve he was talking about is probably a zone valve of some kind. There are certain types which are more prone to sticking/passing than others and these types get worse if the system water quality isnt so good. I have one of said valves on my system but cant be bothered changing it at present. I just excercise it occasionally and free it off.

Anyway back to your "leak"..what sort of leak was it? products of combustion,water or gas ?


Your detector is a CO detector and will only pick up CO.

Gas appliances which are operating correctly do not produce appreciable amounts of CO

So whats leaking and what is the cure? If parts are required,presumably this is covered?

houghtongooner_2

C_Mababejive wrote: »

I can understand the OP being cynical as the received wisdom is that most if not all "tradesmen" are on the make or take.

Having fiddled about with gas and heating for more than 30 years i can say that it is quite possible for jobs to escalate !

The valve he was talking about is probably a zone valve of some kind. There are certain types which are more prone to sticking/assing than others and these types get worse if the system water quality isnt so good. I have one of said valves on my system but cant be bothered changing it at present. I just excercise it occasionally and free it off.

Anyway back to your "leak"..what sort of leak was it? products of combustion,water or gas ?


Your detector is a CO detector and will only pick up CO.

Gas appliances which are operating correctly do not produce appreciable amounts of CO

So whats leaking and what is the cure? If parts are required,presumably this is covered?

Not sure of the technical stuff but he said it was dangerous and could kill me! Definitely weren't water and definitely weren't gas cos i had a fag on the go and he didn't ask me to put it out :rotfl: I have a co2 meter inches from where it was supposedly leaking out and that was registering normal! When i questioned that he just changed the subject. What frustrates me is i am not stupid and usually not gullible but i feel like one of the people you read about or see on Watchdog that has been scammed and you always question how did that happen or why didn't they ask x, y or z! Its unfortunate that one or two bad apples can make us so cynical and always look for their angle.

Incidentally, the copper three way thing he changed yesterday was only changed by BG last year, together with the pump and thermostat and the bit that was 'sticking' (still don't know what it is, sorry) as per my OP. So technically all those bits are still under a warranty but covered under the Homecare agreement in any case. Oh and i also had the system flushed through earlier this year (not a power flush), each radiator taken off individually and cleaned out and then put back, the system flushed through again and an inhibitor put in the header tank so i would like to think there can't be that much sludge left!!