BG maintenance contract, is it worth it?

retiredin2011

For me it is.:j

I pay about £120 a year for my warm air heating maintenance contract and so far this year I have had a full service and today I have had the timer clock replaced for the second time.

The cost of the clock? £98 plus vat.

All included in the maintenance contract.

I was thinking of cancelling it at the end of the year but I will keep paying it.

The next thing that might need replaced is the fan and they cost over £300 and I've already had 2 in the 22 year life of the heating.

ihateyes

im glad it works for you.....
it works for a lot of people..... for other it wont work, but insurance is all about risk.

No doubt your post will be scrutinised by the 'you work for british gas' brigade.

southcoastrgi

for alot of people it's a good idea except when they turn around & say the parts aren't availible

oldskoo1

We've recently moved into a house where the previous owners had a BG service contract and nobody noticed the pipes were connected the wrong way round / flow & return reversed.

Not sure what that says for our local BG engineer.

Hmmmm

undaunted

retiredin2011 wrote: »

For me it is.:j

I pay about £120 a year for my warm air heating maintenance contract and so far this year I have had a full service and today I have had the timer clock replaced for the second time.

The cost of the clock? £98 plus vat.

All included in the maintenance contract.

I was thinking of cancelling it at the end of the year but I will keep paying it.

The next thing that might need replaced is the fan and they cost over £300 and I've already had 2 in the 22 year life of the heating.

If you paid £120 per year for 22 years that would be £2640, you've apparently had around £700 worth of parts & labour so thats around £1900 you'd have paid for servicing. Not unreasonable over 22 years but not something I'd be overly excited about either. British Gas prices appear inflated at times. How much would an independant local gas fitter charge you for a service?

retiredin2011

If you paid £120 per year for 22 years

That is what I am paying now, not that I have been paying £120 a year for 22 years.

How much would an independent local gas fitter charge you for a service

A few years ago when I looked into that they wanted more than I was paying BG.

Not many can service warm air heating.

retiredin2011

nobody noticed the pipes were connected the wrong way round / flow & return reversed

Doesn't apply to warm air heating.

ollski

undaunted wrote: »

If you paid £120 per year for 22 years that would be £2640, you've apparently had around £700 worth of parts & labour so thats around £1900 you'd have paid for servicing. Not unreasonable over 22 years but not something I'd be overly excited about either. British Gas prices appear inflated at times. How much would an independant local gas fitter charge you for a service?

I would imagine a wau / circ service would be aout 80 quid plus vat

ollski

southcoastrgi wrote: »

for alot of people it's a good idea except when they turn around & say the parts aren't availible

ask to see the parts list on the engineers laptop, it will list available and obsolete parts on it from information direct from manufacturers.

Cardew

Not many properties have a warm air system; for convention CH systems Homecare 200(boiler and CH system) it starts at £11 a month with a £99 excess.

From

£11.00 per month[1]

(With £99 excess, annual price £132.00).

However the sting is in footnote(1)

[1] Prices available to new customers for the first year (Paying by direct debit) and applies to most households outside the M25. Prices for households within the M25 will vary. Prices are subject to change. Your breakdown history will be taken into account in determining next year's pricing.

I had their servicing package for the first 15 years or so. Then came letters saying parts were not available(they are!) and their prices increased steeply. I have 2 systems(one in an annex) and when I finally decided not to renew(about 5 years ago) they wanted around £450 pa.

The 'parts difficult to obtain' letters were always follwed by a sales letter for a new boiler!

My boilers are 24 years old and 20 years old and virtually nothing has gone wrong with them. Servicing(to full manufacturers specification - which I have) is purely inspection and cleaning and takes minutes.

It would appear from many posts on here, that my experience is quite normal, and loads of problems according to BG are apparently caused by sludge - which requires a power flush at the cost of £hundreds, not covered by Homecare.

Like many others I have decided to 'self insure' - wish I had done so from the beginning!

meg0210

I am also struggling whether I should have a mantainence contract by BG. but my case is a bit different. As a new landlord, I have to submit the annual gas safety certificates, which cost at least 60 pounds (75 by BG). If I take the contract, this will be included (the maintence fees are 16 pounds/month). from the figures, it seems a good deal, as I 'll pay 192 pounds a year for one safety check and the repairs (parts and labour). But reading other posts here, I wonder if it is really worth it (I was not a BG client before)?