British Gash - 50% off new boiler offer

thriftytracey

Hi


Looked for existing thread on this topic but cannot find.


British Gas are offering 50% off a new boiler ending January 18th.


https://www.britishgas.co.uk/products-and-services/boilers-and-central-heating/new-boilers.html


I recently had a BG Smart Meter engineer visit to fit a new meter who mentioned this offer to me (not hard sell). He said our Worcester Bosch boiler was not very efficient (about 10 - 12 years old) so I have booked an appointment.


I just wondered if any other money savers had looked into this?


Does the 50% discount have conditions i.e. only for expensive boilers?
Is there a hard sell?
Is the price inflated for the offer?
Would it take years to pay for itself?


We do pay £115 dual fuel a month and have done everything possible in terms of insulation, being careful, regularly switching tariffs, hence looking into a new boiler. I had a work bonus at Christmas so could use this or part of (!)


We are not intending to move in the long term.


Thanks for any info.

Ectophile

British Gas's prices are always massively inflated. Nobody could genuinely sell boilers at 50% off and still make a profit.

matelodave

50% off a silly price still works out at being expensive.


Even if your boiler isn't very efficient it will still cost you around £2-3000 to get it replaced. That means you'd have to save between £200-£300 a year just to get your money back in 10 years.


I'd be inclined to soldier on with the one you've got until it dies completely - put some money away in the bank or building society for when that day comes and get a proper plumber to give you a quote.

macman

BG's typical price for a boiler and install is about 40% higher than an local independent RGI. Do the maths...
Your friendly BG RGI gets a referral commission for the sales lead, you are aware of this?
A 10/12 year old WB should have years left in it yet, and if it's a condenser it will be reasonably efficient.
And if you'd scrolled down and read the small print you would have seen that the 50% off applies to the boiler only, not to the install cost or any peripherals, which will be inflated to recover the difference.
Go for this and you'll need to change your username...

thriftytracey

I am still going ahead with the appointment - I can then do a comparison and report back the experience.

macman

By all means do, but then get an independent RGI in to quote on the same boiler. My guess is that BG will still be in the region of 40% more.
But, either way, there is nothing you have told us that indicates that you need a new boiler, or that your existing one is inefficient.
I'm still puzzling over how a meter installer could possibly know that your boiler was inefficient, since he's not a boiler engineer. Maybe not a hard sell, but a blatant sell regardless.

imho

My son had a quote for gas installation for 5 radiators and a tiny boiler from BG they priced the boiler up as £1600 we bought the same boiler for £850 and got a plumber to install instead cost of £3000 for everything.

macman

So what was BG's quote in total?

thriftytracey

I now have the quote. The boiler cost itself is comparable to the cost elsewhere. The installation cost is steep at around £2k So even with the 50% discount on the boiler cost it probably equates to the same price as an independent quote. The existing Bosh boiler is E rated 75% efficient the replacement Bosch Greenstar Condensing boiler would provide another 15% efficiency. The total quote including optional extras such as HIVE heating control, thermostat and magnetic filter is £3366.82. I think we will be keeping our boiler a while longer. I did not get any kind of hard sell though which made a change. Hope this is helpful to other Money Saving users.

macman

I would be very surprised if you could not get that for c. £2,500 from an independent. But even so, supposing you gain a 15% efficiency, then that might save you at most £100 a year off your gas bill. So it would take you 25 years to recover the capital cost-much longer than the life of the boiler.

imho

macman wrote: »

So what was BG's quote in total?

Don't think you was asking me but BG quote for my sons was £5995! Tiny cottage. Complete rip off. Lives in Henley on Thames