Boiler cover needed. Any recommendations?

DesperateScousewife

Currently covered by Xtrawarm. New renewal is £19.99 a month. Anybody know of any cheaper deals please? TIA

Biggles

As usual, the best bet - and always cheapest - is a local independent heating engineer.

DesperateScousewife

How do you find a decent one ? Is there a register ? Bit of a novice :D

wazza99

My experience is even good local engineers aren't always a solution. The chap who fitted our new boiler came highly recommended but after a year or two from fitting failed to resolve a fault, admitting "he was stumped"

We then had to go to another again recommended local engineer who was indeed good and fixed it but then when re-called to do further work failed to show or invariably called to cancel due to excess workloads.

Been with British Gas 3 or 4 years now, they always arrive when promised and have fixed without any hassle two faults, part always been in van, really can't fault the service. Only downsides, yes they are slightly more expensive (we pay £16.82, zero excess inc service, well safety check)) and you need to haggle at renewal every year.

My thoughts are yes i'd prefer a local engineer who is reliable and attends quickly but invariably the good ones are always too busy and hence are poor for breakdowns. BG have huge resource and for that i'm happy to pay.

DesperateScousewife

Thanks for that. Got British Gas cover for £11.10 a month after discounts! :j:j:j

molerat

The problem with BG is that are too quick to condemn an old boiler as unrepairable / parts not available. My experience from my son's recently purchased house is that they completely misdiagnosed an overheat shut down fault for over a year, randomly changed all the control system parts, then diagnosed it as a blocked system requiring power flush (not included in the contract of course) and a new boiler (also not included). A local independent then looked and diagnosed it as a faulty circuit board and parts not available so new boiler required, £2K please. Firstly the circuit board could not have been faulty as it is purely an ignition board and the boiler was firing, it had anyway been replaced in the past year and the part was readily available. So I had a look at the diagrams of how the system worked, diagnosed the fault as a faulty micro switch on the zone valve caused by water ingress. It was such an obvious fault and took me about half an hour to diagnose. Replaced the valve and motor, cleaned the system, replaced a leaking radiator valve whilst the system was drained, replaced the tank thermostat that was damaged and inhibited the system at a grand cost of £53. The system is now running sweetly after constantly breaking down for over a year :mad:

Eric_Disley

DesperateScousewife wrote: »

Thanks for that. Got British Gas cover for £11.10 a month after discounts! :j:j:j

Have a look at cashback sites - Quidco offer £65 for HomeCare Four. I took that in the past (but didn't renew at the end of the year when the price shot up).

shavy65

If it`s basic boiler only cover you require I`d suggest Home Serve, I`m with them now. £5 per month for the first year and that includes an annual boiler service!

Eric_Disley

I've heard appalling reports about Homeserve. A friend had them out time and again to fix a problem with her boiler and they were absolutely clueless. Others, of course, may have had a better experience.