Boiler Replacement by British Gas £3700

heating-eng

bobadobado wrote: »

My Central Heating boiler is about 20 years old and needs renewing.
I have a 4 bed semi - 11 rads, 5 sinks, 1 bath, 1 shower.

Called BG after seeing an offer on their website of upto £800 off a new boiler. "Upto" means dependant on conditions of course.
However, as an over 60 resides in the home, am not living off the state, plus weve got the Homecare Insurance, etc etc...Woo Hoo...all the terms were met!

Appointment was made online. Received an email confirming appointment. Next day received a call from BG to confirm appointment and tell me the name of the sales advisor who would be calling. All sounded very helpful and efficient (If only their HomeCare service was a good). Few days letter then receive a letter in the post again confirming the appointment, and ever so gently warning me the advisor will take upto an hour and half to dicuss options and conduct the survey.

The sales guy rings the door bell literally on the dot (although he did arrive 10 mins earlier but sat outside in his shiny new car).

Conducts his survey and quotes me around the £3700 mark. Thats for a replacement boiler BG Glowworm 330, a power flush, a wireless thermostat, and a few other bits and bobs like adding a new radiator thermostat. Although he was unable to break down how he came to the £3700 figure, i tried to do it for him. Apparently Boiler is around £1100, Labour £1900, Thermostat £150, plus VAT, plus all the required certification etc etc etc. Also have to have this magnetic filter thingy fitted too. Bear in mind this quote also takes into account the £800 discount.

I said it sounded to expensive. The response was the price is fixed but he'll knock £150 off if I pay a deposit now - Take it or leave it.
I said leave it - he left his details and before departing said BG are the best, the boiler is fantastic, it has a 15 year parts availability guarantee, we supply and fit the whole package, take care of everything, do millions of systems, are number 1, so dont compromise with anyone else and feel free to call if I decide I want to go ahead. Oh and the quote will also be in the post.

Im no heating engineer, but this sales attempt by BG with all the efficiency and sales patter has just led me to feel this is an attempt to pull the wool over my eyes and it is actually expensive. But thats just how I feel, or is it actually a reaonable quote?

I worked for BG as a sales advisor for a while ,they try and sell you as much as they can, the cars are very nice i had a BMW.
all that aside do not get BG you will get the job done for at least half the price. BG are not the best i had loads of problems with the jobs that were installed for me.
Thats why i left and now work for myself.:T

heating-eng

bargepole wrote: »

Around 32% across the board nationally. Last year 2010, BG installed approx 128,000 boilers / CH systems.

Or, to put it another way, that's 1 in every 11 boiler installations was carried out by BG.

Lots of people here going on about getting cheaper quotes from local plumbers, but where's that local plumber going to be when your new boiler stops working at 4pm on Sunday afternoon? Most likely in the pub, downing his 6th pint of Magners, watching Chelsea v Man U on the big screen - mobile phone turned off.

People buy from BG for the same reasons they shop in Marks & Spencers and not Lidl, or drive a Mercedes instead of a Kia.

But, if all you want to do is scrimp every last penny out of the job, I'm sure there's some Albanian plumber who's got a job lot of unbranded Wickes boilers and can do you a deal for cash.

Funny this post. many of the jobs bg install are installed by those local cheap plumbers but with bg,s mark up on it.
most new boilers have a warranty and is covered by the manufactures, who are normally better than bg, they come out with parts to fix boilers unlike bg that will come out and then order parts.
There is no need to pay bg prices to get a good job done, you can normally pay around half the price and get a much better job in my opinion.
BG engineers are always getting there times cut and do not get the time to do the job correctly.
this is just my opinion but i am in the know as i was an engineer for bg and a heating sales advisor.

Paintman

Finallly had quote from British Gas for Boiler replacement, After being their customer for 30 years had to wait over a week for a sales rep, as I was a problem customer as i didnt want to take a day of work to see them and it had to be in an evening, I had by then had 2 other quotes from fully registered corgi installers, Who offered oddly enough the identical Boilers and the same extras ie magnetic filter system, and remote thermostat, all stated aprox one and a half to two days work, I did get a price for each item, So if you take the prices of the boiler and bits and allow for a bit of copper piping (3 mts I was confidently told) away from the invoice total, It works out that British Gas want approx £175.00 per hour to supply a fitter NO KIDDING work it out yourself total quote
£3738.85 less Boiler 772.15 less Remote 148.75 less filter 331.59 (thats seems dear but of course theirs is better than anyone elses) and extra piping to convert to 22mm, this does not include any radiators or pumps or anything else,they then gave me out of the goodness of their heart £400.00 scrappage leaving a quote of £3338.85 total meaning £2858.51 Labour charges for 2 days work.
Nice work if you can get it (they wont) Their rep was almost embarrased when I asked how much she was paid out of this, and sputtered well we are british gas and we have to make a profit to continue to offer our services, ok all you doubters out there how many of you can charge £175.00 an hour for labour, I know lots of people who only earn that a week. The other Gas quotes came in at over £1450.00 less from highly qualified long established gas firms one even offered a seven year warranty for a modest £250.00
Rip off BG

davidjwest

bargepole wrote: »

But, if all you want to do is scrimp every last penny out of the job, I'm sure there's some Albanian plumber who's got a job lot of unbranded Wickes boilers and can do you a deal for cash.

BG quoted me £3,300 for a straight combi boiler swap, plus condensate pipe - local plumber quoted £1,450 so it's hardly "scrimping every last penny" is it?

heating-eng

davidjwest wrote: »

BG quoted me £3,300 for a straight combi boiler swap, plus condensate pipe - local plumber quoted £1,450 so it's hardly "scrimping every last penny" is it?

Less than half the price for a better job in my opinion. Well done

heating-eng

I went to a job today ,customer was quoted £1100 for a powerflush from BG . I am going Friday and doing it for £345. Customer told me that guy from BG had said it will take about 4 hours, not bad profit.
I will be at the house all day and do a much better job.

Canucklehead

heating-eng wrote: »

I went to a job today ,customer was quoted £1100 for a powerflush from BG . I am going Friday and doing it for £345. Customer told me that guy from BG had said it will take about 4 hours, not bad profit.
I will be at the house all day and do a much better job.

A question for you....previously you said your daily rate was £120 and that the rest of the RGIs on here charged too much:think: Care to elaborate?

Canucklehead

heating-eng

Canucklehead wrote: »

A question for you....previously you said your daily rate was £120 and that the rest of the RGIs on here charged too much:think: Care to elaborate?

Canucklehead

My day rate is £120 this job is on a price not day work.
But as your asked so nicely there is some parts required.
Filter
Some pipe and rad valves ( these were not on BG quote )
Also fitting a frost stat ( also not on BG quote )
I said the other RGI that were charging over £500 per day were charging too much.

bugbod

bargepole wrote: »

Around 32% across the board nationally. Last year 2010, BG installed approx 128,000 boilers / CH systems.

Or, to put it another way, that's 1 in every 11 boiler installations was carried out by BG.

Lots of people here going on about getting cheaper quotes from local plumbers, but where's that local plumber going to be when your new boiler stops working at 4pm on Sunday afternoon? Most likely in the pub, downing his 6th pint of Magners, watching Chelsea v Man U on the big screen - mobile phone turned off.

People buy from BG for the same reasons they shop in Marks & Spencers and not Lidl, or drive a Mercedes instead of a Kia.

But, if all you want to do is scrimp every last penny out of the job, I'm sure there's some Albanian plumber who's got a job lot of unbranded Wickes boilers and can do you a deal for cash.

I shop in Lidl. I won't go near Marks and Spencer for my personal shopping. Apart from M&S inflated prices, in Lidl you can actually see staff on the floor, not just behind tills. You can talk to them too. If you do see a staff member in M&S they run in the opposite direction if they think you're going to speak to them. I have NEVER seen a manager. I know this because I used to mystery shop them and was told to ask them questions. They seldom got asked. I'd have had to camp at the door until closing time.
I wouldn't have a Mercedes either, with their sluggish engines.

If people buy from BG for the same reasons they shop in Marks & Spencers and not Lidl, or drive a Mercedes instead of a Kia, in my opinion those reasons are snobbishness and pretention.

Who cares where the plumber that fitted the boiler is? You can still keep up the BG Homecare contract. And what's wrong with Albanians? Or Wickes?

We have just had a BG quote today for a new boiler, a power flush and new controls (there's nothing wrong with the old ones) £3920.

The salesman had an engineer with him. They were both very pleasant. Pity I won't be talking to either of them again.

seront

bargepole wrote: »

Around 32% across the board nationally. Last year 2010, BG installed approx 128,000 boilers / CH systems.

Or, to put it another way, that's 1 in every 11 boiler installations was carried out by BG.

Lots of people here going on about getting cheaper quotes from local plumbers, but where's that local plumber going to be when your new boiler stops working at 4pm on Sunday afternoon? Most likely in the pub, downing his 6th pint of Magners, watching Chelsea v Man U on the big screen - mobile phone turned off.

People buy from BG for the same reasons they shop in Marks & Spencers and not Lidl, or drive a Mercedes instead of a Kia.

But, if all you want to do is scrimp every last penny out of the job, I'm sure there's some Albanian plumber who's got a job lot of unbranded Wickes boilers and can do you a deal for cash.

My price was over £4000. Quality?? What a joke!!

The BG boiler rattles when it is in use. Tried to get it fixed twice. The last time the BG engineer said "you are going deaf with age so it will seem quieter as the years go on".

The wireless control is one of the worst methods of controlling temperature I have come across. It takes ages and many attempts at setting before it may work. I am on my second one in 14 months and will get rid of this method if possible or I may wait two years till I retire and use my lump sum to buy a new boiler from anybody other than BG.