Boiler Replacement by British Gas £3700

exxxybeast

I had last week arranged an appointment with a British Gas salesmen regarding possibly replacing our 17 year old boiler.

An hour before he was due to arrive I found this thread and was pretty disheartened after reading and was expecting to be ripped off by the guy.

However, how wrong I was. The guy was nothing but polite, professional and courteous. An ex BG fitter who now worked on sales due to back injury.

All in for one of their high end boilers, which is future proof and comes with a 15 year parts guarantee, £2400 fitted.

The guy came last Thursday night, the boiler is fitted and up and running and all finishing work completed an hour ago.

We have been kept fully informed by all parties concerned, the salesman, the team contact point, the delivery guys.

As somebody who is usually cynical about most things, I have to say that the service from start to finish and the price have all been excellent.

So based on my experience alone, I thoroughly recommend them.

southcoastrgi

exxxybeast wrote: »

I had last week arranged an appointment with a British Gas salesmen regarding possibly replacing our 17 year old boiler.

An hour before he was due to arrive I found this thread and was pretty disheartened after reading and was expecting to be ripped off by the guy.

However, how wrong I was. The guy was nothing but polite, professional and courteous. An ex BG fitter who now worked on sales due to back injury.

All in for one of their high end boilers, which is future proof and comes with a 15 year parts guarantee, £2400 fitted.

The guy came last Thursday night, the boiler is fitted and up and running and all finishing work completed an hour ago.

We have been kept fully informed by all parties concerned, the salesman, the team contact point, the delivery guys.

As somebody who is usually cynical about most things, I have to say that the service from start to finish and the price have all been excellent.

So based on my experience alone, I thoroughly recommend them.

just as a matter of interest what boiler did they fit ? make & model, did they do a powerflush in with that price ? the 15 year guarantee is that with you paying for their breakdown cover every month ?

exxxybeast

it was their own model 330+.

No power flush as we have already had one recently.

We are already on their Homecare 400, however they give you 12 months free worth of Homecare 200 in this boiler price

I realise that we could have got the job done cheaper but would have to first find a reputable plumber and then have the confidence in them doing the job properly and also been around should there be any issues, which we have found BG always to be.

southcoastrgi

exxxybeast wrote: »

I had last week arranged an appointment with a British Gas salesmen regarding possibly replacing our 17 year old boiler.

An hour before he was due to arrive I found this thread and was pretty disheartened after reading and was expecting to be ripped off by the guy.

However, how wrong I was. The guy was nothing but polite, professional and courteous. An ex BG fitter who now worked on sales due to back injury.

All in for one of their high end boilers, which is future proof and comes with a 15 year parts guarantee, £2400 fitted.

The guy came last Thursday night, the boiler is fitted and up and running and all finishing work completed an hour ago.

We have been kept fully informed by all parties concerned, the salesman, the team contact point, the delivery guys.

As somebody who is usually cynical about most things, I have to say that the service from start to finish and the price have all been excellent.

So based on my experience alone, I thoroughly recommend them.

keithgillyon wrote: »

just as a matter of interest what boiler did they fit ? make & model, did they do a powerflush in with that price ? the 15 year guarantee is that with you paying for their breakdown cover every month ?

exxxybeast wrote: »

it was their own model 330+.

No power flush as we have already had one recently.

We are already on their Homecare 400, however they give you 12 months free worth of Homecare 200 in this boiler price

I realise that we could have got the job done cheaper but would have to first find a reputable plumber and then have the confidence in them doing the job properly and also been around should there be any issues, which we have found BG always to be.

thanks for the feedback, just a couple of points & please don't take them the wrong way, they are really just meant as some info for anyone else.

i am glad that you got good service from them unfortunately a lot of people don't, looks like you got a good salesman & fitter.

the 330+ is a glowworm boiler so hardly top end stuff,

not quite sure what "future proof" means ?

15 year parts guarantee only if you carry on paying for the homecare as glowworm won't give you this nor will bg if you aren't paying for it,

i hope they did a water test to prove your system didn't need flushing or this will invalidate the warrentee for example if the heat exchanger blocks up,

the 12 months homecare is worth having if it covers the whole system as the boiler will come with it's own warrentee (although i'm not sure of the lenght of time),

price is alot better than i've seen from bg & i guess you can spread the payments so that makes things easier,

glad you are happy.

exxxybeast

My apologies, the boiler is actually one of their Potterton Precision models, although perhaps this isn't as good as we were told either?

We had a power flush last year and they guarantee this for 20 years, if of course you stay on their Homecare service, but not sure if they did a water test or not prior to fitting.

Future proof as in they can adjust the output if we extend and add further radiators (which we may well be doing).

I know we have probably paid more than we could have done, but that's always the price for using bigger names and from past experience

Gas_Safe_Installer

I've been a heating installer for 13 years now, and I visit 4-5 propertys a day for repairs or quotes for new boilers.
British Gas installed boilers or systems are really well fitted and well maintained. Full stop!!
Independant installed or maintained boilers and systems are a minefield of bodges and cut corners. full stop!!

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!!!!!!!!

Despite being my competition, they do a good job. I see it every day.

If you are a stingey old miser or a tight old scrounger, then yes get 'Mick' from down the pub to fit you a boiler for a fraction of the price.

YOU ARE NOT GETTING A BARGAIN!!!!!!

None of the posts on here tell of the problems that they have had after their 'BARGAIN' installs and the fact that they have had loads of problems, and are simply not qualified to realise that what they have had installed is a mediocre lash up. Then they want to blame the British Gas service engineers and call centers for their problems!!

So to sum up, Yes there are really good local installers like me!! but you play roulette. Will you get the quality job you are looking for? at a cheap price?...........Realisticly?... NO.

Imagine cars as an example... Kia Ceed 9995.00 new, Bargin??!!

Mercedes Benz CLK350 £39995 new?

Which would you rather have??? Especially if there was only £1K between them?

British Gas £3700

or 'Mick' £2700



I would rather service the BG one, simple vaccum, test and inspect!!!


Go for quality not cheap C

southcoastrgi

Lets hope your posts improve because most of what you have said above is complete crap

gropinginthedark

British Gas, British Telecom - both seem to have a reputation for being expensive and delivering poor quality and lamentable service.

I had a dreadful experience with BG when I was young and naive. Cost me £££ and days off work. I ended up diagnosing and fixing problems they couldn't, they'll only get through my front door again if they've got a court order.

mwbrown

we had a quote from BG (for a boiler replacement - they advised that it would be better to install in an outside utility room)... they came back at 2600 inc vat for the install......

The advised they could fit the boiler in the same place, but would need to get scaffolding to fit the vertical flue (the roof is about 10ft high at the highest point - where the flue comes out its about 7 ft from the ground!).... the guy advised that it would cost us £600 extra for the scaffolding (elf and safety and all that!! - funny how no other companies that have quoted has mentioned about scaffolding to fit the vertical flue!)..

Got a local company to fit the same boiler with vertical flue, trv's, wireless room stat and magnaclean for just over half the price (£1650) british gas wanted to fit the boiler in our chosen location (2600+600 scaffolding cost!).

flipside

I've just had a quote for a replacement boiler from BG. Things seemed to have changed somewhat from when this thread started: my quote was, to an extent, itemised. The total was £2780 for British Gas Worcester Greenstar 15Ri. The engineer who came was a nice guy, and seemed knowledgeable.

Discussing the quote with him, I was talking about the liklihood of a local plumber having cheaper labour charges, and he was talking about the likelihood of a local cowboy supplying non-genuine parts.

A point that he kept returning to was that because BG install tens of thousands of boilers a year, they can buy them cheaply, and so the cost of a boiler through them is cheaper than one through a local plumber. That seemed reasonable, although I still felt labour charges would be higher with BG, and he couldn't really counter that point.

After he left, I searched on the internet for the boiler he had quoted me for, and to my surprise it appears that I can buy the same boiler myself for £100 less than he quoted me.

His quote for the boiler was £789. There was also "Horizontal flue terminal £209.78". Assuming that I'm not missing anything, at plumbnation I can buy the boiler for £700 or a boiler and flue pack for £780.