BG offer four levels of care. Progressively, yearly:
One. Annual Boiler service £168
Two. Adds Central heating £204
Three. Adds Plumbing and drains £246
Four. Adds Electrics £276
The main exclusions are showers, taps and common sewers.
These costs seem high but can anyone comment from experience of this or other such services? I can't recall if British Gas was one of the companies that encouraged servicemen to condemn boilers automatically, in order to profit from supplying new ones.
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Is this any help?
heatgeek.com/british-gas-vs-homeserve-boiler-cover/
Expensive I would say. If you can afford to "self-insure" my instinct would be to do so. I rarely buy extended warranties for the same reasoning.
My heating system for 20 years was a bit flaky to start with but apart from half a dozen boiler services I only spent maybe £1200 on it, including replacing a few valve motors. Most of it related to sludge and that wouldn't have been covered.
If your concern is less about cost that being able to get somebody out quickly, can you get basic home emergency cover? It used to be widely available but I haven't seen it advertised for a while. Is there an add-on option under your house insurance policy?
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Eldest son had "full cover from BG" £600/£700 per year IIRC
Central heating boiler, radiators, tanks etc etc
He also paid for plumbing.
He had a central heating failure - hot water, no heat in radiators.
Multiple failures to fix it in a week. Ended with flooding into Kitchen, Dining & Lounge.
The technician report said a small leak.
Video of water running down walls, and ceiling soaked persuaded BG that they had a problem.
Local plumber took 30 mins to fix the boiler problem (newest Pump on hot tank was installed the wrong way round), local painter redecorated and it cost £1000 put it all back together. He was given £250 for his troubles on top of the bill. BG said they would fix it but by this time my son was not allowing anyone from BG except their assessor.
He has boiler cover /servicing now with 3rd party and self-insures for other matters.
BG plumbers, boilermen are not necessarily time served apprentices but have gone through "BG training"!
I just pay as & when repair is required - normally £250-£500 cover everything.
Washing machines, fridge, freezer, tumble drier, cooker etc are OK - they will get, at most 1 x repair BUT if over say 8++ years they will be replaced rather than fixed.
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BG was my energy provider. When I started the contract, Homecare was a freebie on sign up.
I ditched them last year and decided not renew homecare cover. They were kind enough to send me a booklet pre-renewal - glancing through this there were so many exclusions I came to the conclusion that in reality the policy covered not very much.
Your local water company will come out and fix any problems with sewers and drains. They will charge if it is your responsibility - but they tend to be reliable.
Showers and taps are the most likely source of leaks so excluding those is a nonsense.
A boiler service, depending where you are, is around £60-£100.
If you live in a reasonably well maintained house then typically you will have few problems anyway - you may have two problems one year and none for the next five.
Many home insurance policies will have emergency call out options which are much cheaper than BG and does at least get a tradesman round quickly if necessary. Or keep a note of a few people you have used previously. Even if you don't know an electrician, the plumber you used last year probably does!
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Very useful link, Manatee. I will check my household insurer re a possible add-on and come back on the other responses.
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Enough to rule out BG for me, Falkirk and Terry and my own experience leads me to think that a high degree of self insurance is mostly way to go. Our water company is excellent and my recent boiler and gas fire service by PlumbRite cost £110.
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Our boiler and system are covered by Domestic and General via the manufacturer, Baxi. Covers an annual service and repairs. It's a while since it last needed repairs; a faulty circuit board meant the pump wasn't called for on fire up leading to overheat cut out.
Only previous faults have been noisy/failed flue fans.
It's getting on a bit now - installed by the builders in 1998. It's starting to 'kettle' a bit if the boiler stat is set high but it's kept us toasty in the recent cold snap.
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>> Our boiler and system are covered by Domestic and General via the manufacturer, Baxi. Covers an annual service and repairs.
I gave it up when Baxi was not interested after 10? years.
>>It's a while since it last needed repairs; a faulty circuit board ........
Local guy came to us. He recommended a PCB repair company ( as mentioned in older posts ).
He called them and I paid with CC so no mark up.
The old PCB sent to the company and all is still working.
I chose the boiler model as it had a " cold case" and a cast iron heat exchanger.
It has lasted well.d
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>> Not a Guardian reader but it outlines the current happenings at BG.
>>
>> www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jan/07/british-gas-workers-strike-thursday-restructuring-talks
Pretty sure it will resolve itself as BG & Centrica spiral downwards. I'm never quite sure how Unions believe that industrial action will improve things in an ailing company.
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Not that most of the management are any better.
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"Pretty sure it will resolve itself as BG & Centrica spiral downwards. I'm never quite sure how Unions believe that industrial action will improve things in an ailing company."
As you go through life, you start to take notice of questions like this and, before you know where you are, you've moved from dogmatic lefty to somewhere slightly right of centre - I think it's called realism.
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As they say, if you're not left wing when you're 16 you have no heart. If you're still left wing when you're 36 you have no brain.
But what to do? Trusting the Conservatives with Welfare makes no more sense than trusting Labour with the economy. And that's just one example.
It's coming to something awful when Tony Blair starts to seem like an improvement.
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>It's coming to something awful when Tony Blair starts to seem like an improvement.
Blech!
Did you have to say that? I've just thrown up.
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>> >It's coming to something awful when Tony Blair starts to seem like an improvement.
>>
>> Blech!
>>
>> Did you have to say that? I've just thrown up.
TBF, until he started to think he was a global statesman, and the WOMD thing, he did a pretty good job, stuff was ticking along quite nicely, and the extreme right and the extreme left hated him, so he was doing summink right.
He's become unbearable since.
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>>TBF, until he started to think he was a global statesman, and the WOMD thing, he did a pretty good job
Yes, he was eventually caught up in the glory of being a global statesman which caused teh whole WOMD debacle.
If we could have the pre-2000 Blair we'd be ok.
Though we would have to have his wife kidnapped and held hostage down some unused coal mine where we couldn't hear her.
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Gonna have a job finding an uncapped mine.
Last edited by: VxFan on Sun 10 Jan 21 at 20:25
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I'd have a go at squeezing her through a keyhole.
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>> Pretty sure it will resolve itself as BG & Centrica spiral downwards. I'm never quite
>> sure how Unions believe that industrial action will improve things in an ailing company.
On the other hand if the management know the workers will just roll over and accept less pay/worse conditions then that's what'll happen. Things won't remain as they are but the effects can be less drastic. They've balloted and there's a large majority for action.
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>>They've balloted and there's a large majority for action.
I don't remember exactly, but wasn't it 85% out of 60%? That's 51%. Not really a "large" majority.
Decent management wouldn't walk on their employees and decent unions would accept reality.
However, Centrica's version of both will continue to drag the company down until it doesn't matter any more. Pity one or other wasn't prepared to be grown up.
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>> They've balloted and there's a large majority for action.
So did the miners and British Leyland.
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I had a new boiler 8 years ago and the independent who installed it services it each year for about £60 plus the odd part such as seal kits. It was a 5 year warranty condition to have it serviced and I have kept it going as cheap cover. He would come out for emergencies but it’s not been necessary. I think he changes about £75 an hour in normal working hours.
I save up any other minor plumbing jobs as necessary and he does those during his visit too. Last year for example he changed out three sets of taps which I supplied and he charged £25 for the lot.
In the past we were with BG who were more expensive and for 10 years kept trying to sell me another boiler, claiming I was at risk of parts not being available for an old boiler. Total nonsense, non trim items are pretty standard. Their area manager admitted as much when he rang to check why I was cancelling the agreement when the old boiler finally gave up. And of course my independent was way cheaper for the installing the new boiler too.
Also with BG I never saw the same engineer more than once. Whereas my indie regards it as “his” and takes an interest in what he is doing.
And of course he has never been on strike and has no expensive overheads apart from his van and kit.
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>>I don't remember exactly, but wasn't it 85% out of 60%? That's 51%. Not really a "large" majority.
The Civil Service PCS union would die for a majority like that! But yes, in real terms it's not great.
I suspect there is still a lot of pre-Nationalisation thinking going on in the Company, which won't be shared by the younger employees.
Last edited by: The Melting Snowman on Sun 10 Jan 21 at 17:55
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There is current radio advert for the new 'all electric Vauxhall Corsa' that is giving away one years free electricity... catch is that in the T&C's the outside charge point has to be installed by BG, not sure if part of the deal is that they also have to provide the electricity.
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I've just paid £70 to 'my man' for the service and replacement of the Combi-Care cartridge. He fitted the system almost nine years ago so knows it inside out. He has exactly the same boiler in his house so is well experienced (W-B Greenstar 24i)
He is really busy and sometimes can't visit for a few weeks although I am certain in an emergency he would fit me in. He's also one of those rare tradespeople in my experience that responds to messages.
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We have an insurance plan for the central heating that was sorted by SMWBO from a supposedly reputable company.
On Wednesday we woke to no heating or hot water.
Called them out. They sent an plumber from an independent co around who said faulty electronic circuit board and the company will call back to arrange a repair.
They called back and said "Your boiler is over 8 years old, tough". I hadn't bothered with looking at the docs and in the very small print it does give a limit of 8 years.
I called the independent plumber who said he didn't want the job as they are too busy with insurance work.
Or old plumber is retired and a couple of recommended guys were booked up so I used Check-a-trade and got a 10/10 recommended guy, he came in the evening after finishing all his other jobs.
He thinks the boiler is about 35 years old. There are no circuit boards to fail in it. The ignition is working fine.
He said the boiler is functioning save for the fact that it's blocked with sludge and probably blocking the flow sensor.
He took some pipes off and they are standard plumbing sizes and all that is left inside them is about 3 or 4mm. The rest is black goo.
So, he will be cleaning out the sludge and fitting a new pump (it has been making some very strange noises recently) and new 2/3 port switch - which we had planned to replace anyway because it wasn't switching between heating and hot water properly.
This is going to be expensive. The money pit keeps giving!
Just goes to show that even with 5* cover, there are so many loopholes that they will avoid paying.
(Oh, we wondered why the immersion heater wasn't working. We hadn't tried it before because the central heating worked. The switch and light works but doesn't go anywhere. The immersion element has been removed and capped off!)
Last edited by: zippy on Fri 22 Jan 21 at 19:46
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I can't keep up with this plumbing lark. My PM today said he'd use surface mounted risers and thermostats for the showers in our new build, rather than boxing them, in for easier repairs and maintenance should anything go wrong, and did I agree?
I said I certainly wanted the pumps accessible, I've had to replace these blighters before. "You won't have any pumps, it'll all be mains pressure" says he.
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Hope you’ve got good water pressure then. I’m in the process of having an extension built thus necessitating the moving of the boiler from the kitchen to the airing cupboard upstairs. I was originally intending to have a Combi boiler but when I checked the mains flow rat it was barely 10 litres per minute which would not be adequate, certainly not for a decent shower if someone is running a tap elsewhere at the same time. I elected to continue with a traditional heat only system, retaining the hot water cylinder.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Fri 22 Jan 21 at 21:46
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>> Hope you’ve got good water pressure then. I’m in the process of having an extension
>> built thus necessitating the moving of the boiler from the kitchen to the airing cupboard
>> upstairs. I was originally intending to have a Combi boiler but when I checked the
>> mains flow rat it was barely 10 litres per minute which would not be adequate,
>> certainly not for a decent shower if someone is running a tap elsewhere at the
>> same time. I elected to continue with a traditional heat only system, retaining the hot
>> water cylinder.
I am pondering, nay more than pondering, going to replace my H/W and C/H core system next spring. Currently its indirect H/W cylinder and H/W flow is useless.
Its very simple, three sinks, one bath, one shower all on the same level. So ideal for a combi.
How did you test your mains flow?
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When I tested mine, ages ago, I just timed how long it took to fill a 10 litre watering can and scaled up:)
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>> When I tested mine, ages ago, I just timed how long it took to fill
>> a 10 litre watering can and scaled up:)
Scaled up? blimey I just timed a 1 litre jug at 7 seconds. 8.5 litres per minute. Wonder what pressure my mains is. I'll be out at the main stopcock in the road in the morning to make sure its fully cranked open. Bet the hole is full of sheet
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 22 Jan 21 at 23:39
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I was told, though only by my plumber, when having an unvented cylinder installed shortly after we moved here (11 years ago) that under 10 litres per minute was poor, 10 to 15 OK and over 15 good. Ours was 17 I think.
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“How did you test your mains flow?”
Initially with a bucket calibrated at 5 litres.
The plumber confirmed my measurements with a weir gauge.
www.bes.co.uk/monument-water-flow-cup-weir-gauge-dual-measure-11491/
I suspect the main cause of the low pressure is that the feed from the mains is 15mm copper pipe and it’s a fairly long run to the mains.
What sort of system were you considering?
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>> What sort of system were you considering?
I was planning to replace the indirect system, with mains cold to all outlets, and a simple combi for hot water & ch. We have 12 rads, one shower, one bath, two basins, and a sink to service, a 35kw combo would fit the bill perfectly. I'll measure the flow we get from the pumped shower to see what's acceptable. With only two in the house, second user syndrome is N/A
Last edited by: VxFan on Sat 23 Jan 21 at 21:14
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That’s basically what we intended to do. Like you only two in the house so I could live with not being able to run two shares simultaneously but the Combi would have given an inadequate shower and would take forever to fill a bath. The plumber thought it might be borderline acceptable but I didn’t want to take that chance. I think most Combi manufacturers specify 10 litres per minute as a min flow rate.
10 litres per min is, I believe, the minimum flow rate that water companies aim for but there is no legal requirement to achieve that figure.
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>> That’s basically what we intended to do. Like you only two in the house so
>> I could live with not being able to run two shares simultaneously but the Combi
>> would have given an inadequate shower and would take forever to fill a bath.
Good to see you've kept the posh accent, where you pronounce 'showers' as 'shares'.
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>> Good to see you've kept the posh accent, where you pronounce 'showers' as 'shares'.
He meant shares not shours
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>> I said I certainly wanted the pumps accessible, I've had to replace these blighters before.
>> "You won't have any pumps, it'll all be mains pressure" says he.
Whats the pressure and heating source for your H/W going to be?
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Air source + electric, big tank. Pressure? I've my own idea that I'd like to be reassured about mains pressure and flow, I plan to talk to the plumber about it.
On the occasion of the fire that led to this house build, the fire service said they were not happy with the pressure from a nearby hydrant. They were looking for a neighbour with a swimming pool they could pump from. That doesn't really tell me whether there is enough pressure for my showers but it does suggest I should find out.
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I installed a replacement 50 gallon tank in the loft but on a 4/5 foot tall stand.
(The cold feed to the cylinder was fitted just above above the cold feed to the shower)
2 x 22mm feeds to an Aqualisa control in the shower room on the ground floor.
The larger diameter flexible pipe to the shower head maintains the flow rate.
It gives me a wetting shower rather than a massage but of course is a little slow to warm up due to the long pipe run.
I chickened out fitting an Essex flange.
As it is a very old cylinder a Surrey flange was a non starter.
No pumps to worry about and yet again the cold tank came in useful this week when one of the large mains failed and we had no water supply for a few hours.
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When planning two bathroom refurbs, which I’d lived with for 21 years but never liked, I decided to junk the problematic original boiler, and get rid of the HW cylinder and tanks in my loft. Fitted an Intergas Eco combi, with a Canetis SuperFlow which acts like a pre heater. This is located immediately below the boiler.
I can now have hot water at 3 points simultaneously..in normal times I often have friends staying over, so maybe 5+ in the house, so it’s both useful and future proofing the house if I sell to a larger family because I’ve got 3 too many bedrooms.
The difference in flow rates in both showers and bath filling has improved tremendously.
At the same time I fitted Honeywell EvoHome wireless TRVs on each radiator. Even a numpty like me can operate that system.
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That’s sounds like a good system LL. The troubl I have is low water pressure. You can’t get more out than you put in and it’s the limiting overall factor for a Combi and System Boiler.
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British Gas HomeCare - Manatee
