Boiler cover

Thank you .I hope it's saved you a good bit of money.Maybe I'll try and negotiate a better deal too.Everything is just so over priced in general!

Hi. No I haven’t found anything better but have negotiated a much lower price with British Gas which involves paying for call outs. Next time I’ll do more advance research but I don’t think there are many available alternatives. Good luck!

Hi aonk,I've just had my email for my British Gas homecare too.Can I ask if you have found anything better? I am so wary of other companies as we have been with BG 30 years but I am determined not to stay with them this time as the price is ridiculous.

LadyGracie It has worked well for us for nearly 30 years.

LadyGracie

We found a local gas engineer, he services our boiler annually for £60. We were with British Gas for years until their prices became extortionate and the period between services was getting longer.

Same experience, same decision made. Works well for us, so far.

I use a local engineer. No covers.

W use the local firm of Heating and plumbing engineers.

Their offices are a couple of hundred yards away and we are on first name terms with them. We have. at times rung them up and a man has walked straight round to look at the problem.

We do not pay an annual fee. They ring us when our service is due, and we pay as we go, - which reminds me they sent me a reminder for our service a few days ago, I must book it.

I'm with Utility Warehouse, who offer a free annual boiler service. Policy is £18 / month.

We use a local Corgi registered plumber who runs a home maintenance company with other professionals. He used to have a monthly payment scheme but said that people were happier paying for an annual service and whatever needed doing whenever. We know that we can phone one number and a suitable professional will be with us within 24 hours.
Ask around locally for recommendations before committing to a national company.

We had cover with SSE for some years, but it became impossible to get a date for a service after they passed the arrangements for booking on to someone else (possibly Corgi??). We started using a local plumber who services it annually and is dependable.

One of our DC who is in a rented house, has cover arranged by the landlord with British Gas, and when the boiler went off on December 22nd, they were offered a call on January 7th! They decided to contact a local plumber rather than freeze over Christmas and New Year.

My elderly mother was paying over the top for BG cover and the service times for her boiler stretched to 18 months between for an increasingly expensive service.

My mother is unable to manage her own affairs and I arrange her service, and call outs and BG were most unhelpful with timings and contact, despite her age and disability, and my distance away.

I now use a local company, who are much cheaper, very reliable, and more helpful in her situation.

Same as LG and kitty we have a local man who is very reasonable and responsive to any issues.

Same as several up-post here.
BG’s prices rose, the gap between services grew to the point that we’d almost missed a year.
Many years ago, we changed to a local chap, who is always available to help and charges £60 for the annual service. My SinL was paying BG not much less per month for her contract!

Our boiler is 3 years old, has a 10 year warranty, providing it is serviced annually. This is done by our regular plumber/ heating engineer, who has just done it for this year.

Last year’s bill for service was £75, he’s not the cheapest, but is honest, reliable and his work is good.

My mum had a BG contract for many years, her boiler was about 40 years old but was working ok. BG said they would cancel the contract unless she bought a new boiler. She didn’t agree to this so was left without cover but her boiler carried on working until she had to go into a nursing home 15 years later. As far as I know it’s still going.
My boiler is over 30 years old and we have never had a service contract.
The problem is that new boilers have built in obsolescence and don’t last much more than about 10 years,

We had our cover through Worcester Bosch (once their service/parts guarantee was over) which is expensive but includes all (genuine) parts. Of course ours is a WB boiler.

*a penny more
I should say.

We have British Gas cover and yes the premium has gone up 15%.
We had a breakdown recently and our urgent call outs were responded to within the day on 2 occasions. They made 5 visits during 2 weeks until it was fixed but we did not have to pay a penny.

Thank you all for your helpful comments. British Gas has been reliable in the past but the waiting time for a call out is getting longer.

I’ve had my boiler and plumbing cover with British Gas for 15 years. I usually managed to negotiate an acceptable renewal price each year but not this year. They wanted to increase to £38 a month 😳 or if I accepted a £60 call-out excess it would be £28. No room for negotiation so I cancelled. I did always have prompt and efficient service when I needed them.

I’ve taken a chance with HomeServe for the coming year. £14.50 for the same policy I had with BG ie boiler cover, annual service and plumbing and drains cover. There is a £60 excess on it but it’s half the cost BG wanted for identical policy. I read their reviews and they were no worse than BG so I’ve taken a chance to try it. My boiler is 10 years old and HomeServe did a boiler check before accepting my application. The engineer did the full service while he was here.

I booked it via Topcashback site and hopefully due £36 cash back from them.

Exactly what LadyGracie said.

We needed a new boiler and his quote to fit exactly the same one was half BG's. And now, he turns up in September or October and services it for £60. He is reliable and turns up if we need him for other plumbing stuff so I am confident he will appear should we need him for the boiler.

After poor service from British Gas we are with Corgi. We have needed them a couple of times in the last 24 months. I think we will need a new boiler, but the engineer (who came promptly because we are ‘old’) said it wasn’t a big problem and just fixed it.

We found a local gas engineer, he services our boiler annually for £60. We were with British Gas for years until their prices became extortionate and the period between services was getting longer.

We are with BG and have had their homecare cover for over 25 years, yes they are expensive but if we have had any problems they have been out promptly whereas two friends of mine paying much less than we do have been waiting much longer, and they have had different companies, we are happy with BG but agree with you the premium has escalated, for us it’s a case of better the devil you know.

British Gas got a pretty poor press over the winter and their response times were appalling.
I have Corgi Homecare (other firms are available) and have had excellent (next day) service