The Rig

iTrader: (13)

Anyone had a new boiler installed by them ?

i have an old Vaillaint boiler,prob gonna be £600-£700 to fix it,so thought et a new boiler installed.

phoned them up, they get a sales guy out etc to quote you,bit like bloody double glazing.

anyone any 1st hand experience with them ?

cheers

stilover

Will be very interested in this thread myself. My combi bolier really needs replacing this summer. Was thinking of using British gas as I have there maintanance contract.

Feel safer using someone like British Gas than trawling through the Yellow pages deciding who are good and who are Cowboys.

every1sgottablue1

Errrmmm they are bloody expensive. Use a independent specialist, just make sure they are Corgi registered, you can always barter the price

Shark Man

My gran had them fit a central heating system It worked out quite favourable beacuse there was a government grant available so it was heavily discounted.

Seeing it was a flat: The Bloke did a very tidy job - Used a Vailant boiler (would only ever use Vailant or Worcester) and managed to hide most of the pipework, so very little was exposed. Located the boiler in a sensible position. Cleaned up afterwards etc.

However, I'm certain there are some bad installers who contract for BG as well. So I guess she was lucky.

Bit like the Corgi badge - doesn't gaurantee you against a rip-off bodger.

MikeCardiff

iTrader: (2)

Get them to give you a quote just for the boiler, then look at somewhere like screwfix.com for the price you can get one for. Fair enough a lot of the total cost will be in the fitting and labour, but sometimes they add huge markups to the boiler costs.

I would say try independents instead, a lot wont mind you supplying the boiler yourself so you can save quite a lot.

spender

BG quoted me over 4k for boiler replacement 18 months ago.
Sales type bloke was quoting for new rad valves etc because of the higher pressure the boiler would be running blah blah blah

I went up the local plumbing shop, bought a boiler from them and asked them to recommend someone to fit it.........£1500 later it was in and running fine.

Uses over 25% less gas than previous 15 year old combi to boot.

andy97

iTrader: (1)

Make sure you buy a bosch boiler

OllyK

Expect to pay double what a local CORGI plumber will charge you for. Also watch out about the various regulations. BG are absolute sticklers. They looked round the house and said there's only 1 place we can fit the boiler and that's in the kitchen. I asked how as the kitchen had just been refitted and there was no space. They suggested we ripped the kitchen out. I went with a local and the boiler went back were the old one came from. Still have BG maitenance and everytime they come out they tell me the flue position doesn't meet regs

corradoboy

Definitely get a recommended local CORGI plumber to quote. Don't BG still sub-contract this work out anyway, meaning you'll probably get the same bloke except you'll not only be paying him, but contributing to BG's £640m profits. If you can find a friendly enough plumber and plumbers merchant you can get the boiler at trade price and just pay labour

They recently fleeced my Mum & Dad out of £2.5k to remove their 30yo CH system and fit an electric fire in their living room (worth about £70), an electric heater (£30) in the hallway and a water only boiler I didn't realise the old person stupid gullibility had set in and try to keep up with anything they're considering now

SiPie

Agree

rossyboy

iTrader: (8)

Yup. British Gas were approx double for us compared to what it actually cost when done by a CORGI independent.

idf101

I would suggest that there are pros and cons, whilst i agree BG are more expensive in installing a new bolier you may wish to consider the back up in the event of anything going wrong.
Once an independant has fitted the boiler you might have all kinds of trouble getting them back in the event of a problem and there will be no after service.
So i think you need to consider the next few years as well as the initial cost, as in the long run it may better with BG who when all said and done will not dissapear or never turn up, waiting for the part etc etc.

vindaloo

It's not as cut and dried as you are making out. Support services are sub-contracted and it comes down to the diligence of the installers and maintenance men. Who are probably the same people you'd ask over in the first place.

Maintenance contract is priced in to the BG quotes but that's hardly £'000s a year.

J.

JimmyBFC

Spot on, British Gas arn't all there cracked up to be, infact,. there useless, like there CO detectors that tend to get malfunctions at 3am and then we get rang up to go and sort it...

I don't like the way they pressure OAP's to replace boilers that are basically still good to go either, they claim they can't get parts to make it look like they can't be fixed....b0llocks...this happened to someone I know so they rang me up, i just went to my local place and bought the said part that was apparently "extinct" and duly fitted it.

*********.

davegtt

Bought my Worcester boiler for about £500 and got my dad to fit it for free in a day (works for BG) Anyone wanting £2500 for it is someone to steer clear off IMO. Should give you an idea for labour charges as like I say, literrally took less than a days work.

OllyK

So take out a maitenance contract with BG after you've had your new boiler installed by an indie, that's what I did.

JimmyBFC

Ive had to cap off ppl's gas who've got British Gas maintenance contracts and then see steam coming out of their ears as their told "we can't get an engineer there for 3 days"

Not bad for £20 odd per month eh

mart360

Had british gas install gas & CH for me back in the 80,s


NEVER AGAIN



from the day the engineer turned up to do the survey (stank of booze), and complained about the difficulty of the job, to the install that failed within 7 days, and took numerous call outs, and a front page spread in the local paper to elicit a response. (following the 9 page letter of complaint) i wouldn't touch them with a barge pole.

They even tried to argue with my brother in law who is a corgi trained gas engineer, that a fault wasnt a fault. (and that was with the replacement system they had to fit )

When Potterton turned up to investigate the fault, they cut BG down to size in an instant. the supposed non fault, was known to them, and took 5 mins to fix. the BG senior engineer, didnt know where to look.


Mart

c_maguire

Unless British Gas have some once in a lifetime promotion on at the moment that I don't know about, then there is only one sensible way to go. As with most tradesmen the right approach is to always employ one on recommendation from someone you trust. Get an independent in and he should be able to supply you with a boiler appropriate to your needs, rather than perhaps trying to flog you a boiler from a manufacturer that his company are tied in to. And if he's good then he'll care about his reputation and that's got to be good for you. As someone has already said, British Gas are a large concern that will use sub-contractors as necessary, so just because one customer gets a good job done doesn't mean you will too (unless you get the same engineer).
Kevin

phil_wrx

iTrader: (2)

british gas are worse than dick turpin, i had problems and needed a new boiler, rang them for a quote just over £2000 just to install a boiler????? i worked then for a national distributor and the boiler they quoted for is £800 with flue wholesale, they wanted £1500????? thing is some poor old dear will pay it thinking they aint the cowboys