Just had our boiler cover renewal letter today.
£219 !!!!!!!!I can't believe we've been paying this much every year - my vague recollection is it was about £60 a year..
It's a 12 year old Vaillant - probably due a replacement anyway.
I wonder if a newer boiler could just connect exactly to the existing plumbing ?
Get the installation manuals on-line for the existing and proposed replac ement boilers; it should give dimensions to locate all the connections.
Who's the insurer?
Is it Vaillant themselves? As a wheeze to cost nominally the same as a new install over a 5 year guarantee period?
Domestic and General ...
I said to SWMBO that 5 years of £200 gives us a new boiler.
I've often wondered why anyone pays these extravagant sums for boiler cover - rather than investing in a decent one in the first place which doesn't go wrong every year or more. And keep a couple of heaters around for the odd occasion when it does need fixing.
I regularly receive calls telling me that my "boiler insurance is about to run out" and I can extend it with the caller's company. I tell them that my boiler is now 26 years old (it will be in the summer) and I never had insurance.
I heartily disagree.
For the £15 a month we paid BG at our last place, we not only got a free annual service (whatever you may view of the value of that), which would have cost roughly half to two-thirds of the premiums, but if a fault ever did arise, there was no risk of the hefty call-out fee - with labour and parts included.
The annual service one year saw a slight drip noticed. It turned out to be a crack on the heat exchanger. The boiler was stripped and rebuilt around a new exchanger - free. Add in a couple of other call-outs, and a gas safety certificate provided for free whilst we were renting the place out, and it was money VERY well spent, imho.
Have we got similar on our new place? No. But we're not on mains gas here (tank LPG), and I've not got off my arse to investigate the options yet.
It's the frog and boiling water trick ...
The boiler was installed - brand new in 2002. From memory, we were offered - and took up Vaillants 5 year plus guarantee - so 6 years cover (1st year under warranty). From then we used a firm through Severn Trent, and somehow got moved to D&G.
Last years premium was £194, which I am amazed I let slip through then - possibly because we were having other things going on.
So this years (already cancelled) premium was £219 - the day after we hear inflation is *down* to 1.7%.
(219-194)/194*100 = 12.88%. Greedy bunts.
Looking at the Vaillant website, their current range (on the outside) looks identical to what we have.
We've had to use the call out service twice. Once a part failed which had clearly been redesigned since installation. The replacement looked nothing like the original. The other time an electric valve failed which switched between heating and hot water.
Our boiler was installed in 1977 (when the house was built) and although I have it professionally serviced, I've never bothered with insurance, and never missed it.
Although I suspect modern boilers are less reliable. They're certainly more complex.
Dolce & Gabbana service boilers. Wow.
FTOAD - Domestic and General ;)
BG told my brother who'd had a service contract since new that parts were no longer available and he'd need a new boiler. Offering a discount as a carrot.
Parts were still available from the maker.
The 'discount' was a joke - still more expensive than a local installer.
The boiler they did fit was rubbish and broke several times a year. Repairing it often took several days.
New decent boiler was bought and fitted by an independant after only 5 years of misery. No problems since.
The original boiler was pretty reliable and only required a couple of repairs in its 20 or so year life. The cost of the service contract would have paid for a new one several times over.
FTOAD?
For The Of Avoidance Doubt ...
The boiler I was referring to had been fitted by BG - in large part because no local independent supplier/fitter could be arsed to come and quote.
The Worcester-Bosch they fitted was the one picked from a fairly long list of boilers available. It was broadly reliable, and quickly fixed when it wasn't.
I bet if he'd have bought the decent boiler first time round, it'd have been the same story, no matter who fitted it. Likewise, if the indie had fitted the s**te cheapie originally...
OK, so a third of the annual cost. If you can get a local gas-safe plumber to drop everything and come running. Which, when it came to getting the damn thing fitted in the first place, we most certainly couldn't.
Fek Thou Off And Die! :)
Scarily close to FOAD but the smiley suggests that this was not the intended meaning :-)
Indeed not ...
Aye Fang Kew.
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