Looking to organise central heating cover, inc rads, hot water tank etc. Prices vary quite dramatically, varying from about £7 per month (Cover Heat) up to over £20 with British Gas. T&C state that the heating system must have the recommended annual service. How much *roughly* is this for a conventional gas boiler, hot water tank in airing cupboard etc?
Also seen cover from Powergen which heating cover includes an initial inspection and service and annual inspection & service for about £9 per month. However there is an excess of £50 payable on each repair. Others do not have an excess.
Unless it's a particularly old or unreliable system, just put the money in a high interest savings account and use it when you need to pay for repairs/servicing.
The Powergen £9/month deal is a £50 fixed price repair not a £50 excess. Pay £13/month to avoid the £50 charge. That's £48 a year or 1 fault. Most systems don't break down as often but lemons do. A contract provider will dump a lemon as soon as possible. PG say 7 years.
Not having a maintenance contract is quite a risk for a diy-newby. Fine if you can manage without heating for a few days in winter while you faff around trying to get an independent repairer turn up or get spares. Some spares such as pcbs can be unreliable and bl**dy expensive. It's a risk issue mainly and only you can decide.
Same thing in my eyes - still costs you £50 per repair.
Think I am going to go with the £13 pm Powergen deal. With a young family, going without heat during the winter months is not very clever in my eyes. Worth every penny for peace of mind.
Take a careful look at the small print in terms of what they provide and when.
BG's advertising of its offering gave the impression that their "engineers" were like paramedics and hence would arrive and fix problems in the next 10 minutes. They didn't actually *say* that they do this, but the advertising gives the strong impression of that. Therefore it might be reasonable to assume that a call first thing in the morning might result in someone that day or later in the day for someone the following day.
A few years back I had a BG contract and had need to call them to fix a problem. At a not particularly busy time of year (early spring), they were on 5-7 days response. That was before a "discussion" which brought it down to three followed by a fix and a cancellation of the contract.
Whether Powergen's contract is any better I don't know. Have a look and see whether there is a contracted time commitment. It would be surprising if there is.
Therefore, if you are seeking a peace of mind arrangement, this kind of deal is not really going to provide it if your concern is time to fix. You would be better off with an arrangement with a reliable local fitter who would at least attempt to fit in your fix with his other work.
If you are looking for some kind of predictability of cost, then this will give something of that, although if a repair becomes too expensive, the weasel words may let them offer you something else which may not be suitable. From a financial perspective, you would almost certain be better off having a household slush fund in the form of a high interest account (relative term) into which you put money to pay for repairs and replacements to domestic equipment.
With our Saga home insurance we have Domestic Emergency Cover which provides up to GBP750 for any call out, including, happily, central heating / hot water breakdown. We have to have the system checked/serviced annually.
They don't turn up a few minutes after you call them - like you hope an ambulance will. Make sure you have alternative means of heating - electric fan heaters, etc.
Your opinion and as far as a description of the product, wrong. For example the Powergen product is described as "Central Heating Care gives you maintenance, repair and emergency breakdown protection for your gas boiler and central heating system".
I agree the T&C is a bit light on teeth but if they don't deliver in accordance with the product description You would easily find a claim to make.
The real issue is is there any other way to reliably get "emergency service". I suspect not, but I'm listening.
As I acknowledged the T&C are silent on that issue. Hey its a sort of insurance, so its woolly. But the offer is clear, a two hour timeslot after one telephone call. Today, tomorrow, next week, who knows. My point and question is what is the more responsive guaranteed emergency service? The unasked question is at what cost.
I've never bothered with CH insurance as I installed it myself and can cope with any repairs needed. Although it has only had one actual stoppage of working in over 25 years. Other faults ( TRVs jamming, etc) were really just mainentance issues which could be fixed as a non emergency.
But my brother has got insurance - BG - and he's certainly needed it. Usually more than one emergency per year. And often not fixed for days - with the system totally shut down. All these faults could have been fixed there and then if BG had an adequate stock of spares for his common boiler
- but they don't.
Since most faults are of the common variety I'd like to see a company offered a guaranteed response time and refund of the annual premium if the fault can't be fixed within XX hours.
Took BG numerous visits to fix non-emergency pressure loss on my mum's system. All expansion vessels leak apparently. Eventually the fault was fixed and it wasn't the expansion vessel. In between times the heating failed because BG failed to ensure the expansion vessel was properly charged at annual maintenance even though they knew the system exhibited a pressure loss and they were wrongly claiming it was the expansion vessel and normal.
Not defending that near fraudulent ineptness but *still* waiting for anyone to tell me where I can get my mum reliable emergency cover and at what price.
happy with that, though the faults that worry me are control board faults because the spares are particularly expensive.
In my case (Worcester Bosch) I've decided the best plan is to ring the service dept if the boiler goes wrong. £200 covers up to 3 part replacements, and at least I know they'll have them on board. At £100+ for the Grundfoss pump with the Bosch label not very well glued to the front, it's a no brainer IMO.
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