That's often a hidden cost. Someone I work with had to take "holiday" for the 6 different visits for BG to fix a single fault on his boiler.
Fault finding seemed to be guessing which part had failed, realising that the spare wasn't in the van and leaving. The next fitter would come with the original identified spare, fit it, find it didn't cure the problem and then make a guess of his own.......
We had this at our Village Hall some years ago. A BG emplyee said the boiler was unrepairable. I found an independent boiler specialist who took one look made a phone call "george, have a got a thingummy for this boiler?". George said yes and the boiler was back in service 2 days later. I still use that boiler fitter for other jobs.
We once had something similar with a washing machine. (Can't remember the make) Fitter 1 came and diagnosed the fault but the part had to be ordered. Fitter 2 arrived saying fitter 1 didn't know his job and that wasn't the fault, So another part was ordered. Fitter 3 had the part that #2 ordered and it didn't cure the fault. At that point I wrote to the MD of the company. Fitter 1 was perfectly correct in diagnosing the fault, but I forgot to mention he was black and, as far as Fitter 2 was concerned, he was an ignorant -****. As far as I was concerned he was better educated and more polite than either of the other 2.
Quite. What BG actually means is their stores no longer have the parts in stock. A very different thing.
A bit over £200, regardless of the fault. I called them out recently. They came the same day, the guy was here for nearly 3 hours during which time he replaced a load of stuff. Failed gasket meant a new wiring harness was part of that. For an extra £40 I got a year's cover.
For the added gubbins over a gas-valve-and-thermostat job, I don't think they're dis-proportionally less reliable than anything else, even combis. I reckon they're on a par with any other household device.
What I do think is a problem is the massive over-pricing that seems to accompany the whole area: Buy a bare boiler and it's a few hundred quid. Get someone to supply and fit a replacement and it's £3k.
Similarly, I wonder how good any fitters are at diagnosis. All this "Oh, it needs a new PCB" stuff and random part swapping guesswork when they're simply devices to troubleshoot and diagnose I've found. And of the dozen that have come my way to look at, most are at the 10+ year old stage with one just-out-of-warrantee diverter valve.
Rambling now.
I found them a pretty good bunch to deal with. They admitted the pump had been cross threaded so didn't charge. They also replaced 2 other things because "up to 3" parts were allowed. To have the job completed on the same day is a big plus, especially in the winter
If it is a Vaillant Turbomax, it *should* last a long longer than 12 years.
That's exactly what I have in the shop and it must be 12 years old by now. It's running at the minimum 12 hours a day and quite often 18 hours through the whole of the heating season. Admittedly the diverter valve took a break from operation about 5 years ago but we don't use it for hot water now anyway so I haven't bothered to change it. Other than that it just "works"
:¬)
Pete@
Worcester Bosch.
Yes this adage tends to go for things like Pet insurance as well!
Brian
Ta
In article , Phil L wrote: }Boiler insurance is tantamount to fraud anyway, BG were among the first to }offer this piece of crap to it's customers for about 20 per month. I used }to work in the insulation industry and often went to install insulation }(free of charge via a govt grant) to customers of BG who had been refused }help with their boilers, often after paying this 20 for years....BG would }simply say, 'the boiler's too old and can't be repaired' or 'It's not up to }current standards and we can't legally repair it'
If the boiler was such that the insurance would never pay out, that was surely a case of mis-selling, and the premiums should be refunded. Insurance is a contract of 'utmost good faith' whereby the insurer must disclose to the consumer anything that might be relevant to their decision of whether of not to buy the insurance. (It used to be symmetric so consumers also had to volunteer any relevant information but that changed as a result of The Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representations) Act 2012).
It's not straight insurance as it also involves annual maintenance, etc. And also usually covers the entire installation. The thing is nothing can be expected to last forever, so you'd need some form of contract which covered replacements in perpetuity.
Snag is BG have bigger lawyers than most customers. ;-)
Mmm, true. Snag is also that most people don't read the small print before signing, or even if they do, is it written in such a way that the ordinary person can deduce that it may well never pay out? Perhaps these contracts need to be time-limited - or perhaps they are, but that aspect is downplayed.
Is this another reference to the EU?
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