My boiler is about 7 years old now and I've never bothered to have it serviced… just one of those things I've never got sorted, you know how it is.

I've been having a look at the British Gas Homeserve 100 offer but have read conflicting reviews, has anyone here got any experience of them, at £140 per annum is it worth it?

Cheers
JB

They can be a pain in the arse when it comes to servicing – they'll only come out Monday – Friday, 8am – 6pm, they won't give you a definite time, so you have to book the entire day off work, sometimes they don't even bother to show up, meaning you have to book another day off work, and their website is broken. IME.

Our boiler breaks down once a year when it starts to get cold so we make great use out of our BG contract. I think they are pretty good. IMO

Nothing but bad. Look around for a good local company.

Terrible, don't touch em. I had horrendous experience with them last winter, not turning up when they should, the people answering the phone just didn't care (shocker) then they would never have the part in stoc and orderit then not turn up at the agreed time to fir the new part wheich they never ordered. To$$ers. Find yourself a good local company.

My experience has been pretty positive.
An Engineer turns up within 24hrs after reporting a fault, phones about 30 mins before he arrives to check someone is in.
We had one occasion when we had to wait 24hrs for a part, otherwise OK.

Variable.

Can be OK in that they have a lot of people around to service boilers, so there's always coverage, but getting them to you can be a pain. We were quoted 4 days when our boiler packed up mid-winter. I had to point out I had young kids and the in-laws (80s) with us, so we should probably get some priority. Still 2+ days to get an engineer.

Then it took 3 attempts to fix the problem. That said, when they decided to sort it properly, they changed a lots of parts and did all the radiator valves for free as well, seems likely just about everything bar the heat exchanger got swapped out. Seems to be almost entirely down to the engineer you get.

Watch out for the "uneconomic to repair" clause; if your boiler is 7 years old then in another couple it's very likely that they'll start to have problems getting spare parts, at which point you'll have been paying for a service that you can't use.

Try and get a local gas engineer when your boiler fails in the cold weather and if you do sell a kidney in readiness for the bill

So for my less than Ideal combi boiler, worth every penny

Not brilliant as they come out quickly but always have to order parts so you end up taking at least 2 half days off work They do however keep our 10 year old boiler working without the need to shell out £3000 for a new one. As it breaks down at least once a winter it is very hand to have the homecare cover.

We have a deal with npower for gas and leccy which gives us two free inc parts call outs a year. Our boiler is 13 years old and we use our call outs every year. Been on this deal for about 4 years. They are fairly good but only quote morning or afternoon.

Think of the planet not your wallet get a new one!

We've had good VFM over the years from our Homecare agreement, however I wouldn't bother with the extended cover for kitchen items etc, they rarely manage to fix things properly, although when our old washing machine died and they condemned it they did provide a contribution to a new machione, was about £75 IIRC, so better than a kick in the teeth. Took a massive battle to get them to admit they couldn't repair it, they tried for about 8 weeks, useless engineer, got cheesed with us saying "see you next week", as we were fairly certain it would break on the first wash we tried. Eventually a regional type person came out and condemned it, but we ended upo with his mobile tel number, he was so fed up with the local guy not doing his job properly.

They do say morning or afternoon, but no more specific times than that.

We had this – first time they came out as planned but when questioned, the guy said that the words "annual service" were a bit mis-leading – they just carry out a safety check! I'd had a local company service a boiler at a previous house and it was stripped down and new parts installed – nothing with BG! The following year, the small print changed and if your boiler is of a certain age, they won't replace if it breaks down – they will just knock a grand off the price of a new model!! Binned instantly…

Just in case you do not remember, last winter was one of the coldest for decades. You couldn't get hold of engineers and if you did it cost a fortune.

Over 8 years BG have been good value for me and saved me £100's of pounds. Be wary of getting parts from them that don't come under the agreement, they cost way more than you can get them else where.

Overpriced bunch of scammers. Had issues with our 15 year old combi last winter so had BG out to fix it under our homecare agreement. So while we were in boiler mode we thought we'd get BG to quote for a new A* rated unit. They sent out a rather smarmy salesman who quoted us 5.5k to swap out the boiler plus informing us that we needed a 22mm gas mains feed installing as the existing was only 15mm. Told the engineer who was fixing our boiler this info and he just laughed and told me his Dad worked for a gas installation company that do work for BG and that I ought to get him out to quote, which is what we did. His quote came to 2k!!!, and here's the best bit, we already had 22mm pipe installed, the BG salesman was telling porkies to push the price up. So anyway we now have a new A* rated boiler with 3 years guarantee fitted for £3.5k less than BG quoted plus we got £400 back from the boiler scrappage scheme. We've now cancelled our BG homecare agreement and after our boiler guarantee has run out we'll get the installer to do a yearly service for £40

Thanks Guys, a far mix of experience there, seems like its a bit of a lottery.

Wouldn't touch BG with a barge pole. Same experience as lambchop, got quoted £1.5k more then any other quote we'd got from local heat engineers for a new boil (Same model of boiler so it was a direct comparison) and their quote included £800 off as there was some sale on so it would have been £2.3k more!

On the Homecare side of things, about 3 years ago they came out for the initial inspection, told us there was a fault and wouldn't cover it. Now I checked on their website and advertising material and no where did I see them say they'd charge for this initial inspection but I was charged £10 a month for the next year…£120 to tell me my boiler had a minor fault. B@stards

i had it on my 18yr old back boiler – every service they just looked at it and said you should really replace it. However when checking their parts database they said they could still get everything they would need.

Got about 4 yrs from it before it died and they condemned it.

All in all it was a decent service.

Terrible – don't touch with a bargepole.

They came out to my boiler just before the winter last year, found that the foam seal was leaking. Because the part was not on their database they condemned the boiler, and so that I couldn't relight it they disabled (snapped off) the thermo coupler (i think that is what it was called).

Ten mins after they left I had ordered the new part (genuine) off e-bay for £3.99 and booked a local gas engineer to fit it. When he arrived it turned out that the new thermo coupler that they had deliberatly broken cost ten times the amount of the seal. I complained to BG and got no reply other than as the part was unavailable they had no option but to condemn the boiler and take the action that they did.

Needless to say I no longer deal with BG.

Had Homecare for years and always get a great service. No-one carries 100% stock for every boiler so yes you might have to wait for a part occasionally.

I have most of my appliances covered, fan in cooker replaced, element replaced, washing machine mended, drains unblocked, main water main fixed when sprung leak under floor, boiler on numerous occasions etc.

For me the peace of mind is worth a lot and if I add up the likely cost of repairs vs monthly charge Im happy with the deal.

caused more problems than they fixed on my last boiler.

Have contract with Worcester Bosch now.