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Any firm is only as good as it's worst employee.
Are british gas trying to rip me off?
- Thread starter ellie1997
- Start date
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and just to update that this problem is STILL ongoing. As asked it did happen overnight and after various engineers visits we do have heat downstairs. The next time we use the heating it only heats the hall radiator and not the two living room ones that are on the same feed.
Another BG engineer came and quoted £450. My husband questioned a blockage and asked if it could be an airlock. BG said no, but he would take a water sample.....
That was 6 WEEKS ago and we are still chasing the sample. In the meantime we have sent our own sample away and are eagerly awaiting the results.....
Jane
Another BG engineer came and quoted £450. My husband questioned a blockage and asked if it could be an airlock. BG said no, but he would take a water sample.....
That was 6 WEEKS ago and we are still chasing the sample. In the meantime we have sent our own sample away and are eagerly awaiting the results.....
Jane
Because the BG people are employees they get paid if they fix your fault or not.
My expectation is that your feed pipe is blocked or just possibily you have a serious airlock. You can still have a blockage and clear water.
Put you heating on continuous and turn off one valve on each rad. Next open the closed valve on each valve at a time, open the next before you close the last. See if all rads will heat when you do this.
If so then open each valve JUST a quarter of a turn ONLY then leave for 30 min and tell me whats happenning!
Tony Glazier
My expectation is that your feed pipe is blocked or just possibily you have a serious airlock. You can still have a blockage and clear water.
Put you heating on continuous and turn off one valve on each rad. Next open the closed valve on each valve at a time, open the next before you close the last. See if all rads will heat when you do this.
If so then open each valve JUST a quarter of a turn ONLY then leave for 30 min and tell me whats happenning!
Tony Glazier
An update! As mentioned by someone, yes, it was an airlock. We drained the system down over the weekend and added some chemicals (please dont ask me!!) as recommended by Fernox. Incidentally, our water tests from fernox came back ok.
Feeling rather annoyed with BG that we had been mislead over what exactly celcia did cover we cancelled our contract. At that point I still hadnt had any communication from BG as regards to their water sample for 8 weeks, despite me chasing it up.
This morning I got a call from a BG engineer, cheerfully announcing he had my results.......and guess what.....clear. BG engineer said we didnt need a powerflush, just a bit of inhibitor in the system and that would do the trick. I thanked him but told him we had fixed it ourselves at the weekend and cancelled the cover. He asked if we were liable to complain........
BG wanted £700 to powerflush a system and did not at any point consider that the problems might be anything other than a blockage. Had we listened to them we would be £700 out of pocket (or £400 depending which engineer you get!!). Had engineer number one looked properly he would have seen the reason for the dining room rad staying cold was a faulty TRV. The hall was airlocked. It was only the fact that we badgered the engineers for a water test that made them do it.
The moral? Dont take anything on face value.
Feeling rather annoyed with BG that we had been mislead over what exactly celcia did cover we cancelled our contract. At that point I still hadnt had any communication from BG as regards to their water sample for 8 weeks, despite me chasing it up.
This morning I got a call from a BG engineer, cheerfully announcing he had my results.......and guess what.....clear. BG engineer said we didnt need a powerflush, just a bit of inhibitor in the system and that would do the trick. I thanked him but told him we had fixed it ourselves at the weekend and cancelled the cover. He asked if we were liable to complain........
BG wanted £700 to powerflush a system and did not at any point consider that the problems might be anything other than a blockage. Had we listened to them we would be £700 out of pocket (or £400 depending which engineer you get!!). Had engineer number one looked properly he would have seen the reason for the dining room rad staying cold was a faulty TRV. The hall was airlocked. It was only the fact that we badgered the engineers for a water test that made them do it.
The moral? Dont take anything on face value.
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Agile said:
I also mentioned it as well as a possibility.
I think the message in this case is that BG engineers do not always take the trouble to properly determine the problem.
Probably this arises because as salaried staff there is no very great incentive to get it right as there is always someone else who can go next time.
I would like to think that the self employed heating engineer has a greater incentive as if he does not fix it he should not get paid !
Tony Glazier
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Well I think it about sums it up, customer £700.00 better off for NOT using BG, and I rest my case.
didn't the system work properly for a while after every previous engineer visit? and what exactly did you do to remedy the problem apart from pouring in chemicals over the weekend...I'm just curious as to what is different as it seems to work ok for a while for a short time after it is worked on every time.
I didnt explain that very well did I? (apologies it was late and I couldnt see the keyboard...)
Ok, when BG came they would turn off the TRV's and force the system through. They would always leave as the radiators were getting warm. The faulty TRV in the dining room meant that it wuld get warm, but never hot and because we had the mother of all airlocks in the hall as soon as the system was off the hall rad would barely work if at all.
The next time we turned on the heating to test it we would be back to square one.
A strong letter has headed off to BG, not that we would renew the cover anyway as it doesnt appear to be worth the paper its written on. The engineer who called me did ask if we were going to complain so I think he realises that we received a very poor service indeed.
I did ask him to explain how 2 engineers could come up with 2 such varying prices for the same job but he didnt.
Jane
Ok, when BG came they would turn off the TRV's and force the system through. They would always leave as the radiators were getting warm. The faulty TRV in the dining room meant that it wuld get warm, but never hot and because we had the mother of all airlocks in the hall as soon as the system was off the hall rad would barely work if at all.
The next time we turned on the heating to test it we would be back to square one.
A strong letter has headed off to BG, not that we would renew the cover anyway as it doesnt appear to be worth the paper its written on. The engineer who called me did ask if we were going to complain so I think he realises that we received a very poor service indeed.
I did ask him to explain how 2 engineers could come up with 2 such varying prices for the same job but he didnt.
Jane
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Go for it girl 
Another small update. We are to recieve a cheque for £80 compensation for the additives and to replace the crap pump they put in to replace a grundfost (sp) that was working perfectly.
And despite the kind offer of a reinstatement of the celsia cover, we declined.
The end.
(I hope!)
And despite the kind offer of a reinstatement of the celsia cover, we declined.
The end.
(I hope!)
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