British Gas ,Vaillant or.....

[onion_soup]

British Gas , Vaillant or Independent for central heating service contract?

What are charges and callout times ie 24hr or 9-5 ? Parts covered by contract pcb he flue ?

TIA

 

[Nige F]

My M8 has a Vaillant boiler and swears by V.`s own service engineers

 

[ACOperson]

Vaillant's are supposed to be good. Forget BG if your boiler is old. Independant one would probably be OK.

 

[onion_soup]

My M8 has a Vaillant boiler and swears by V.`s own service engineers

Time to respond to call out and charges ? 24/7 and bank holidays ?

Vaillant's are supposed to be good. Forget BG if your boiler is old. Independant one would probably be OK.

Under 5yrs old , will check Time to respond to call out and charges ? 24/7 and bank holidays ?

How often are problems fixed on first call out ?


TIA

 

[ollski]

Vaillant's are supposed to be good. Forget BG if your boiler is old. Independant one would probably be OK.

Lol...Vaillants technical help is superb, guess their engineers would be equally good, Bg have a massive knowledge base and fast parts availability but will advise you to get a new boiler as soon as it gets to 15 years although they will cover it however old it is unlike all the others, independants cover the whole spectrum so thats just a total wild card.

 

[ACOperson]

To onion_soup:

Don't know any info re charges, 24/7 etc as I don't need to take out one of these plans as I fix my own boilers. Any problems fixed on 1st call out will be the simple little things such as low system pressure, anything requiring parts will probably require a return visit unless you have a Vaillant and go with the Vaillant plan,whereby they will probably stock things like NTC's , pumps & the dreaded diverter valves for some of their own boilers in the vans.

To Ollski

Vaillants tech help is as good as any other manufacturer, i.e rubbish. This should be no reflection on their engineers. I don't know any engineers who use the tech help for anything, you will find better help asking professionals on this forum! BG may have fancy laptops with boiler instructions on them, but I've only been in this industry for a couple of years and I've been and fixed 10 or more boilers that BG have came and scratched their heads at, usually quite rudimentary problems. BG will not cover your boiler once it gets past a certain age, they just seem to say that parts are no longer available and your plan has to be cancelled if you don't take a new boiler. I've seen this a few times too.

With independants, their service plans are usually alright IF THEY ARE A DECENT COMPANY. A local company with a ****poor reputation will have a poor quality service plan, a decent local company with a service plan will probably be OK to go with.

IMO if the man has a Vaillant boiler he should go with their service & breakdown plan, if he wants a service & breakdown plan. How many Vaillant models in active service in this country? 30 maximum? If their engineers are visiting boilers day in day out with a maximum of 30 different kinds then they should be pretty proficient in every one of those models in quite a short period of time, eh?

 

[ollski]

Vaillants tech help is as good as any other manufacturer, i.e rubbish.I don't know any engineers who use the tech help for anything

I used it a few times and so feel I can tell you that it is good, much better than the majority of the competition

BG may have fancy laptops with boiler instructions on them, but I've only been in this industry for a couple of years and I've been and fixed 10 or more boilers that BG have came and scratched their heads at, usually quite rudimentary problems.

There is a wide skill spectrum especially with the recent mass training and recruitment but with about 20 engineers serving a moderate city I just can't see how this works unless it is a problem which is not covered.

BG will not cover your boiler once it gets past a certain age, they just seem to say that parts are no longer available and your plan has to be cancelled if you don't take a new boiler. I've seen this a few times too..

Definitely doesn't work like that, Bg cover anything for which parts are available..if not there is no point is there?, although they can have a cover plan for the system. You may be seeing people who have taken cover out and then when they get an initial inspection weeks later it turns out there are no parts available in which case the cover is refused and money refunded. There are also folks who decide not to have cover when it turns out the parts are limited

 

[ACOperson]

I HAVE seen them tell people that their boiler was obsolete and that parts were not available. This was a certain gas valve on a older Glow-Worm back boiler, which I was able to source for the customer on the internet quite easily.

The problem with Vaillant tech guys is that like most other desk based tech guys, they are not and never have been heating engineers. They can't tell you things like the expected resistance of a certain NTC...

 

[ollski]

I HAVE seen them tell people that their boiler was obsolete and that parts were not available. This was a certain gas valve on a older Glow-Worm back boiler, which I was able to source for the customer on the internet quite easily.

The problem with Vaillant tech guys is that like most other desk based tech guys, they are not and never have been heating engineers. They can't tell you things like the expected resistance of a certain NTC...

Don't want to be niggly but the fact that something can be sourced on the web don't make it available, I have 3 switchmaster zone valves and 5 lynx airflow sensors in me shed but they are now obsolete, trouble is Bg only have a limited number of suppliers and won't trawl the net for some obscure spares supplier, it's all in the contract but hey, who bothers to read that!

Vaillant will certainly talk you through resistances after all they have them all on a chart, but on the occasions I have used them they have definitely been well experienced toolies as have ideal, although I know in recent years there has been a move against that and into reeling through the fault finding charts with most companies.

 

[timbalcombe]

Vaillant engineers are muppetts!
BG service is for everything, so if your rads leak they'll fix it
Vailant only do the boilers, or more for another 20 quid (total = £50)

I say their eng's are fools because one the other day tried to flog me a wireless timer. I checked the website, they don't work for eco tec pro's!
I have had a timer T140 on order from their last visit. 2 months ago.
The aqua sensors are noisy, they rattle. engineer said they all do thAT, as does the scraping diverter valve which they wouldn't touch.
He tried to make me believe it was the piezo motor, i told him to F**k off!