Boiler quote - What price should I be looking at?

darren73 said:
The flue is sold as a seperate item so why wouldnt they charge for it:confused:
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Charging for the flue is fine but that price must include labour for fitting which should be included inside the boiler fitting cost but they are simply adding breakdowns in to the invoice to fatten it up.

British gas = high standard? Depends on the gas fitter in question but I certainly wouldn't trust the two I know round here simply because I've seen there work when they didn't work for BG and it wasn't up to much.
 
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My brother works for british gas. He says it's a reasonable amount and he says it's going to be of a better quality and it's the peace of mind of using a big company if they do a bad job or something they will come back and fix it etc.
 
Any decent heating engineer will be self employed making a good living, BG will hire monkeys. Quality should be the same if you get a corgi cert for it after and a manufacturer warranty.

As far as cost 9/10 have said it's too much.
 
Pabl0 said:
British gas = high standard? Depends on the gas fitter in question but I certainly wouldn't trust the two I know round here simply because I've seen there work when they didn't work for BG and it wasn't up to much.
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I think most would agree with you there, the only time they might charge for fitting the flue would be if they have to re-core the hole if it wasn't in the right place.
 
Most older flues are massive the newer one should slot straight through and need bricking up. They are charging you for work that is excessive.

Where does the condensate go to? Do you have a waste near your boiler? Shouldn't be punched outside to a gulley.

Are they promising to match thw brickwork? They'll probably have to knock out 12 or so, are they toothing it in or just using a load of halves?

And the homecare should be covered already I'd sort of expect that included not thrown in for free coz we are wicked innit
 
maccapacca said:
Any decent heating engineer will be self employed making a good living, BG will hire monkeys. Quality should be the same if you get a corgi cert for it after and a manufacturer warranty.

As far as cost 9/10 have said it's too much.
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No they don't my brother did a 2 year apprenticeship, and the exam at the end you have to get 100% or you don't pass, he is not a monkey. It's nice of you tar everyone with the same brush and you say it like any decent engineer would be self employed, why? British Gas is a massive blue chip company with a good pension scheme and ability to buy shares. Yeah you might not take home as much as you would being self employed but if you're self employed you have to redo the Gas Safe or corgi certifications (can't remember which, might be both) every so many years and they cost a lot to do whereas british gas pay for their employees to do them.



No doubt you may get as good or better a job from someone self employed but to say BG will hire monkeys is ridiculous.
 
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Mason- said:
No they don't my brother did a 2 year apprenticeship, and the exam at the end you have to get 100% or you don't pass, he is not a monkey. It's nice of you tar everyone with the same brush and you say it like any decent engineer would be self employed, why? British Gas is a massive blue chip company with a good pension scheme and ability to buy shares. Yeah you might not take home as much as you would being self employed but if you're self employed you have to redo the Gas Safe or corgi certifications (can't remember which, might be both) every so many years and they cost a lot to do whereas british gas pay for their employees to do them.



No doubt you may get as good or better a job from someone self employed but to say BG will hire monkeys is ridiculous.
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Regardless if they hire monkeys or not, a British Gas installer does not necessarily mean a better installer and it definitely won't be value for money. Also, your brother is not the best person to ask about the quote as he works for the company!
 
British gas wanted over £3k for pretty much a straight swap for a combi boiler to a newer one, and that was on a 1 bed house, so just a basic small combi! needless to say i didnt go with them
 
No boiler installation should cost more than boiler itself unless it's fliirs up, pipes out refurb. Also No installation should cost more than whatever number of days they recon times max £240 a day or get good Indy instead.
 
Thanks for all the help everyone!

I will get an indy quote - I expect the whole job to be something like £1600 all in. A quick Google for the boiler shows it can be had for £600.

I think British gas were extortionate but now you've all confirmed this for me :).
 
Not saying you don't need a power flush and a filter but they seem like nice to haves not requirements.

Don't mention your BG quote to any independent.

Go to your local plumb centre or any trade supplier and ask for some independents contact details.
 
I got 3 quotes to fit my central heating a few years back - one was British Gas, who I went with in the end.

The cheapest quote was £1000 less than BG but I didn't want to go with the guy cos he turned up in a battered old yellow transit and looked like he didn't have any money

The british gas salesman was great to deal with - did all the paperwork beautifully, gave me a fit date etc etc

On the morning of the fit, the cheapo guy in the battered ford transit turned up, said " I am here to fit your heating" - of course, I reminded him that I didn't give him the go ahead - I went with BG.

He said, I fit all the BG jobs in this area - they don't do it themselves. You would have saved a grand for me to do it and I would have made more money too. He wasn't happy and neither was I to be frank.

Never entertain BG again.
 
We've just been quoted £3100.00 for a Worcester Bosch Greenstar 29 (8 year warranty), removal of old cylinder, tanks and old pipework.

Power flush, condensate waste, repair brickwork around flue, magnetic filter, new earthing, wireless controller thingy, 4 new myson radiators and thermostatic valves on the other 3 (one of the new radiators is being moved as well)

Independent gas safe engineer - serviced our old system once a year for ages.

Mega reliable and trustworthy chap, charged me £50.00 to fit a new thermocouple on boxing day a couple of years ago. He wouldn't take any more even we offered and ending up giving him a good bottle of single malt as I felt guilty!

I may get a cheaper quote from someone else but I appreciate the service my man offers, pay for peanuts.........

I can tackle a lot of stuff myself, but for the stuff I can't I will only let someone do it if I know them or they come recommended from an existing tradesman I know.
 
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BG are well known for being quite expensive (Which? magazine review reckons it can be up to 30%), so I'd recommend finding a good independent if you can.

We're spending £8k in the next month or so, but that's to basically replace everything (radiators, boiler, pipe work, tanks etc). The joys of living in a house that needs refurbishing :(
 
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Had our boiler replaced 4 years ago, fitted a Worcester , BG wanted £3500.00 just to replace the boiler. Got the job done by a local firm with good reputation, final cost was just over £1800.00 with a 5 year warranty.
 
MeEsH BaKkA said:
Firstly I had an entire heating system put in 9 rads, pipe work, gas, electrics with a Worcester Bosch boiler put in for around £4000 so your price looks rather steep.



You are correct but it is the return that needs to be 50 or below (lower the better) for a boiler to condense the flow can be what ever as long as the return is sub 50ish, above this you won't get the quoted efficiency on the boiler :)
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I would like to know the answer to this as well as i have just had a new boiler fitted
 
Salsa said:
I had quotes from independent tradesmen which were around 800 cheaper but having had all the quotes and inspections I felt most confident in the BG installers. They did a fantastic job, arrived on time and finishd early leaving the place immaculate.

I was impressed as I expected it to be the opposite.

Could I have had it done cheaper. Definitely. To as high a standard throughout the whole process? Probably not.
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No offence but people who think like you are the exact reason British Gas get away with overcharging people. There are a lot of good independent fitters around who would have done as a good a job for a lot less money.
 
Just had a Baxi 40HE installed last month to replace a dead combi - was £1700 all in to get it all installed. Just got a fair few quotes from Indys after laughing at the BG quote I got (think it was 2.5k+).

Very pleased with the final job too - glad I did the grunt work getting the quotes in and settled for someone I felt I could trust and not the cheapest quote I could get (though it helped somewhat in getting a better price in the end :))...

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
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