What I would emphasise though is I find their engineers excellent. Some years ago BG supplied and installed our Worcester Bosch combi boiler and we have used the annual service and maintenance package ever since. The engineers are professional, on time, communicate well and generally a credit to themselves. I've never forgotten the one who walked in and said "you've got a leak" - within an hour an old disused but leaking lead supply was suspected and a team was there inside two hours to dig up the yard, cap it and the next day the back fill team arrived.
When we converted to natural gas in the 1970s, we had our old Ascot "geyser" replaced with a new multipoint water heater. For the uninitiated, they heat water on demand when you run the tap, a bit like today's combi boilers, but without the heating. The water passes through a venturi that creates a pressure drop when you turn the tap on, then the pressure difference is sensed by a diaphragm, and the displacement moves a pushrod which opens the gas valve.
Why am I rambling on about all this? Well, the pushrod accumulates limescale so that it jams in the gland where it passes through the diaphragm housing. This means that when you turn the tap off, the return spring isn't strong enough to return it, and the gas keeps burning, so you now have a sealed vessel full of water being heated by a 22kW burner.
Now one of two things happens: either you notice that the burner hasn't stopped, and recognise the knocking in the pipes that signals the water's boiling and the heat exchanger's about to blow, or else it will explode. Fortunately we were able to do the former, so that was the cue to quickly turn the tap back on, and relieve the pressure (then stand well back as a blast of steam and solder pellets erupt from the tap). Then you can turn off the gas at the stopcock, followed by the water tap.
Why am I still rambling on about this? Well, when British Gas came out, they behaved as if they'd never seen anything like it before, scraped the limescale off the pushrod, put it all back together, and went away. In due course the limescale accumulated again, and there was another hasty scramble to stop the heater exploding, and again BG cleaned the pushrod and went away. This happened again and again and again over the years, but each time BG behaved as if they'd never seen it before, so my father wrote them a long letter, and their solution was to fit another more modern water heater (at our expense).
That one seemed OK for a while, but then the same thing started happening again, and this time the stakes were higher for two reasons. Firstly, my father had died in the meantime, which meant that if I turned the water tap off upstairs in the bathroom, there was nobody downstairs in the kitchen to spot that the gas burner was still running, so now the only warning was the knocking noise from the pipes. Secondly, the water main had been replaced, and in keeping with current regulations, a non-return valve had been fitted to the rising main. Previously, the heat exchanger could overheat, but the pressure would never exceed mains pressure because the water was able to expand back into the main. This was critical, because now the NR valve prevented any expansion, so that when the burner kept running there was nothing to limit the pressure. This all meant that I had less than a second to recognise the knocking in the pipes, and turn the tap back on to relieve the pressure (not forgetting to stand clear of the steam blast of course).
Sure enough, one day my luck ran out and the heater exploded, but fortunately, being in the bathroom at the time meant I didn't get scalded to death in the kitchen. BG were round quite quickly when I told them it had exploded, but they just talked to me like a naughty 5 year old because I didn't have one of their service contracts, then put it all back together and went away until the next time.
And there were quite a few next times, so I made sure I had a service contract, then at least the heat exchangers got replaced at their expense. I really don't remember how many, but eventually they got fed up of paying for new heat exchangers at £200-300 apiece, and cancelled my service contract. This was about the time I decided I'd had enough and wrote to them threatening legal action, and just for good measure I included a copy of the letter my father had sent them on the same subject 16 years earlier. Within 24 hours they came round to fit a modification that had been developed donkey's years previously to fix the problem. I think the fix was a Teflon-coated pushrod that stopped the limescale sticking to it, but I had another 25 years trouble-free service out of it after that was done.
Aren't British gas wonderful.
(BTW, independent plumbers wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.)
, i do hear the problems my son faces somethimes, problems from within the company, problems some unreasonable or unrealistic customers,systems that when they go wrong are expensive...and a company some people still think of as they used to 30 years ago. BG isnt your friend or saviour, they provide a service on their terms, same as most other companies do. You pays your money...
