Interesting article in the saturday Times, the writter thought the insurance for boiler breakdown was probably a good idea, but the figure she gave did not support this. She said 1 in 3 boilers break down within 6 years and the average repair bill is £470.
Insurance plans, she says cost from £7-£20 pcm. So over 6 years you could pay £504 – £1,440, there is a 1 in 3 chance the boiler will breakdown, if so the avarge repair is less than the cost of the cheapest insurance.
You don’t need a maths degree to work this one out. Most people will be better off if they put a little aside every month to cover unexpected household maintenance and repair issues, based on this information.
Boilers are like cars – expensive to replace and it is a mystery how they work (to most of us). Like cars they can go on for ever and ever, but some of them break down frequently. They should be inspected every year by a Corgi registered expert to check they are safe (just like your car MOT).
It is the time of year when boilers break down, it cold and you have no heating and not hot water. If it is a new boiler it may be worth calling the installer, it could be a simple problem. The next place i would call for help would be the manufacturer.
Boiler manufacturers employ teams of trained engineers to drive around the country in vans that are loaded with spare parts. If any one can fix your boiler quickly, safely and without breaking other parts they can.
I would advice against trying to DIY boiler repares – a few people do, they make it worse and break more expensive components.
If you want to read the Times article it is here:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/money/article2925375.ece
When we bought our house in Margate we took out a British Gas contract as the boiler was obviously on its last legs. We had a couple of problems and called out an engineer (about 3 months into the contract) who replaced a pump which was supposed to solve the problem.
In the meantime my partner and I had both been getting head aches, which we put own to stress from work as we both have quite mentally demanding jobs, along with the added pressure of a four story conversion to be cracking on with.
We had problems with the boiler again a couple of weeks later and British Gas came out for a second visit, they took the casing off the boiler and found the whole back and bracket had corroded away!!! (why didn’t they pick this p the first time)? Suffice to say they condemned the boiler and told us that as the contract only covered repairs and our boiler was beyond repair they would have to cancel our contract and refund the premium we had paid.
To top it all off……. He told us that his machine was picking up carbon monoxide!!! I rushed to A&E with my son and they told me to go to my GP, so I went to my GP who said you need to go straight to A&E (can no one in this world do their job properly)? A&E took us in as a priority following a stern conversation with my GP and they used this breathalyser type thing along with a painful blood test that confirmed we had all taken in a small quantity of carbon monoxide!
Luckily we have a Victorian town house with drafty old sash windows and the boiler was in the kitchen which is an extension on the basement so most of the fumes had been vented and didn’t make it into the main sleeping/living areas of the house, so there was no long term harm and once we replaced the boiler our headaches went.
Anyway, the only contract that I think is worth having is an annual service contract like landlords have.