British Gas

[Veggie Dave]

A friend on another forum found that he had no water supply to any of his hot taps, so he called BG to come and fix the problem. Now, what would you do if you were the plumber who turned up?

I'm going to assume something like this:
Unvented or vented > vented
Check CWSC > no water
Check float valve > faulty
Replace valve.

So, what did the BG guy do? First he bitched about being sent to the job in the first place. Had a quick look and decided it was an air lock. 'Fixed' the air lock then told my friend he needed a power flush, for the bargain price of £850, and a new boiler.

Impressive. Not only did he fail to fix the original problem, he then managed to invent a further £2000 or so of work to make sure it doesn't happen again!

 

[hammers4spanner]

That sounds about right with that shower to be honest , few weeks ago i turned up to do a llsc for someone who was going to rent her house out .BG had been there day before to check over the boiler with a supposed service as the lady paid them the insurance plan on appliance . Anyway i turned up done a TT a low behold dropping like a stone boiler hoofing out with gas . Bg are a shocking mob these days the customer care days of old are long gone with them .

 

[Veggie Dave]

And on Watchdog next week we have British Gas. :smilewinkgrin:

 

[anz]

And on Watchdog next week we have British Gas. :smilewinkgrin:

Lol, I've just seen that.

Hmmmmm, I wonder what for?

 

[PlumbBobBob]

about time they were given the watchdog treatment lol

 

[stevetheplumber]

about time they were given the watchdog treatment lol

my money is on unnecessary powerflushing

 

[Whn1]

I'll second the above! Can't wait!

 

[Roger Welton]

And on Watchdog next week we have British Gas. :smilewinkgrin:

Must set recorder for this!

 

[diamondgas]

I spent 25yrs with the above said

Lots I could say about the standards allowed to slip when privatised! Not all working there deserve to be tarred with the same brush but the culture there before i left was about selling and hitting targets. One of the reasons I eventually left was that they'd become a company focused on making money at the custards expense!!! They're way was a bit like how i picture that of a prostitute, looks attractive, draws you in, is over in an instant and screws you for every penny you've got I'd have hoped they'd have grown up in 10yrs but it sounds like they're still on the game! lol

 

[andyplumber]

Hi All
Had them to fit a boiler and 1 x new rad to a new house i just moved to. Needed a quick job and the price was expensive but not unreasonable. They also did it on short notice.
Note: The house is stripped, electrician has already lifted floorboards. It was a 15mm reduced from 22mm gas supply to existing boiler. So....
- New supply needed to boiler
- New boiler
- New magnet thingy that attracts iron from system
- New rad x 1
- Strip out all old and leave for me to dispose (they offered but i wanted the scrap value!)
- Connect upstairs shower but leave iso valves shut as i could not confirm is the shower could take the condenser pressure
- House is completely empty and i left him a set of keys
So:
- Boiler fitted, great
- Pipework run, OK
- Job took 2.5 days rather than 2, no problem
- House locked up and keys through letter box, great
Problems:
- Plasterer notices drip from ceiling in kitchen. There is a weep on a solder. No probs, this could happen to anyone.
- I look for the magnet thingy and can't find it..... they are a servicable part that i expected to be able to see
- Try to switch shower on.... nothing. He has disconnected all pipework up to the iso valves in the loft! This is because in removing the tank he couldn't be bothered to reconnect pipes.
After numerous calls:
- He forgot to fit the magnet thingy and left no room for it so that was refunded (45 days)
- New engineer out twice to fix above issues
New engineer was sound and was a bit annoyed to be fixing other engineers failings. He even said on the phone where so you want iso valves. I said "are you in the loft". He poked his head up. I said "shine torch over to wall". "yep". I said "use the ones that are there". He was well peeved at the other engineers laziness.
Overall: I should have shopped around a bit more and unlikely to use them again

 

[PlumbersMate]

how do they get so much work? I never hear a good word about them?

 

[PlumbBobBob]

it'd because they can spread the cost over several months for the custard

 

[sheff paul]

Recently did a repair in a 2 bedroom terrace house,recently BG had been round for a heating quote... 5200 ,bit on the steep side some might say

 

[villa_tom]

I may upset a few people here but I've got a lot of time for BG, I've worked for them as a contractor and think they do a good job. Them being expensive for jobs is not a crime. I contract during the week and do my private work over the weekend, because I'm in no real need for extra cash I price my jobs on the expensive side and I see nothing wrong with it.
everytime watch dog have a gas fitter on, everyone complains that it's unfair to pick on us all the time, well you can't have your cake and eat it. It's double standards to then slag off BG for bad practice, pricing or whatever you see wrong with them, then say watchdog are picking on gas fitters.
Yes BG try and sell extras when in home, but don't we all? I've got a boiler to service tomorrow morning, and if there's a gas fire in the property then I'll ask them if they want it doing too, or at least tell them that gas fires require servicing too. Does that make me a cowboy? I think not, I'm just there to make money. And that's all BG are doing, just on a larger scale, and FairPlay to them. Admittidly it's wrong if somebody recommends something that doesn't need doing, like a powerflush, but in my experience these cases are few and far between.
BG are an easy target due to their size and standing within the industry, but from what I've seen they do a good job.
just ask yourself, if you where a massive company and had thousands of blokes working for you, would you offer all the services you could to your customers? Of course you would and rightly so, at the end of the day we are at work to make money and that's all it comes down to.

 

[PlumbersMate]

Thing is you only really hear the bad about people Tom IMO


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[villa_tom]

Thing is you only really hear the bad about people Tom IMO


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Your spot on mate, if you do a good job for someone they'll tell two people, if you do a bad job then they'll tell ten.
people will make judgements about BG from what they hear, but that's my point really. Everytime there is a report on watchdog this place goes mental with people saying its unfair, but it seems ok to do it about BG.
We as an industry get a bad rep sometimes, so for me that's even more reason not to slate each other. BG are doing a job, and no matter what people say they are doing it well, just look at how big they are. They wouldn't be where they are if they where rubbish

 

[diamondgas]

Villa_tom .... I agree with you regards BG ... as said I spent 25yrs with them and regret perhaps the final year if I'm honest, have a lot of friends still there who are really good at what they do. I got dissolusioned when a colegue threw a wobbler in a custards home coz she wouldn't buy a CO Detector! The pressures from his manager to sell,sell,sell!.. just got to him! He didn't work on boilers again and was released of his job!

For my sins I was wined and dined in a Sheffield hotel with about a dozen other engineers for a week, late 90's/turn of the century I think it was! We were taught how to "sell". Real strong selling tack-ticks I can tell you. How to instil fear and then offer a solution to overcome the problem they didn't have until we landed!!! Custards were cherry picked for us, 15plus years old boilers sent to our computers. When there service was due we were sent around with all these new selling tools, brochures of boilers, and the ability to sign the custard up there and then to a new boiler, power flush, whatever!!! on finance if necessary, give them a date and everything!! I'm not proud of it, but at the time we were on some great commission, easy money!

I think watchdog got wind of that but by that time it was too late, the selling culture had been cascaded throughout the work force.... Targets set and wo be tired the guy who 'under' performed in sales! Didn't matter if they were good or bad at their job, cared for or didn't care less about the custards, they had to sell to become appreciated!!

BG and I parted company 2003 ... What I know is that guys there still get an incentive payment for the sales they make... What I would say about BG is that its an absolutely brilliant place to learn the trade and they look after their workforce; training is second to none and back up help is the same. If only they'd pull back on making sales their focus and realise that customer retention is the most important?

 

[sheff paul]

Your spot on mate, if you do a good job for someone they'll tell two people, if you do a bad job then they'll tell ten.
people will make judgements about BG from what they hear, but that's my point really. Everytime there is a report on watchdog this place goes mental with people saying its unfair, but it seems ok to do it about BG.
We as an industry get a bad rep sometimes, so for me that's even more reason not to slate each other. BG are doing a job, and no matter what people say they are doing it well, just look at how big they are. They wouldn't be where they are if they where rubbish

I for one may be a bit bitter,applied a few times to BG never heard anything then they employ the companies van driver and ''Train him up'' with a crash course how to fit heatings.Could never get my head round that one, so when my window cleaner said he had just had a female fitter come to change a rad on a service plan,and she didnt know how to take floorboards up and tried to fob him off with some rather ugly extension pieces and on a parting note insisted it needed a powerflush 800 quid on a 6 year old combi system with all hep2o pipe fitted.I promptly popped round and noticed it had 15mm drops feeding the downstairs rads, so a spot of balancing worked a treat.Not saying they dont have some good fitters,but if these in question are working on heatings which joe bloggs pays 5 grand for?.....Or are i am just a bit bitter

 

[Resolute]

It's good to see some balanced views towards BG for once. As with all big companies though you're gonna get some bad eggs along with good engineers.

As some on here know, I'm currently doing meter installs for BG and we're specifically told not to sell so maybe they're trying to shake the sales image.