Alternatives to British Gas Homecare please! I've had enough of them, sadly.

[TheFlyingBanana]

We live in quite a large old house, and as such it has the kind of maintenance issues that you might not get with a more modern property.

Because of this we have the full British gas Homecare package that basically covers everything - gas, electricals, all breakdowns including boiler maintenance and servicing, central heating system, appliances, plumbing, drains internal and external - the whole shooting match. It isn't cheap, but it has given great peace of mind and been hugely useful on a number of occasions.

The problem is that the service has become less and less reliable - I booked them to come and fix the washing machine supply socket (which is tripping out) two weeks ago. I gave them the whole day to come - between 8am and 6pm. We do need this fixed now as we have no means to do any clothes washing.

At 10am I get a call - can they come this evening between 6pm and 8pm? Ok... I reluctantly agreed. For all they know I had taken the day off work (as indeed I did a couple of months ago - when they failed to make the appointment at all).

At 7.30pm this evening I get another call - they might not be able to make it today after all. I say that simply isn't good enough, so they went away and have now come back and said they will try to be with me by midnight... but it could be up to 2am.

I actually do have to get up for work tomorrow at 6am, so I'm not too thrilled to say the least, especially as I don't have great confidence they'll show at all, and will probably try to reschedule to another day now - which will be massively inconvenient.

So, to cut a long story short, their service seems to have got progressively worse as they have ramped the prices up over the past few years, and I think I've had enough of them after nearly twenty years of being a loyal customer.

Anyone else had similar experiences?

And can you recommend any other similarly comprehensive services? I don't mind paying, but want full comprehensive cover of everything.

I've found this one:

https://www.247homerescue.co.uk/

Seems pretty much covers the lot, and is cheaper. Anyone got any experience of them?

All input gratefully received.

[KavKav]

We live in quite a large old house, and as such it has the kind of maintenance issues that you might not get with a more modern property.

Because of this we have the full British gas Homecare package that basically covers everything - gas, electricals, all breakdowns including boiler maintenance and servicing, central heating system, appliances, plumbing, drains internal and external - the whole shooting match. It isn't cheap, but it has given great peace of mind and been hugely useful on a number of occasions.

The problem is that the service has become less and less reliable - I booked them to come and fix the washing machine supply socket (which is tripping out) two weeks ago. I gave them the whole day to come - between 8am and 6pm. We do need this fixed now as we have no means to do any clothes washing.

At 10am I get a call - can they come this evening between 6pm and 8pm? Ok... I reluctantly agreed. For all they know I had taken the day off work (as indeed I did a couple of months ago - when they failed to make the appointment at all).

At 7.30pm this evening I get another call - they might not be able to make it today after all. I say that simply isn't good enough, so they went away and have now come back and said they will try to be with me by midnight... but it could be up to 2am.

I actually do have to get up for work tomorrow at 6am, so I'm not too thrilled to say the least, especially as I don't have great confidence they'll show at all, and will probably try to reschedule to another day now - which will be massively inconvenient.

So, to cut a long story short, their service seems to have got progressively worse as they have ramped the prices up over the past few years, and I think I've had enough of them after nearly twenty years of being a loyal customer.

Anyone else had similar experiences?

And can you recommend any other similarly comprehensive services? I don't mind paying, but want full comprehensive cover of everything.

I've found this one:

https://www.247homerescue.co.uk/

Seems pretty much covers the lot, and is cheaper. Anyone got any experience of them?

All input gratefully received.

That is outrageous! Do they seriously call that ‘customer service’?

[KingKitega]

I've found that their service levels have dropped off too. Was asked to wait 4 days last winter when I had no heating.. Not good enough really.

I've gone with a local heating maintenance company to me now. Service is much better, and quicker. Bigger is not better when it comes to fixing vital services!

[reggie747]

come and fix the washing machine supply socket (which is tripping out) two weeks ago. We do need this fixed now as we have no means to do any clothes washing.

Agreed, they need knobbing right off and I'm sorry but I don't have an alternative suggestion but can't you simply run an extension lead to power the WMC from a circuit that isn't tripping ??

[TheFlyingBanana]

Agreed, they need knobbing right off and I'm sorry but I don't have an alternative suggestion but can't you simply run an extension lead to power the WMC from a circuit that isn't tripping ??

I considered that, but the washing machine is actually hard-wired into the wall, and I'm loathe to much about with electrics, especially as I expect it would then void my service agreement.

It's a right pain.

[oldoakknives]

I've found that their service levels have dropped off too. Was asked to wait 4 days last winter when I had no heating.. Not good enough really.

I've gone with a local heating maintenance company to me now. Service is much better, and quicker. Bigger is not better when it comes to fixing vital services!

I had a similar problem last winter. Kept being told more 'urgent' cases than mine had to be sorted first. Which sort of seems reasonable, but it meant no heating for several days in the winter. Luckily we have a fairly large woodburner so at least had some heating, and immersion heater for hot water. They don't seem to cope well now with high demand (winter seems to take them by surprise!)

If it was electrical I'd be inclined to bite the bullet and call a local electrician.

[julian2002]

We use corgi homecare for our boiler and heating system.
Had multiple callouts to keep our old glow worm boiler running over one winter and they replaced the hot water controller as well. Eventually we got a new boiler and have since moved but still have the corgi plan running on the new place.
No idea if they do electrical cover but can certainly recommend them from a customer service and call out response point of view.


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[Alansmithee]

We use corgi homecare for our boiler and heating system.
Had multiple callouts to keep our old glow worm boiler running over one winter and they replaced the hot water controller as well. Eventually we got a new boiler and have since moved but still have the corgi plan running on the new place.
No idea if they do electrical cover but can certainly recommend them from a customer service and call out response point of view.


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Corgi set out someone who admitted to us he was not qualified to work on our problem - took weeks for basic repairs- never again!!!

[Mr Curta]

We've had BG Homecare whilst based overseas but I'm binning it off on the family home as we've developed a good relationship with a local engineer who goes out of his way to attend to any issues at the promised time, and I trust to do a quality job at a fair price.