British Gas Home and Boiler Cover BYE BYE

Add caption

For a few days the pressure on our boiler has been really high. I'll have a shower but then have to reset it for Aaron to have a bath. Or he will have a bath and I have to reset it for Lottie to have a bath. OR I have to reset it to wash dishes. The only way I could find to over-ride the reset was to turn the tap ironically to increase the pressure. Suffice to say it worried me that I was going to blow the house up - I have never taken risks with gas or boilers till now.

So, at the weekend I couldn't wait to ring British Gas on Monday and rung them this morning. Bearing in mind we were with them for 12 years, then a gap and then with them for 2 years. I cancelled the subscription in June, just to have one less thing to pay for every month but only for 2 reasons. One, because it had had its annual checkup (the boiler) and two, because they rung me to tell me it was up for renewal?!?!??! Like what company even does that?!?!? They all (building insurance included) just write to you and if you forget to open the post, the contract rolls over. But the gentleman wouldn't let me cancel in that phonecall so I called back a few weeks later and the phone call cost me £8.

Anyway all I wanted to do today was reinstate my boiler and heating cover but she wanted £99 with a minimum of £79 for a call out PLUS £21 a month to do that. I explained that traditionally you could get the fix built into your cover but she said not if you join us with an existing fault. I explained I only left at the end of June at which point THEY had given the boiler a clean bill of annual health, but she was hearing none of it. The whole reason I cancelled it was in my experience of having cover for 15 years we've only ever had them out 5-6 times.

Anyway I was so upset I hung up and cried but I am so glad I pulled myself together (driven by wanting to wash the dishes, give Lottie a bath and fear of blowing the house up). I resorted to Google. And the fix was SIMPLE as per the pic above.

All we had to do was bleed the radiators and I got hubby to do that this morning before he left for work.

Now for the first time in a few days the boiler is not making a scary constant hum. The temperature digital display is a healthy figure and more importantly the needle is in the green area instead of up at 3 and 4.

I hate that huge companies have NO sense of discretion.

If they had reinstated my cover they could have got £21 a month for a year and I could have had an engineer out built in. They KNOW my boiler they know it is not on its last legs.

Anyway bye bye British Gas, you were up there in a list of a handful of brands that I absolutely LOVE and am very loyal to. But boom gone! Won't be recommending you to anyone now and if ANYTHING goes wrong with the boiler in the future I will be getting a local friendly tradesman to deal with it. Oh and I have to be authentic and sincere as on that note YOUR engineers are SUPERB, shame I can't say the same of the phone service! Each and every one of your engineers I have met in 15 years always acts like they'd stay here all day if I wanted them to. Nothing is ever too much trouble.

But no, that's it now, all I had was high pressure and you didn't care and couldn't even give me the tip that I found out myself above. That's fine. You live and learn and I have. Thanks for nothing! Bye bye!