Glasgow Heating Engineers??

[DDtB]

Just wondering if anyone can recommend a company in Glasgow-shire who could fit a condensate pipe with trace wire on the outside of my house? Trying to minimise the chances of giving my money to another firm of useless twats!!

Been waiting 6 weeks for Scottish Gas to do it but it turns out that they're about the most useless heating maintenance company out there.... so ended up canceling my maintenance contract with them today and telling them where they could stick their f'ing pointless contract

Apparently when a pipe on the outside of your house freezes and breaks... sorting it is now classed as an upgrade and not a repair, so that means it's not urgent and so you have to wait until they can be arsed coming round to fix it for you and take a whole day off work as they turn up whenever they want during an 8 hour period. Only repairs get fixed with any sense of urgency apparently! Wonder if anything ever gets classed as a repair then?!!

Cheers!

Dave.

[Dominic]

YHPM

[DDtB]

YHPM

oh no I don't!

[Dominic]

Oh yes you do!

[cla5h]

Dave, I'm afraid it is classed as a system upgrade. The trace heater wire was something an ingenious chap came up with to get round what could be considered a design flaw, or possibly installation flaw, with condensing boilers.

If the water in your condensate pipe has frozen, the boiler isn't broken, hence it wouldn't be covered under your maintenance agreement (it's one of a number of exclusions, such as build up of sludge in system, pipes buried in walls/floors, etc.)

As to the upgrade; whilst I'm sure they would love to get their hands on your money straight away, the manpower is stretched to the limits at this time of year dealing with the types of work that are covered under maintenance agreements, so that has to take priority. No company, where weather has such an impact on workload, could have had the manpower to cope with the winter we've had, so backlogs of less urgent work will build up. You should however have been able to at least get the appointment narrowed down to AM or PM.

[Doc883]

I have a Scottish Gas 400 agreement and whilst I have had excellent service can't help thinking the premiums have shot up since I first signed up. Had a letter in from the AA (a follow on from the John Cleese adverts) and the scope of their cover seems to beat Scottish Gas and at considerably less outlay. The wife wants to stick with Scottish Gas but I'm always on the look out for ways of saving money and hate paying over the odds. As a comparison SG Homecare 400 costs me £445 a year where'as the AA Home Emergency Response comes in at £239.88 (for AA members) or £263.88 for non-members. Thats a difference of £206 a year
So question does anyone have any experience of the AA cover or am I missing something here ?

[BiggestNizzy]

As a comparison SG Homecare 400 costs me £445 a year

Trying to get my fellow residents to bin ours as we have 3 combi boilers and it is that amount each !

at that rate we could almost fit a new boiler every year.

Worst thing is they guy in the flat down stairs is a heating engineer

[j2 lot]

I was going to take out the AA home emergency cover but before doing so checked through what they cover. I was surprised at the number of exclusions it has to be an absolute emergency before they will pay out -if its not an immediate risk its not covered, things like a broken window will only be covered if both panes of the double glazing are broken - only one pane and its not covered - frozen pipes not covered - burst pipes are. I suppose its fair enough but it doesn't give the peace of mind I expected.On the plus side they do reduce your home insurance cost if that is also with the AA.
I would also check what cost you are being quoted when I called it was £12 something a month which included boiler cover I think - a lot less than the figures you have posted up.

[Doc883]

I was going to take out the AA home emergency cover but before doing so checked through what they cover. I was surprised at the number of exclusions it has to be an absolute emergency before they will pay out -if its not an immediate risk its not covered, things like a broken window will only be covered if both panes of the double glazing are broken - only one pane and its not covered - frozen pipes not covered - burst pipes are. I suppose its fair enough but it doesn't give the peace of mind I expected.On the plus side they do reduce your home insurance cost if that is also with the AA.
I would also check what cost you are being quoted when I called it was £12 something a month which included boiler cover I think - a lot less than the figures you have posted up.

The leaflet quotes £11.99 per month (£143.88 pa) which includes Boiler Cover or £19.99 per month (£239.88 pa) and that adds Bolier Service so I assume that's an annual service ? These are for existing AA members.

[thinfourth]

its a condensate pipe

DIY it

For trace heating wires get an old electric blanket and gut it. Thats what i use for trace heating on the water supply for the caravan in the garden

[j2 lot]

The leaflet quotes £11.99 per month (£143.88 pa) which includes Boiler Cover or £19.99 per month (£239.88 pa) and that adds Bolier Service so I assume that's an annual service ? These are for existing AA members.

I just checked the website too - you are right - higher cover includes annual bolier maint. too.

I recently changed to an AA credit card (after the GM Card discount scheme was pulled) and spending on that earns money off - if you then use that to buy AA services you can get substantial amounts off breakdown cover, insurance or home cover. After 2 months use I have equivalent of £75 off.

[DDtB]

Dave, I'm afraid it is classed as a system upgrade. The trace heater wire was something an ingenious chap came up with to get round what could be considered a design flaw, or possibly installation flaw, with condensing boilers.

If the water in your condensate pipe has frozen, the boiler isn't broken, hence it wouldn't be covered under your maintenance agreement (it's one of a number of exclusions, such as build up of sludge in system, pipes buried in walls/floors, etc.)

As to the upgrade; whilst I'm sure they would love to get their hands on your money straight away, the manpower is stretched to the limits at this time of year dealing with the types of work that are covered under maintenance agreements, so that has to take priority. No company, where weather has such an impact on workload, could have had the manpower to cope with the winter we've had, so backlogs of less urgent work will build up. You should however have been able to at least get the appointment narrowed down to AM or PM.

Need to disagree with you there.

Here's why you're wrong.....

I had an emergency call out (actually a rescheduled one after they called to ask if I would wait and I said yes to help them out in a very busy period ffs!). Engineer came out, said it was broken and needed fixed. He then recommended a trace wire, which I agreed to pay for. 6 weeks later they suddenly tell me it's an upgrade due to the trace wire part and so only done monday-friday 9-5, which is unsuitable for the majority of people out there. They didn't mention anything to do with upgrades or monday-friday only when they came out 6 weeks ago. I told them there was no rush and I could wait a while until a weekend slot came up (I've waited 6 weeks already). But they categorically said that they NEVER do weekend work for 'upgrades', only for 'fixes'.

So I told them to forget the trace wire upgrade and just fix it by refitting the pipe itself to put it back to the exact spec it was before. In what world would anyone call that an upgrade?!? Apparently once they've used that word on the system, they can't change it. eh?!?!

Point is I paid them a monthly amount to keep my system running. 6 weeks after they told me it was broken and they would fix it (quoted me that it would be done within a week btw!), they still hadn't and then finally offered to fix but only when it suited them... not me. That's sh*t customer service... fact!

To rub it in, they left a message on the machine today telling me they'd called round to try and fit the trace wire ... even though I canceled the contract yesterday. Yup... great system there!

[D50]

I work in the membership dept of bgas and handle the queries for the maintenance contracts and to be fair the Company did everything they could to keep the business running. It hit us as bad as it hit the customers as a lot of the call centre workers could not get into work as they were either stranded at home or out on the roads just like anyone else. Also when the engineers did get out, a lot of the villages and rural areas were either blocked with the snow or the police had closed off the areas so the engineers themselves had to walk up to 2 to 3 miles with equipment from their van, do the job in a freezing cold house and walk all the way back to their van, for every call. With less people in the call centre it took longer to get the calls answered and the membership department that handles the enquiries for the agreements (that's where I work) - our department was shut for 3 weeks between December and January which is totally unheard of before for us to support the Area Service Centre for Engineers for taking calls to book appointments and it was very stressful as we had to prioritise the customers, making sure that vulnerable people and babies had heat etc...but we coped admirably and depsite taking on 200 more vans and 200 more engineers, it still was not enough. We were taking in excess of 115,000 calls a day around the country and with 7,500 jobs on the go with just 5,500 engineers, well you can do the maths and see that there was always going to be a backlog. Even the people that were stuck at home were planning jobs where they could and managers in the office that were engineers were sent out to do jobs. Please believe me, we do care and we are all human just like everyone else so please be nice the next time you call a call centre - we're only doing our job! The company looked after us too as around 50 people had to sleep in Uddingston call centre on the first bad day of snowfall as all the roads round about were blocked. It wasn't fun but they showed dedication and looked after their colleagues and the agents that were stuck there just worked on into the night to take calls.

[DDtB]

I'm sure you do a great job and actually do care about it D50. Shame your colleagues that I spoke to were basically twats. And just to be clear... I'm not complaining about the fact the weather created a backlog... I do get annoyed though when faced with total incompetence and call centre operators who promise to call you back in 5 mins, but a week later still haven't bothered so you need to make another expensive phonecall and sit on hold as apparently they're always experiencing high call volumes

Doesn't matter though... it doesn't change the fact that as a paying customer I've been treated badly and given a very poor service and have now taken my business elsewhere and won't be back. Was actually a bit surprised it only took around 30 seconds to cancel. It's the only thing they were efficient at and didn't make any effort at all to keep me as a customer even though I've given them £1000s over the years. Says a lot imho.

So in summary... Scottish Gas's attitude to customers?? sh*t.

[woody]

So in summary... Scottish Gas's attitude to customers?? sh*t.

This.