I've just had the boiler fixed. The man's demanding £547 for parts and labour. I've managed to get Big Boy off a conference call to speak to him and I'm totally freaking out. I can't believe this.
That's madness - how long was he there for?! I got quoted at £120 for the call out and first hour recently, so by my calculations he must have been there for a few hours, cos the parts don't cost much!
Here for 1 1/2 hours, so parts was the bulk of the cost. He said at one point that he was popping out for a part but never cleared the cost with me given that it was high. What I paid for labour was about what I expected, and he brought the overall total down by £70 (so £470). So this is another thing to dispute... I guess we'll be on to Corgi. I hate being ripped off.
Check the price of the part that he is claiming that he has changed on the net and show him how much it'd cost and that infact he is being ridiculous...
Liv - thanks. This is something that we'll be doing when making the complaint to Corgi and the company. A quick search on the internet has revealed that we've being overcharged around £100 on the parts by retail value (so his claim to have negotiated with his boss to get it to more wholesale value is nonsense) and so around £120 too much in total.
I suppose when I'm sat here with greasy hair I'm an easy target. On top of that, while I expect to get a bit ripped off I still didn't expect to go above £300. If I have time to plan ahead in future I will definitely shop for my own parts, but there's no real guarding against the possibility of parts being replaced that are unnecessary given the cost of getting second or third opinions from these people.
I sometimes wonder how they and clampers sleep at night but they probably have very comfy, expensive pillows to assist.
Absolutely. I'm now wondering (having just chopped open my thumb) if on top of everything that's happened today I should brave going for a haircut. What if that goes wrong too?
Yes we did, 4 quotes. It was a pretty big job as they had to put in loads of new pipework to site the boiler in the kitchen (was formerly in the hall), then flush the gunk out of the old radiators and install one new one. So all in all more than just a new boiler. It took them two and a half days of labour.
Of course new boilers now have to be condensing or efficient combi ones if your pipework isn't up to a condensing one (our remaining old pipework wasn't). Looking at the bill the new boiler was a one and a half grand, the parts for the other work were a grand and the labour and disposal of the old boiler and two water tanks was the remaining. It was British Gas who did it so we got loads of guarantees (15 years) and a year's free gas supply. Still boilers are bloody expensive.
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That's madness - how long was he there for?! I got quoted at £120 for the call out and first hour recently, so by my calculations he must have been there for a few hours, cos the parts don't cost much!
the list price of our new boiler was around £1k on Plumbcenter, but we got it for £735 odd.... ah, the power of the interweb!
I do think you should report him. Evil sod.
I sometimes wonder how they and clampers sleep at night but they probably have very comfy, expensive pillows to assist.
Hoping you get back what you are due sweetie.
(BTW, our new boiler (re-sited to other side of flat) pipework, installation and disposal of the old one cost £5K, eeep).
Of course new boilers now have to be condensing or efficient combi ones if your pipework isn't up to a condensing one (our remaining old pipework wasn't). Looking at the bill the new boiler was a one and a half grand, the parts for the other work were a grand and the labour and disposal of the old boiler and two water tanks was the remaining. It was British Gas who did it so we got loads of guarantees (15 years) and a year's free gas supply. Still boilers are bloody expensive.