Boiler replacement quotes - surprisingly high

I apologise if I offended anyone here with accusations of profiteering.

It's probably best not to bring BG into the equation as they are on another planet and only survive by their tenuous link to the past and by manipulating pensioners!
What value do you think your apology has, when it's immediately following by an ignorant insult aimed the largest heating engineer employer in the country?
 
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Stevelup

So its clear you begrudge paying reasonable price for boiler change,fine your choice.

You state that you want to supply the boiler.Fine

So your new boiler is correctly fitted , commissioned and notification sent, all works well for a few months then the unevitable happens, it breaks down. Now who are you going to call.
When we supply and install we do advice our customers to get back to us, if the customer supply their own appliances we make it clear that any premature failure are for them to sort out.
Try getting technical advice if you are not registered.
Most of the reasons regarding installation cost have been covered earlier.

Now think what its going to cost you to call out an engineer. And just incase you think manufacturer will automatically turn up, think again some manufacturers now insist that you firs call out the installer. As you supplied the boiler then I would definitely charge you a callout + hourly fee.

We get loads of calls like these, we don't bother any more, why you may ask, because there are so many customers just glad to pay for a trouble free installation and the piece of mind that we will be available if they have any problems arising during their warranty period.
 
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I think that sometimes a job is overpriced when you get a customer thinking they know the job more than you telling you how much the boiler is as i have checked on ebay... i go to one supplier for boiler materials not got time for searching different places for a few quid..
I bet these companies priced the same job down the road a lot cheaper to a nice customer with a cup of tea and not a i can do this job better but i cant sign it off :evil:
 
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Gasman gaz ok job last year BG, worcester 30si in and remote stat. nothing else remove gloworm compact 100e BG price £4300 hearsay No i had quotes all in front of me 2 weeks ago compact out again and bog standard 28 worcester in £ 3700 then £300 discount for loyal customer. And seen loads at over £3500.
Condensate runs where minimal
I wont even go into the 7k combi change yeah thats right 7 k

did the customer hav a brand new merc on the drive? :LOL:
can only go on the sale reps wat do my area and genrally there a bit more than a good plumbers quote but only seen the odd daft1!
 
am just pondering if the job will be done correctly, i mean just commissioning a boiler i find takes a couple of hours of my time, it's not just the gas connection what about the flue? far as I am concerned that should not be fitted either, but hey labour only 320 for the two days customer supplies everything including hiring powerflushing machine and chemicals, obviously you will be fitting a bypass and bringing said system up to current regs?
 
What value do you think your apology has, when it's immediately following by an ignorant insult aimed the largest heating engineer employer in the country?
I think you are deliberately trying to wind me up now.
 
am just pondering if the job will be done correctly, i mean just commissioning a boiler i find takes a couple of hours of my time, it's not just the gas connection what about the flue? far as I am concerned that should not be fitted either, but hey labour only 320 for the two days customer supplies everything including hiring powerflushing machine and chemicals, obviously you will be fitting a bypass and bringing said system up to current regs?
Hi

All I'm doing is hanging it on the wall and connecting the wet stuff. The heating engineer is connecting the gas and fitting the flue. If the hanging on the wall and wet stuff really is such a problem, I'm more than happy to defer that bit to the installer as well and pay some extra. He did not seem at all bothered though.

I've checked all the distances and the current location is fine with regards to the flue position. Indeed, I'm confident that the installation is compliant as the two companies who came round to do the survey both said it was straightforward and nothing would need doing apart from rejigging the pipework and fitting the condensate drain.

There is already a room thermostat and all radiators except the downstairs hallway have TRV's fitted.

I really didn't intend on creating such a debate - I was (and still am) surprised that some people felt 1200 was a reasonable charge for a direct boiler swap.

Steve
 
I think that sometimes a job is overpriced when you get a customer thinking they know the job more than you telling you how much the boiler is as i have checked on ebay... i go to one supplier for boiler materials not got time for searching different places for a few quid..
I bet these companies priced the same job down the road a lot cheaper to a nice customer with a cup of tea and not a i can do this job better but i cant sign it off :evil:
That wasn't the scenario though... I never mentioned costs and did not even specify the exact boiler I wanted. Both surveyors came with Vaillant brochures already in their hand so I didn't even need to express my preference with regard to the manufacturer. One of them told me about Magnaclean but then went on to tell me to buy it from eBay and they would fit it FOC - which seemed very reasonable at the time.

ps. I offered both surveyors a drink :)
 
Have you not considered doing all of the work yourself? If you feel you are competent to do all the work you have mentioned so far then connecting one furher pipe should not be beyond you. Ok so you need that piece of paper but is it really worth the extra grand?
I think you know the answer to that one.
Look at it this way - if you took your Mercedes into the main dealer for some work you wouldn't ask them if it was okay for you to supply the parts/oil etc. When you know they put a massive mark-up on them AND charge ridiculous hourly rates.
So the humble gas installer who is definitely NOT on £100k+pa can't be criticised for wanting to operate in a similar fashion.
Would advise you to get some more quotes if the price doesn't suit.
 
Would advise you to get some more quotes if the price doesn't suit.
...but bear in mind that he's already utterly wasted the time of at least two companies in asking them to quote and then not using them, which is yet another overhead to be taken into account.

Using the ridiculous and extreme logic characterised by the OP, if there were only three companies, and if every job was preceded by three quotes, and each company succeeded in getting one third of the jobs, then for every job the other two companies would have to recover the cost of quoting three jobs from the job they did get. So that would account for about half a day of work to be added to every job.

Quoting. Just say no.
 
On a similar note, having seen how much VW charged to service my van, I really don't feel that my rates are unreasonable.. I'm sure that every other professional here feels the same.
 
but bear in mind that he's already utterly wasted the time of at least two companies
That's completely unfair. I had every intention of using one of the two companies but they both came back with silly prices.

Do we have to keep going over the same ground. 1200 pounds is not a reasonable fee for this work. Almost everyone who has commented on this thread agrees.

They wasted their own time by quoting far more than was reasonable, you cannot lay that blame at my door.

Which ever way you look at it, 1200 pounds to install a boiler in the same location as an existing one with all the services already in place is an outrage.
 
The line you have taken with the car/van analogies doesn't work for me. You do not have to take your car to a main dealer for servicing. There are plenty of small independents who are happy to do the work with customer supplied parts.

If anything, the car servicing analogy backs up my logic. Why pay over the odds to a main dealer who will mark everything up to hilt when you can get the bits off the internet and pay an independent to do the work.

If you haven't got time to do this - fair enough, go to the main dealer and pay the price. It's the same argument that I'm being shot down in flames for but in reverse...
 
but bear in mind that he's already utterly wasted the time of at least two companies
That's completely unfair.
Is it? But I'm using your reasoning.

I had every intention of using one of the two companies but they both came back with silly prices.
And they had every intention of doing the job, but you had a silly expectation.

Do we have to keep going over the same ground.
Nope. If you admit that you're wrong and then stop, then everyone else will stop.

1200 pounds is not a reasonable fee for this work. Almost everyone who has commented on this thread agrees.
1200 was not the fee - it was the result of your distorted arithmetic.

They wasted their own time by quoting far more than was reasonable, you cannot lay that blame at my door.
If you open the door, you'll find the blame still lying there.

Which ever way you look at it, 1200 pounds to install a boiler in the same location as an existing one with all the services already in place is an outrage.
I find myself with a distinct lack of outrage.
 

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