do bg operatives tell porky pies.

[giblets]

Using "BG" & "experts" in the same sentence is an oxymoron.

Went to a BG gas fire install (6 years ago) last week - 14m of 15mm bare copper pipe run round the outside of the property fixed to the brickwork with pin clips. Also no terminal guard fitted - not missing, never fitted! Had been serviced by BG until last year - never any comment made about these points.

 

[petit_pablo]

And powerflushing is not always part of a replacement boiler quote...I shall post BG qoutes to prove it if necessary.

Agreed, powerflushing isnt a given on a BG install. Minimum is a hot and cold rinse in accordance with MI's usually. The sales guys rely on the engineers ticking the powerflush box on the paperwork although im sure i was told they were supposed to do a water sample.

The problem here is that the BG engineers who take the time and trouble to post on forums are the employees that care about customers and no doubt provide a professional service. Just stop defending the rest of your company.....you are in the minority, most of your colleaques are hopeless.

Agree again!

And stop winging about customers and their systems....BG take on total carp (that is not fully checked out) that no sensible company should dream of insuring. Presumerably the bean counters have carefully worked out that insuring an obsolete system is still cost effective once the powerflush scam and inflated boiler replacement are taken into account.

Its the old mexico's, classics and kingfishers that make us the money. Never break down, need minimal work doing and usually installed on decent systems as they were installed properly by proper tradesman.

 

[Deleted member 105431]

It's the gullible fools and vunerable pensioners that BG exploit which makes them the money, that and the conmen engineers who quote for (overpriced) unnessecary work and boiler changes.

Gasguru is right, BG have been pulled up for false advertising recently and they are guilty of it on a regular basis.

In my experience 10% of BG engineers are competent and approx 5% are good. Less than 1% are excellent.

The reasons ppl stay at BG are the generous sick pay, the pension, and the fact they couldn't survive outside the culture of incompetence within the organisation.

Those that leave and return are proof of my last point.

 

[Trouble666]

And stop winging about customers and their systems....BG take on total carp (that is not fully checked out) that no sensible company should dream of insuring. Presumerably the bean counters have carefully worked out that insuring an obsolete system is still cost effective once the powerflush scam and inflated boiler replacement are taken into account.

Despite me working as a technical eng for BGS, this I agree with; They seem to want their fingers in all the pies. Sometimes, I would think its better to walk away with your losses than accept a 24 year old boiler onto contract, but for the company, its just another £15-20 every month! That just makes our job harder, and prevents us from being able to take a professional approach to our job. Like for example, a cust has been paying that amount for 6 months, their boiler breaks down,and when diagnosing it, you realise its an obsolete part. Thats just crap! From a business point of view, BG hope to get a boiler lead out of it. Thats the management, not engineers, coz I couldnt give a monkeys where a customer buys their boiler from. The problem is then, engineers are tarred with the same brush as the management-a part of BG even we have our differences with.

 

[ScottishGasMan]

If I'm not confident in a particular boiler due to lack of experience on that model I'm honest, I tell the customer, treat it as a training excecise and charge appropriately or pass it to the manufacturer if a fixed price may be a better deal. As an example I won't work on the water side of Worcester Highflows....not cost effective for the customer.

Thats Not An Option For Us. I've an estate of weepy highflows to look forward to on a near weekly basis. If we could run away from jobs we couldnt fix/didnt have appropriate trainning we wouldnt have recalls either!

With diagnostic work you keep an open mind and start with the basics....something BG fail to do on a regular basis. They send inexperienced "engineers" and expect them to work on anything. They waste their own and the customers time..very poor business sense.

Agreed with that, I done a 1year apprentiship and within 10 weeks after that I was out working completley by myself with no clue nor expirience to my name, I and every other apprentice no doubt had jobs like your pump and empty F+E tank, one incident thats certain to be a new guy,

remember thres over 5000 of us, of course theres gonna be some bad ones, I garuntee If I took 5000 independants and looked through their job history there would be plenty of appauling quote/saftey issues and repairs.

I have resisted posting pages of other examples of their incompetence but I will if necessary.

as said above Ive pages of examples of independant Corgis that Ive been called out to once they couldnt find problems or left things unsafe, it happens everywhere in the industry and ill bet its an even spread over BG/independants.

I also have some wonderful replacement boiler quotes...extraordinary costs for non-compliant work (ie Part L). Lets see how they'd fair without spending millions lying to the public via advertising but just relying on customer referals (as most of the quality competent installers/boiler engineers do).

Ive no doubt you have some incredible boiler quotes, ive seen us quote £6k to change a mexico to a combi, without new radiators, thats just greedy salesmen, no doubt about that, but its a quote, we could qoute £10k a combi swap its still legal.

And nearly all my 1st visits are people whos friends have the contracts and couldnt be without them, remember for the few hundred unhappy customers you may have examples for, we hve 10s of thousands of happy ones,


By no means is our company close to perfect, Infact theres enough wrong with the way our engineers are treated that I will be leaving them soon. But sit and slate every engineer, or even say 90% are horible engineers thats completley innaccurate. We can run away from jobs that we dont like/understand, which unfortunetly causes some engineers to play the flush card.

Oh and for the record, A Powerflush is a good deal (assuming your system needs it) Free Radiators+Pipework for the rest of your life as they might be needed!

And for the systems that a simple chemical rinse would propably suffice, Our labour/quotes are mostly all pre determined, so adding chemicals, comming back for a 2nd visit to drain+fill a couple of times then inhibit would be nearly half the price of a powerflush with no garuntees atall, what would you advise somoene, take the Pflush, or get a cheap indipendant and hope he doesnt take your money+leave withouht doing it right.

 

[nickso]

I'm totally honest when I say I haven't read the entire post down to the letter.
But with regards to a PFlush; if you had the system installed by BGS, then a PFlush would have been done at the same time. As a result, you have a lifetime guarantee under the terms of the contract for a free reflush, on the basis you haven't lapsed in the contract.

Hope this helps.

Regards

wrong.

 

[petit_pablo]

I'm totally honest when I say I haven't read the entire post down to the letter.
But with regards to a PFlush; if you had the system installed by BGS, then a PFlush would have been done at the same time. As a result, you have a lifetime guarantee under the terms of the contract for a free reflush, on the basis you haven't lapsed in the contract.

Hope this helps.

Regards

wrong.

LOL Its only been in the past few years p'flushes have been lifetime guaranteed too

 

[Deleted member 105431]

For the guarantee you need to stay on 3 star for the rest of your life.

Hardly value for money.

 

[ScottishGasMan]

I think it is value for money, but where it will get people, is when they get a new boiler, theyll have to get us to fit it or we can just turn round a few years after ad say oh, you had a 3rd party fit the boiler, doubt they flushed/inhibited it right. Oh well, not covered!

And at no point do we regurlarly check inhibitor levels in any system, so we can have someone on contract for 15 years, tell them they need a powerflush and have to explain that theyv never had their inhibitor tested or re added, and thats their responsibility!!

 

[nickso]

And at no point do we regurlarly check inhibitor levels in any system, so we can have someone on contract for 15 years, tell them they need a powerflush and have to explain that theyv never had their inhibitor tested or re added, and thats their responsibility!!

i tell them that when i quote for it. so should you.

 

[powermaxer]

had a chat with business partner today and asked him how his heating was working and his comments on their service.
ok heating system is working as same as when new only poor comment was on this occasion an inexperienced engineer was sent but remember at one time we were all inexperienced.
overall he is happy and would still reccomend bg to install/maintain heating systems.

 

[Gasguru]

In my experience 10% of BG engineers are competent and approx 5% are good. Less than 1% are excellent.

IMHO this is also reflected in the non BG installer base ie it represents the whole industry, I actually think it's well under 1% competent boiler repair engineers once you exclude some of the manufacturers own engineers that are parts swappers (where it's often more cost effective to throw parts (at cost price) to solve the problem).

As for running away from difficult boilers it comes down to what's best for the customer. I've only ever seen 2 Highflows so there's little point in ripping them apart to gain experience when I'm unlikley to see one again, refering the customer to Worcester or someone else more familiarity is a better option.

BG should limit engineers to a range of manufacturers just as many other repair industries do. Experience is everything and expecting each individual to work on everything is a nonsense.


My gripe for the last time is the advertising. Through a wholy unfair competitive advantage, BG can claim to be experts through mass advertising campaigns but are actually no better than the rest of the industry (which isn't that great either).

Given such a large organisation obtains boilers/parts etc at a heavily discounted rate, has specialist teams for scafolding/electrics etc, have their own dedicated training centers and other clear advantages, they should be leagues above the independents. In any other industry the larger a company becomes the more efficient it runs...how come BG make a total horlicks of it. About time those of you that know your stuff blew the whistle big time to the press and end this farce.

Break up BG into businesses no more than a dozen operatives and see how most would fair then.

 

[gavinda]

the point is, independants only see **** that bg have missed. likewise we generally only see independants work that customers have had enough with. you dont see the thousands of happy customers. a lot of folks would rather pay more to have th pice of mind that if it goes tits up theyll get some comeback rather than a mobile phone that mysteriously doesnt get answered and an unsigned benchmark book.

look at the threads on here. how many are actually about poor install and repair practice by independants versus bg engineers? not many eh?

 

[giblets]

and an unsigned benchmark book.

They obviously teach your lot to write up there. Last two BG installs I've been to the Benchmark has been completely blank. The one before that had the output down as the input.

 

[gavinda]

dude im in berkshire, not lanarkshire