Paul wrote:
The British Gas man came round with his new wireless laptop to quote:

They would replace it with a brand new Glo-Worm boiler (basically a
new model of what we've got), sort out the brickwork as there is a
smaller flue for the new one, replace the immersion tank, pipe work,
clean out the radiators, new therm and clock, with a £100 trade in and
£130 odd off for having a 3 star service contract, plus a free years
contract as well...about £2600.

Now I don't know if this is reasonable for all parts, works and
labour.

I had mentioned to him that in our local wickes, you could buy a combi
gas boiler for £400-£450 to his reply was "well they'll only last you
about 5 years", he said these new boilers, more energy efficient
(which I'm sure they are, I've seen the 37% claim on the telly), and
have a life of at least 15 years before parts stop being made...my
current boiler which has been serviced by BG for the last 10 years, is
roughly 20 years old.

And to cap it all, which I don't like is that this price was for today
only, I was advised over the phone that it'd be a non-obligation quote
(which it was) and the quote would be fixed for 42 days, this turns
out not to be the case, if I go back to BG in say six months and say
"yep ok", I'm told the price could be higher...

So I will use this quote as a benchmark to see what the local corgi
tradesmen will quote and cost for similar work...

This is an area that I don't know much about, ok very little...I could
have last night put £1000 deposit and paid £40 per month for 60 months
(apr 10%), the advantage is that with BG you can spread the payments,
obviously if you go with a local tradesmen, you have to at least pay
half at the start and half at the end...

You can get GlowWorm combi boilers for 450 quid upwards.
BG are bound to be at least 30% more than anybody else. After all they are
not the old BG we knew and loved/hated, they are another milkcow of
Centrica's along with the AA which they have also screwed up.