Having had a new CH system fitted 3-4 years ago I thought it was time
to get it serviced..should really have been every year...but you know
how time passes :-)

I phoned up Vailant who have in the past been excellent at attending
to problems (diverter valve problems on a then new model). They said
however that they were too busy now to send engineers round to service
combis and that it was better to get one of the British gas policies
that includes servicing.

I had thought about the BG policy in the past and thought I may as
well get the policy to protect against some unwanted/unplanned costs
that may arise and as it included servicing seemed like a good time to
do it.

However, after the engineer left the building, my wife phones to say
he didn't seem to do much...certainly didn't vacuum out the boiler
which I thought would be a standard part of service.

Looking on the website now I see it's not neccesarily a service but

"a yearly safety and performance inspection (except for electric
boilers) to help reduce breakdowns "

That sounds a little crap and if my wife is correct, then we still
need to get it serviced otherwise it'll certinaly shorten its life at
best nevermind the effects of it running innefficiently.

Anyone have any experience of these policies and what the 'inspection'
is supposed to include ? I'm afraid I didn't spend too much time
looking into it before hand which was stupid in retrospect. It didn't
really cross my mind that they'd send someone round once a year to
polish the boiler housing and not bother checking inside it
considering they're supposed to cough up for any problems. However I
don't really want to knock 5 years life of the boiler because it's not
actually being serviced properly. The policy is "Maintenance and
Breakdown" cover so I expect some Maintenance...not just breakdown
cover...and I don't class a visual inspection as maintenance.

Ant.