British gas wanna be sparkys

[sedgy34]

These people are going round the country i guess issuing danger notice stickers cause they dont know what they are doing but a warning sticker cover there arses
i had a db change when 16 edition was in on a tt system i installed a 100ma main rcd switch (time delay)on a split load board with a 30ma rcd (as you would have done before the 17th edition came out) tested fine certified it job done!!! 17th edition comes out customer got installation insured with BG they come out its not to 17 edition its dangerous blah blah blah so my customer calls me after 12 months or so angrily cause of BG,s actions so i pop over to see his report and my question was having read his report DID THIS GUY KNOW WHAT HE WAS LOOKING AT??? I CALLED HIS MANAGER TO MAKE COMPLAINT AND THE RESPONSE WAS I QUOTE"" IF THE ENGINEER HAS BEEN TO A PROPERTY AND NOTED THINGS ON HIS REPORT ITS CORRECT WHAT HES SAYING.
at that stage i was wishing i was in a cartoon so i could have popped out his phone and headbutted this idiot i couldnt pursue this matter as this was the guy who you have to complain to.
this guy was saying they need new db

THEY SHOULD BE ON WATCHDOG/ROGUETRADERS

 

[Geordie Spark]

BG had to explain a few things on Watchdog tonight about their boiler shenanigans, could be worthwhile letting them know about their electrical practices.

Thanks for bringing that up !!

I once moved a boiler for a customer from one side of their kitchen to the other, & at the same time, moved 2 radiators in 2 bedrooms.


This installation was about 2 years old, and was in very good condition. I noticed that when I drained the water out it was nice & clean, & when I had finished the job I re-filled it with nice clean fresh water & fresh inhibitor.

It was a few months later when the customer took-out a maintenance contract with British Grasp & they sent someone out to inspect the system.

The first I knew about it was when the rather irate customer phoned me to tell me that BG had told her that "the water in the system is filthy & the radiators are full of black sludge, there was no inhibitor added to it & it will need to be power flushed at a cost of £200+ pounds". She wanted to know why I hadn't done anything about it at the time I worked on it.

My response was to present myself at the property, and in her presence I proceeded to drain the system down, stopping occasionally to fill a drinking glass with the water from the system to show her it was almost crystal clear. I also invited her so smell a fresh bottle of inhibitor that I brought with me, & then to smell the water that I was draining out of it to prove that I had indeed added the inhibitor.

At the end of the exercise, she agreed that I had done the job properly & that BG had been "trying it on".
I refilled the system, added inhibitor & charged her for my time & materials & left her to argue the ---- with BG.

 

[edexlab]

I've been to one of these ''BG electrical safety checked '' properties recently which had also had a new boiler fitted by them
I was there to fit a Pv system, they passed it except for a dodgy socket , when in fact there was no bonding present and the Ra of the rod was 800 ohms
also the 100mA Rcd (16th board) would not trip even when the test button was pressed, after reading the previous posts I'm surprised they didn't condemn it for being 16th edition Cu!.

In my own house we had a boiler fault a few years ago and the Mrs called them out to be told that the heating controls were wired incorrectly
something I'd never actually checked as I qualified several years after buying the house, and it always worked with no problems before ,so he said he'd sort it , 3 months later the same fault on boiler and a different guy told me that the heating was wired wrong and he'd done it properly .
After he'd gone I took a look at the junction box and could'nt believe how badly done it was , I complained to BG took photos and did it myself ,the best they could do was to offer me a price to come back and redo the junction box , I then upset the wife by canceling the homecare agreement.

 

[Geordie Spark]

I've been to one of these ''BG electrical safety checked '' properties recently which had also had a new boiler fitted by them
I was there to fit a Pv system, they passed it except for a dodgy socket , when in fact there was no bonding present and the Ra of the rod was 800 ohms
also the 100mA Rcd (16th board) would not trip even when the test button was pressed, after reading the previous posts I'm surprised they didn't condemn it for being 16th edition Cu!.

In my own house we had a boiler fault a few years ago and the Mrs called them out to be told that the heating controls were wired incorrectly
something I'd never actually checked as I qualified several years after buying the house, and it always worked with no problems before ,so he said he'd sort it , 3 months later the same fault on boiler and a different guy told me that the heating was wired wrong and he'd done it properly .
After he'd gone I took a look at the junction box and could'nt believe how badly done it was , I complained to BG took photos and did it myself ,the best they could do was to offer me a price to come back and redo the junction box , I then upset the wife by canceling the homecare agreement.

I used to tell my punters that they'd be better off telling BG to stuff their home care scam & instead put the monthly "home care policy" money into a savings account that pays a decent rate of interest & use that to pay for repairs & replacements etc.

 

[Knobhead]

OH dear I’m just watching Watchdog, I knew BG were bad. BUT not that bad!

 

[Guest111]

spotted one a while ago on watchdog where a condensate drain had frozen in winter,BG answer was to wrap a heat tape around pipe and charge customer £150 for sorting their mistake when in actual fact pipe should have been 32mm as there was a risk of freezing.

 

[Knobhead]

You’ve just reminded me Phil. Last winter I call in to see a disabled friend. He’s sat freezing his nuts off waiting for BG. Checked the boiler (fitted by BG) and sure enough the condensate drain was frozen. The drain ran up hill! Disconnected the drain outside and got the boiler going and waited with him to give the BG fitter a very warm welcome. Pity it wasn’t the guy that fitted it!

 

[TaffyDuck]

Well I had one today. A very vulnerable gentleman called in a blind panic saying that he had turned of his electric and gas because he was told yesterday by BG that it was dangerous and needed upgrading. The problem was 6mm bonding to the gas and a 20 year old crabtree board with a 100mA incomer, all in perfect working order. He was told it might explode. Poor sod was terrified, took me an hour to calm him down. This is shameful.

 

[Knobhead]

Shameful yes.
But it seems BG have no shame.

As I said earlier I'd just watched Watchdog, they say they don't pay commision to engineers. Something is driving them.

 

[Dcf]

years ago, the rec's did this with a team of salespeople going out telling customerss their installations were unsafe.

they ended up on watchdog! rec's then used their own sparkies to do the 'free visual inspections' - it was a good number.

they had 3 days of sales training, then sparks wages guaranteed every week, plus commission after hitting a certain value of sales.

only stopped after 9 months because of a cock up from royal mail with the flyers.

Indeed they did.scared the daylights out of the old dear upstairs from me.
she thought the place was gonna go up.handed a quote on the way out of the door.checked it out and put her mind at ease.
all ther wanted was upgrades and rewores out of it and implying every other spark apart from them is a total cowboy.sneaky alright so bg is nothing new.

 

[Geordie Spark]

You’ve just reminded me Phil. Last winter I call in to see a disabled friend. He’s sat freezing his nuts off waiting for BG. Checked the boiler (fitted by BG) and sure enough the condensate drain was frozen. The drain ran up hill! Disconnected the drain outside and got the boiler going and waited with him to give the BG fitter a very warm welcome. Pity it wasn’t the guy that fitted it!

It never is .. even when it is .... if you catch my drift.

A cople of years ago I was speaking on the phone with my disabled friend (he has MS & feels cold even in summer) in Wales, & at that very same time he had the BG "engineer" trying to fix his boiler for the fifth time in little over a week & it was looking like he wasn't having much success.

I asked my friend to describe to me what the boiler was doing / not doing & after he told me I told him to tel the BG bloke to check the overheat thermostat.He did, & sure enough that was the problem.

So there we had a bloke on site looking for the same fault for something like the fifth time and he can't see it, yet a bloke sitting in an armchair 3 hours away can diagnose it straight away.

I've never rated myself as brilliant at fault finding - just ok - but the BG bloke didn't even rate as high as that.

I did work as a sub contractor for them, but gave up because I was disgusted at the standard of work they wanted me to adopt.

 

[WPD Lad]

Just been to a callout where the chap had had a BG "engineer" out as he had no power. BG "engineer" walks around the whole house with a volt stick and says there is power there and is flummoxed! Said could change CU and see if that works, then leaves!

What a joke, it was a bloody loose neutral in the KMF

 

[Plonker 3]

A builder I do some work for has asked me to price up a rewire as BG said it needed doing.

He has already had a EICR done on (by another spark) the property , so I will wait to see that before saying anymore needless to say I don't think it will need rewiring

 

[Guest111]

Well we are all discussing BG still so here goes, as some of you know a few years ago I worked for a firm and was doing a lot of work for BG.Without boring you with the in,s and outs my gaffer had me running round like a headless chicken doing as many heatings in a day as I could ,often 4 was the norm.Anyway one Friday had a big row over a job that was running late and I said I was not stopping out till late yet again, big row later and I ended up doing job after agreeing extra cash with boss.As I was wrapping up customer came out with an envelope for me from BG addressed to INSTALLING ENGINEER when I opened it I found out why boss had me run ragged.That 1 job which consisted of fitting a wireless room stat,a switched fused spur and connecting it to boiler as well as cross bonding all pipes under boiler and then testing out earned him over £1500 quid! no wonder he was chasing me round like a lunatic,as well as stating work to be done the letter also had a list of prices for each item ,bonding,fit fcu, test install etc.prices were unbelievable.

 

[sedgy34]

BG are hiding behind the name they should be BC BIG COWBOYS

 

[Geordie Spark]

BG are hiding behind the name they should be BC BIG COWBOYS

Nah ...... it's British Grasp innit !!!

 

[Guest111]

Nah ...... it's British Grasp innit !!!

Or British Gasp, which is what you do when you get the bill!

 

[Geordie Spark]

Or British Gasp, which is what you do when you get the bill!

I think they're all as bad as each other with regards to ripping the customer (us) off ....... or am I just an old cynic ???

 

[benjybob1981]

I had a run in with Bg a few months back put a couple of security lights in for a friend of mine about a week later the boiler stopped working si being insured with them they came out and asked have you had any work done on property so my friend explained so then the engineer(used very very loosley) said the lights i put in had caused the fault lol i was in area so returned i got there asked him he said he was gettin 400 voltreplaced s readings on his tester after i mopped up the pool of **** from laughing i had a look my self didnt even get my tools out fuse had blown in fused spur replaced then left with a big smile on my face and s red faced plastic engineer !!!!

 

[chrisc 77]

what im seeing here guys is an enormous gap in the market for faults and jobs such as this. If there was a sparkys union where we could all group together and get bespoke electrical contractors nationwide on a conract of sorts, then we could blow BG out of the water. At the end of the day we dont **** about with water or gas so why should the gas board do it with our trade ?.
Ps if anyone in the manchester area takes this up as a good idea, giz a job. lol.

 

[Brightestspark]

I too had a BG initiated call out. The 'Inspector' failed the installation with loads of warning notices as they couldn't see the main bonding to the water supply. I attended and proved it with a meter, but the actual clamp was out of sight. (Okay I know not quite perfect but electrically safe). They came back, saw mt certificate and said still no good. So I returned, put a clamp on in sight, attached a bit of 10mm, drilled a hole and put one end of the cable through the hole, going nowhere. Return of the Bodge Gang Inspector, Result PASSED. What a load of crap!