Advice
The boiler service: cost, contents, and the con
What you should pay, what you should get, and the shortcut version to watch out for.
What it costs
Ring and ask, and you'll get a straight price for your boiler before anything's booked. Boiler access, age and whether you bundle it with a landlord certificate all nudge the number, which is why we'd rather quote your actual setup than print a figure that's wrong half the time. One question always worth asking anyone who quotes you suspiciously low: how long will the engineer actually be there?
What a proper service includes
- Casing off. This is the tell. No casing off, no service
- Flue gas analysis, checking the boiler is burning cleanly and safely
- Gas pressure and gas rate checked against the manufacturer's figures
- Heat exchanger, burner, seals and electrodes inspected
- Condensate trap cleaned, a two-minute job that prevents the classic winter breakdown
- Safety devices tested, system pressure and expansion vessel checked
- A plain-English summary of anything found, even if it's "all fine"
That takes 30 to 60 minutes done honestly. The ten-minute drive-by, where the engineer glances at the flame through the window, ticks a sheet and leaves? That exists, it's common, and it's worth nothing except the sticker.
Why bother annually
Three reasons, in descending order of how much they'll cost you to ignore. First, warranties: nearly every manufacturer requires annual servicing, and the long warranties people pay extra for die quietly the year a service is missed. Second, small faults get caught at the cheap stage: a worn seal this year instead of a heat exchanger next year. Third, safety: the flue gas analysis confirms the boiler's burning properly, which is the part you can't see and really want to be right.
Book it in summer if you can. Nobody's queuing, and you're not gambling with the first cold week of October.
Landlord?
The service and the CP12 gas safety certificate are different things: the certificate checks it's safe, the service keeps it working and warrantied. Doing both in one visit costs less than two separate appointments, which is what most of our landlord customers do.