Sir, – Rosita Boland was fortunate (“The day Bord Gáis Lady and I wished we had never picked up the phone to each other”, February 28th), at least her boiler was serviced, albeit on the second attempt. I was not so fortunate. I paid Bord Gáis for a boiler service which was originally scheduled for February 21st, 2022. At the appointed time I got a call from the engineer to say that he could not perform the service as he could not obtain a parking space directly outside the house. This I thought was strange as the house is at the bottom of a cul-de-sac with no passing traffic and in 30 years in the house, no service personnel ever had an issue with parking outside.
Various solutions were proposed, all of which were rejected. He did inform me that it would be up to me to contact Bord Gáis to arrange for another service.
I eventually got through to Bord Gáis and rescheduled the service for March 31st. A different engineer arrived this time but he also refused to service the boiler as it is more than two feet off the ground. Apparently, he is not insured to work at such altitudes. I checked the calendar at this stage and confirmed that it was still March 31st, as the boiler was installed and all services to date had been carried out by, you guessed it, a Bord Gáis engineer.
The second engineer did ring his supervisor who came to the house and confirmed that the boiler could not be serviced for the said reason. While the high-level deliberations were ongoing between the engineer and the supervisor, we had not one, but two Bord Gáis vans parked outside the house for 20 minutes. Before he left, the supervisor did undertake to arrange for a private contractor to carry out the service. His parting comment was that he would ring within the hour with the revised details. Alas, there was no further contact from the supervisor and I had to arrange a service with a more reputable company.
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To date Bord Gáis has not returned the fee for the service that it has steadfastly refused to carry out. – Yours, etc,
G Matthews,
Dublin 12.