As the country braves itself for another winter, you’ll probably be turning on your central heating boiler to keep your home warm throughout the colder months. But is your boiler energy efficient and are you confident it won’t breakdown when you need it most?

Last year British Gas had a nightmare winter and are ready to combat what could be another chaotic period.

In 2010, 400 staff at a call centre in the north-west of England had to deal with 67,000 calls during the Christmas week alone. And despite the company having a contingency plan in place to deal with an overwhelming volume of calls, they were still caught out.

During December engineers had to repair around 110,000 boilers, but this needn’t be the case for you if you act quickly and make sure your boiler will last the winter.

And this time around British Gas are planning to be ahead of the game. Chris Jansen, director of British Gas Services, said: “We start thinking about a winter contingency plan in March, but last year it was much colder than we expected and was one of our busiest, and we are expecting similar conditions in 2011 with our service centre in Stockport expecting to take a similar number of calls if not more.”

Boilers over 15 years old should be replaced with a new efficient model, which will not only save you money on your energy bills, but will also reduce your home’s carbon emissions all year round. You can get a new boiler quote here.

Old boilers can have as little as 70% efficiency, so you’re wasting a ton of money on your bills, which could be put to better use.

And if you’re boiler is still relatively new, then at least enquire about insurance for your boiler in case a fault does happen. This will save you from high call-out charges, which can double around Christmas.

Get up to 4 Free Quotes from Combiboiler.net