Spiralling costs of Mis-sold boiler

[ajw]

Hi everybody, I'm seeking a bit of advice!

My wife (68) and I (75) are long-term cancer patients and are unable to work. On a routine visit in late 2012, British Gas advised us that our boiler was inefficient and that we should replace our central heating system, promising amazing savings and efficiency. Therefore, we consequently took almost £4000 from our savings to get the new system installed by them.

The new system was faulty and much less efficient than the old system, and necessitated almost 30 visits from their engineers over 11 months, after which it failed completely and was replaced with another new (identical) boiler. During all this time, the system consumed outrageous amounts of gas (twice as much as the original, ‘inefficient’ boiler) and we couldn’t afford to run it for more than 2 hours per day. The second replacement boiler is no better and we are racking up huge bills which we simply can’t afford to pay. All the while, this is a terrible and debilitating worry and, if unresolved, will undoubtedly affect the energy efficiency rating (therefore value) of the house should we need to sell.

British Gas have acknowledged that the system is using more gas than our old system and promised to put things right both retrospectively and on an ongoing basis.

However, it has now been 18 months and they have reneged on this and have now ceased to correspond with us and do not respond to letters (recorded delivery or otherwise) or calls. We have tried contacting the Ombudsman and Trading Standards but the only useful resultant advice was to take the case to court. However as cancer patients we live entirely off our state pension and modest savings and just cannot afford to gamble our only available funds in court.

Does anybody have any advice on how we could proceed or of any bodies that may be able to help us resolve the situation?

Many thanks in advance, it's greatly appreciated!

[des8]

Re: Spiralling costs of Mis-sold boiler

Hi and welcome.
Sorry to read about your problems with British Gas. Something you don't need with your other ongoing health condition.

You say "British Gas have acknowledged that the system is using more gas than our old system and promised to put things right both retrospectively and on an ongoing basis." Was that in writing?

Would it be correct to assume the boiler and system is now working properly, albeit a lot more expensively than the old system?

When you were sold the new system did the BG salesman confirm in writing the anticipated savings?

Further as this case would probably be dealt with as a small claim, any costs would be limited, and depending on your income you may qualify for fee remission. So costs may not be the problem you think they are.

I think a bigger problem would be the stress caused by court action, and that is something to try and avoid.

As it's Bank Holiday and many posters on this site will be otherwise engaged, it may be a little while before you receive all the advice that is available here. Just hang on a while!

[ostell]

Re: Spiralling costs of Mis-sold boiler

Could be the rest of the system (the pipework, siting of thermostats etc) is not correct. Thermostatic radiator valve in the same room as a wall thermostat? Missing components?

I've got a court case running at the moment where the installer didn't install correctly, neither to the installation instructions nor the regs

Could you afford to get an independent to give the system the once over and give their opinion? I didn't know what was wrong with my system until I got another installer to look at it.

[des8]

Re: Spiralling costs of Mis-sold boiler

It might be some consolation to know your not the first.
Here's a link to an earlier thread posted by someone with a similar problem:
http://www.legalbeagles.info/forums/...s+installation
Unfortunately we do not know how it was resolved

[ajw]

Re: Spiralling costs of Mis-sold boiler

Hi again, thank you for your replies so far, it's a great help.

To answer your questions: in writing, we have acknowledgement that "there has been a substantial increase in our gas usage and our home is not reaching the required temperature" as a result of the new boiler and verbally we have been communicating with a Mr Chris Catt who is the District Heating Manager who has made numerous promises of remedial action on a historical and ongoing basis.

The new system still appears to not be working completely as it should [not responsive to the 'state-of-the-art' automatic controls] but British Gas say they are unable to do any more work to rectify our problems. We have the anticpated savings in writing in a bespoke quote printed for us by the salesperson ("By upgrading to a more energy efficient boiler, you could save £425.75 annually"). British Gas have checked everything technically with the installation and claim that the boiler is running as it should, just using a huge amount of gas compared to our normal use.

We agree that court action is something that is not ideal with our health problems (aside from the stress we also have frequent hospital appointments and admissions), so we'd like to try to avoid it - has anybody got any ideas of a body or charity or commission or person that might be able to help us take this forward?

Thank you all very much again for your help.

[meellis]

Re: Spiralling costs of Mis-sold boiler

Morning, I am an heating engineer by trade so interested in your plight. It is hard to be specific without knowing what has been replaced and by what but there are some simple laws of physics that apply. One of the most basic is the fact that your property would require a certain amount of heat input to overcome its physical size and heat loss. Basically this means that if the property hasn't increased in size or some form of insulation hasn't been removed you will need the same amount of heat input now as you did before the new boiler. If the new boiler has the same heat output as your original boiler then it should be cheaper to run though £425 sounds on the optimistic side. I was always told never to quote savings in pound notes because if the fuel price as risen and the winter is colder and longer than the previous one you could save gas over the previous boiler but it could have cost more due to price rises and increased usage. More of a concern is if the property isn't get warm enough because this could indicate that the boiler is working hard to achieve the unachievable. If the boiler is unable to get to the right temperature then the radiators will not supply enough heat to the property so the boiler will run longer to try and heat the property. If the boiler is running constantly then it isn't giving out enough heat to satisfy the requirements but this is harder to say due to the state of the art controls that are installed nowadays, modern boilers do run longer to try and match the load to the demand. I would maybe give gas safe a call and see if they could recommend anybody in your area to give an impartial opinion or Corgi are still around they are just not a regulatory body anymore.