I have saga home insurance, and they were pestering me to add on home emergecy, (central heating boiler etc) I kept saying ,as mine was only
4 year old. Eventualy agreed £5 month extra. 3 weeks later I got a red flashing light (air pressure) it was the fan sticking. He gave it a quick spray and all was ok, until the fan stuck altogether. Another call and fan replaced.(Heatline boiler) That's 2 call outs and parts . With 3 months extra premiums totalling £15, that is not a bad outlay. The moral here is even new boilers go t*ts up as well.
You are still going to have to pay another 9 months of the extra 5. Which make of boiler? Some are worse than others, but you should be covered for 5 years in the UK using EU legislation about how long a product should last. The manufacturer will pay up and if they refuse, issue a county court summons and they will back out every time. Consumer sites tell people NOT to pay for extended warranties or to give in to sales pressure. The problem is that the total cost will often be more than the product is worth if you calculate how long you pay extra amounts for. To replace a fan in a boiler is NOT expensive. The part is NOT expensive and the time to do it is only a total of
30mins from walking in the door to driving away. Obviously the cowboys will string it out for as long as they can and charge as much as possible. That is why you need to build up a list of reputable traders in your area. Trading Standards will give you a leaflet of approved traders in each area - they have their work inspected and Trading Standards are legally responsible for recommending companies, so you have nothing to lose. Get that list and help stamp out the cowboys who will often recognise the problem instantly, drive off for parts, ask for cash only, then sit about for hours and start charging 400+ for a 20part and what should only be 30mins labour charge. Callout charges are a thing of the past and should not be charged now. The job is guaranteed, so the person knows they will be paid but only if they go to it - so that is THEIR choice to call out. You should also check the company is registered with Compnies House and check out any previous names for the company. Then check they are CORGI registered and insist on the card before allowing the work to continue. If they can't show a card, send them away and refuse to pay as they are bogus.
This a UK legal undertaking and not an EU one (and is actually 6 years in England and Wales and 5 in Scotlant) - the EU one gives less cover (2 ears) - be well aware of misinformation from various parties!
The manufacturer will pay up and if they
But this only covers *inherent* faults in materials and manufacture *NOT* wear and tear - and it's up to you to prove that it's an inherent fault after 6 months use (after 6 months, the customer has to prove that it is) - and whoever resolves the problem (see below), the OP has no legal right to have a *NEW* boiler or parts fitted to cure a problem (refurbished ones can be used), nor is there a legal right to a *FULL* refund - there can be a pro-rata refund which takes into consideration any use that the OP has had out of the boiler (in this case, any refund could be quite low).
Also, the manufaturer, supplier and installer, can legally request that defective items be examined to ascertain the cause of the faults before carrying out any warranty work or issue a refund.
Also be aware that the there are *three* types of warranty (used very loosely in this context):
1 The Manufacturers warranty (which they don't have to legally give) - and if they give one, they can stipulate any conditions they wish, providing that they are clear and up-front.
2 The Suppliers, retailers or installers warranty - which can also be anything that they want.
3 The Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended) which is the legal requirement - see link for a quick reference:
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And it is *item**3* that legally enforceable in this (and most) cases and
*CANNOT* be superseded or altered by any warranty or Terms and Conditions (implied or otherwise) of either 1 or 2 - and a contract is usually with item 2 - and not item 1 (the manufacturer). Be aware that many suppliers and manufacturers do their damndest to bend the law using their own implied Terms and Conditions - and often give misinformation to avoid giving customers their legal rights of repair or replacement of damaged goods.
As an addendum to the above, where there is an agreement between the customer and supplier (or installer), the customer *can* deal directly with the manufacturer for warranty claims. If the customer refuses to accept this, then the supplier (or installer) *must* legally deal with such claims.
I have snipped the rest for brevity, but the advice is relevant and good.
I hope this is of some help and adds to your post IanT
"bend" including miss-quoting Part P re Statuatory Instrument :-)
For example:
- 5 warranty claims over the past 2 years for failed goods
- 1 complaint against BASEC re defective SWA (BS5467)
- 2 suppliers wanting trade terms but also DIY customers
Each time they started off by saying Part P "prevents anyone but registered scheme members doing anything" and "they were supposed to have stopped you people".
Each time I quoted SI2006 and asked why they were suggesting SI2004 was the law.
Each one backed down straight away - except BASEC who whilst at first upholding my complaint of horrible manufacturing defects did not reply to further emails. The suppliers openly admit they are more concerned about protecting sparks who will otherwise default on their trade accounts and phoenix as limited companies, fool suppliers rewarding front line staff with commission for pushing credit accounts during easy credit.
Not difficult to see why manufacturers liked SI2004, it changed everything to "B2B trade" rather than B2C so allows them to essentially shovel shit onto the market - legal protection for B2B is almost neglidgible compared to B2C hence they always like to treat customers as consumer until a problem. DSR does not apply to trade purchases and it gets worse from there.
Insurance works for certain items:
- Boilers - because electronics to heat exchangers are of variable quality, boilers are now an consumable item which does not marry well with their cost and particularly *installation cost*. Realise insurance CAN mean just putting £175 aside for the "flat fee to manufacturer's own engineers to fix any fault except heat exchanger".
- Laptops - because they are a single point of failure cost wise, you are paying for dead money in what are in 6 months essentially obsolete parts, many consumer grade laptops are junk however - bouncy keyboards, unusable screens, little better than portable video players.
- LCD & Plasma TV - because the more expensive ones are a single point of failure cost wise (only 4 parts re panel, backlight, video board & PSU and obsolescence is also about 6 months re changes).
- Washer Dryers - because failure is higher probability and often renders both unusable, and frankly only Miele have a 10yr bullet-proof product.
Washing machines and Microwaves are a special case. You either buy cheap as chips and treat as disposable OR buy expensive and make sure a longer warranty is *included* to offset the expense (essentially you are buying priced-in insurance). An example would be free 5yr warranty on special offer washing machines at John Lewis rather than the frankly useless 1yr warranty. Interesting to note some companies dropped their longer (JL free 2yr) & cheap (Argos 3yr) microwave warranties due to diminishing product quality.
It is all fine and dandy to argue Fit For Purpose should last longer, but that does nothing to fix a boiler in the middle of winter or no washing machine and a baby screaming its lungs out! Most other extended warranty are a waste of money - just self insure (video recorders, fridges, freezers, vacuums, hifi, kettles or other bonkers gravy-on-the-back-end). Likewise do not double insure unless you know there is likely to be a problem - an example would be plumbing coverage when you already have it under the house insurance (perhaps double insure if you have just claimed for a flood say and do not want two strikes against you for flood damage howsoever caused).
The only warranty I have ever bought is for a relative's LCD TV, which was priced appropriately for 5yrs and the TV being last year's model was heavily discounted yet being better than the then current year's model.
Aside - Some people like car extended warranty, the problem is the exclusions can be severe and in some cases it can be cheaper to lease where a major failure just kicks the car back (turbo diesel engine failure £5k, gearbox failure £3k, ECU failure £2.8k). They can cost £800-1200 which is frankly wasted money, if you have that kind of doubts about the vehicle change the thing - do not become "emotionally attached", even the prettiest thing can become a lemon, look at the wife! Likewise "car supermarkets" can have obscence restrictions - take a car for a service at a main dealer within N days, wear and tear are excluded which means oil pump to turbo to gearbox or engine failure.
Best insurance is putting away at least 20-50/month for repairs "in general". Sadly the elderly actually need to put away 100/month because that is basically what it costs to fix appliances, houses etc as they age, the bills are a shock to them and they are never ending. People wonder why so many elderly just sit in disintegrating houses or have relatives with hair falling out fixing things - compliant with SI2006 and thanks to ACS qualified Transco going beyond their remit on
3 occasions to fix Corgi screwups).
A final note is some credit cards provide 1 months free anything- protection, and of course anything >£100 in unit cost (ie, not 100 items of £1 each) receives protection under the credit acts - something to remember. Beware many CCC like to back out of anything involving international on the basis you will not take them to small claims - and there is a loophole where not bringing problems to their attention fast enough gets them off the hook.
The EU has watered down the guarantee system - you can be subject to repair, new can be repaired etc. The UK had a better system, but you had to go eyeball to eyeball at times and make the other side blink - or bleed. If your boiler is Ideal or such like, fight because many UK business are more interested in protectionism - which is a fast track to the USSR.
That should say 12 months (probably Barclaycard), I think one other does offer 30-days, Amex may offer 90-days or 12 months (can't remember which and may depend on which grade of card).
I have a suspicion many major brands are either outsourcing for other markets (like Hong Kong) which magically find their way onto the UK market but are lower grade goods than UK product. I also suspect major brands which inevitably integrate other people's parts are not QC the incoming parts closely enough because unbenown to them they are being similarly outsourced or re-engineered cheaper for different markets. That is why quality can decline through the chain as it becomes a race to the bottom with the "front product brand" eventually going down the toilet suddenly until they wake up and take action (perhaps too late).
I am referring specifically to the Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended) with regards to the customers legal rights to get defective components repaired, replaced or refunded by the installer/supplier [1] of the boiler - and not with regards to Building Regulations or other issues.
With regards to CORGI (now Gas Safe I believe) and the refusal to supply components to 'non-qualified' customers - that is a different matter and was not raised in the OP.
As for the rest of your post, I found it difficult to follow, as it seemed to randomly meander over a wide range of questions that were not raised by the OP - and have therefore declined to comment.
[1] And possibly the manufacturer (under a specific set of circumstances) - and I would presume that if the manufacturer was liable under SoGA, a 'competent' person would be sent to inspect the defective components for inherent or latent defects on four year old boiler - and to repair or replace them. Or even refuse to do anything if the damage is caused by abuse or fair wear and tear.
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