Npower Central Heating Install Disaster

lucysettle

Think Twice About Employing Npower to Install Central Heating In Your House!!!

Last September me and my boyfriend employed Npower to install a full central heating system to our house. We were very proud first time buyers, but were realistic and knew that a full install including new pipes throughout would be disruptive - there's no way that the damage and mess caused by npower could ever be described as within acceptable levels.

We've started a blog with photos and I really think the pics illustrate what I'm describing far better!
http://npower-gas-install-photos.posterous.com/

To keep it brief, we went with npower over similar quotes from local contractors because they guaranteed they'd be in and out really quickly and I had my 30th birthday coming up, so this was important to us. The beautiful sales brochure shows npower workmen branded in npower sweatshirts with npower dust sheets, but without us knowing our job was then outsourced by them to a Glasgow based gas company who carried out the work. (300 miles away from our house?!?)

The work was very poor to say the least - including using the wrong sized gas pipe being installed, so even if it got that far the boiler probably wouldn't have worked anyway. Pipes were installed at funny angles on the wall, so that they couldn't be boxed in or pressed so close together they were rubbing and creaking. Joints weren't holding so we had gas leaks during the install that the engineers struggled to source and water leaks through the ceiling. Pipes weren't sleeved through exterior and interior walls - against GasSafe regulations. And on top of that a huge amount of damage was caused (burnt carpets, burnt wall paper, stained walls, stained carpets, snapped floorboards etc) and eventually nPower stopped the work in the middle of the install.

Despite us asking, no dust sheets were used to protect our belongings or carpets, there were no guards used on the blow torches, so skirting boards, carpets and wallpaper were burnt. And my brand new washing machine and dryer that I'd be given as a house warming gift only a couple of weeks previously, they used as a saw bench which scratched the top and they got covered in brick dust in the back vents. They used my brand new vacuum cleaner too to hoover up brick debris. They had no wet/dry hoover so they couldn't suck out the gunk from the old pipes, so they either let it drip down the walls or onto the walls or on a couple of occasions I grabbed a couple of my bath towels to mop it up.

Npower have since returned to our house with their 'best men' and have reinstalled the gas pipes and tried to fix the banging/creaking pipework. In the end my boyfriend, who has absolutely no diy knowledge or experience whatsoever fixed the creaking pipes after npower failed to do so after three separate visits by an engineer.

The house is now warm, thank goodness, but we are now faced with the enormous task of fixing the damage. This is our first house and although the decor is dated, we needed to do one room at a time and slowly, so we could save up! We're now faced with pretty much every room having some damage that needs fixing.

Npower to their credit have admitted that they've left themselves wide open to criticism, however they have not been forthcoming so far with the money to fix our house and we've had to outlay money or rely on exceedingly generous friends and family and local businesses to get our house roughly back to normal in time for a family Christmas.

You think you're paying for the best when going with such a big company as npower, but if they're going to subcontract out, then what's the point? We may as well have gone with a local firm. And although the two young lads who came initially to install it are completely to blame for the damage and mess, they were left with no support and barely any instruction from npower and we feel the damage caused was down to inexperience on their part and them panicing when things started to go wrong like the gas and water leaks. Despite a very lengthy planning meeting between us and the sales person from npower, all these two lads were given on the first day was a lined a4 piece of paper with a top down drawing of our house drawn in biro... is that the extent of npower's resources??

We're waiting to hear back from npower about our compensation claim...

Lucy

phill99

Could I suggest that the basis of your claim should be the cost (not DIY, but professional tradesmens rates) for repairing all the damage to carpets, fixtures, furnishings etc, add on a sum for distress, anxiety, stress etc, plus a sum for out of pocket expenses. You'll probably find that it will come to the same as what the cost of having the CH installed is.

Tom_Jones

This is why you should always go with a reccommended local firm, and never pay upfront until your satisfied with the job.

Unfortunately you will have a huge fight to get compensation, so keep all correspondance, and take them to small claims court.

lucysettle

Thank goodness that we have only paid the deposit so far and haven't paid for the full amount.

We've spent ages ringing round and getting quotes from local tradesmen and the cost to repair the damage has come to £6500 just on its own... the compensation for 'stress' which included me cancelling my 30th birthday plans, which we'd arranged at our house is far harder to quantify. What on earth do you charge for that?

If we'd known that the job was subcontracted out, then absolutely we would have gone with a local firm. Interestingly enough, once the npower eco grant had been taken off, the quote was exactly the same as the local firm!

lucysettle

I'm a newbie, so am not allowed to post up links. How long do you have to wait before you are allowed? I've tried to search the faqs, but can't find any information. The reason being we've set up a blog with photos and I think they're so shocking they'd really illustrate what a mess npower made of our house. Anyone know?

lucysettle

http://npower-gas-install-photos.posterous.com/

keeley1973

OMG, the photos show what a horrendous mess they made. Good job you haven't paid the full price to them. Hope you get everything sorted to your satisfaction.

anotherbaldrick

I have been a trade qualified engineer for over 50 years and many times acted as a professional witness in claim situations. Over the years I have had to comment and report on some awful examples of bodged and incompetent work but I have never seen anything half as bad as this before.

aboard_epsilon

andrew=b's signature line says it all .

what a total mess ..

n-power should rehouse you whilst they totally renovate your home ....there is £10,000 plus worth of damage there ..

did they remove a huge chunk of plaster to the right of one of the rads .

you don't need rads, there are that many pipes on show ..they will do the job on their own .
are the floors downstairs wooden ..if so pipes don't need to run along skirting .

every plumber should have insulated mats that they place behind or below pipes whilst they are soldering..,.thats why you have burns every where .

the job they have done could probably be done better by a ten year old ..bet those plumbers are travellers.

i vote that job, biggest botch of the year ..will be hard to beat by anyone .

all the best.markj

evoke

Blimey! I would never have touched nPower with any of yours and I certainly won't be going near them now. That's BBC Watchdog or Rogue Builders stuff!

lucysettle

There are two radiators in the front room where the plaster came off as they were taking the old radiators off. We haven't claimed against npower for this... whether that's a mistake or not I'm not sure. Our house is 250 years old and hasn't had proper central heating for a long time, plus we're not sure yet about the damp course, so we have a damp problem in that room. As they took the rads off, some of the plaster and stonework came off too. To be fair to them, we have since done some exploratory scraping, mainly so that it stops further disintegration, so I don't have to hoover constantly!

We made the decision not to claim for this, because we wanted to be fair with npower and we felt that it was unclear whether or not npower caused this to happen or whether the plaster would have fallen off anyway.

And it's all concrete floors downstairs. In fact, I think because of the age of the property, there are a lot of irregularities in the house - including the stone hearths in the bedroom that has meant the pipes stick out at a funny angle in the sitting room. I'd imagine installing a heating system in an old cottage probably brings up considerably more problems than if you're in a modern house and we know that these two young lads were used to doing modern flats, so were completely out of their depth.

aboard_epsilon wrote: »

andrew=b's signature line says it all .

what a total mess ..

n-power should rehouse you whilst they totally renovate your home ....there is £10,000 plus worth of damage there ..

did they remove a huge chunk of plaster to the right of one of the rads .

you don't need rads, there are that many pipes on show ..they will do the job on their own .
are the floors downstairs wooden ..if so pipes don't need to run along skirting .

every plumber should have insulted mats that they place behind or below pipes whilst they are soldering..,.thats why you have burns every where .

the job they have done could probably be done better by a ten year old ..bet those plumbers are travellers.

i vote that job, biggest botch of the year ..will be hard to beat by anyone .

all the best.markj