New Boiler - Money Up Front?

cyclonebri1

teddysmum wrote: »

Why a major company ? None of the small locals who gave me quotations wanted paying in advance, but they did vary by £300 in price on an approx. £3000 job.


Would the boiler warranty be ok, if not fitted 'officially' ?

I thought hard about that when I posted earlier, and the answer is yes it would provided he appears by name in the GSR.

The guy is qualified, it doesn't matter if it's done in his employment roll or outside of it, it's the man that is certified not his parent company.

cyclonebri1

rustyboy21 wrote: »

Another one here who has been shafted by what looked like nice genuine customers, who have then bounced cheques, refused to let me in the house to discuss a 6 month old debt or have tried to slate me to other people, when I have taken them to small claims to try and get my money off them.


I now charge them for all the goods 1 day PRIOR to installation, by BACS or card/cash and they then pay for the install on the day. If they don't agree to it, they don't get their goods, full stop.


Not going through all the hassle of small claims, when they are sitting nice and warm in their house, thinking they have got one over on me !:mad:


Percentage/proportionally wise, there are more bad customers than bad dealers/installers/engineers.

Yes that's the down side for you trader guys, there are probably as many rogue customers as there are rogue traders, but the public certainly here more about the latter.

I guess there comes a cross over point where traders gain a sufficient reputation to demand such as Rusty's terms, but many of us have dealt with the darker side and once bitten is enough.

And that's the reason I supplied all the kit for my boiler install.

I ought to add this as I've referred to the event several times in this post.
I picked the nearest 3 RGI to me out of the list, none lived more than 1 mile away.

I didn't turn up at all after arranging to quote, 1 turned up 24 hrs late and the guy 1 chose showed at the pre-arranged time and although I had no other quotes we went with him of course.

And that's what you good guys are up against.

rustyboy21

Hi Bri
At least you went about it the right way. You bought the boiler you knew would suit the job, you arranged for qualified Acreddited RGI's to come and quote and they all knew what they were facing , in the fact you already had the boiler and pipework and just needing it doing.

The thing we fireplace retailers/installers face ( and the RGI's with boilers too ) is the people who buy fires/Boilers off the internet, from retailers who don't know diddly squat over what they are selling, to consumers who don't look at the class of fire and whether it will be useable in the flue they have ( that's if they have one). You turn up and they wont take it that they have bought wrongly, one of my guys had a threatening guy pushing him to fit it, even though it would be illegal to do so.

The internet is great for buying Cameras,watches, groceries etc but if you are looking to buy something that has the chance of actually killing you from retailers who work from their back bedroom and get Plumb Center to deliver to you and have never fitted or even unboxed a fire/boiler in their life, then you are dicing with death.

Years ago a group of us, tried to stop B&Q selling DIY cooker adaptors and gas fire fitting kits being sold by them. We were unsuccessful as the regs didn't say they had to be fitted by a Qualified person, only a competent person. Forunately B&Q have mostly pulled out of gas fires now, apart from the flueless style, which is even more dangerous than a normal gas fire, if fitted incorrectly.

BG are causing major issues with the prices they charge and people think that all RGI's will shaft them as much as BG does. They wont as they have a business to protect, BG rest on their brand name and think it will get them all the business. But you have to work to the way the RGI works, if he asks for a deposit, let him have it. He will be a one man band, with overheads and a family to look after. He will most likely have to pay upfront for all the materials, so will be out of pocket.

Which brings me on to another question. To those who say they are willing to pay for the materials on delivery, as long as the RGI shows them the receipt for them, where is he going to have his mark up? If he makes , say 20% on the products, but shows you the receipt for wholesale price, you would baulk at having to pay over the wholesale price. The same would go for if he showed you the trade receipt, but then added the 20% margin from the goods, into the installation cost, you would say he is doing you. He has to make money somehow. How do the other RGI's do it when faced with this?

cyclonebri1

rustyboy21 wrote: »

Hi Bri
At least you went about it the right way. You bought the boiler you knew would suit the job, you arranged for qualified Acreddited RGI's to come and quote and they all knew what they were facing , in the fact you already had the boiler and pipework and just needing it doing.

The thing we fireplace retailers/installers face ( and the RGI's with boilers too ) is the people who buy fires/Boilers off the internet, from retailers who don't know diddly squat over what they are selling, to consumers who don't look at the class of fire and whether it will be useable in the flue they have ( that's if they have one). You turn up and they wont take it that they have bought wrongly, one of my guys had a threatening guy pushing him to fit it, even though it would be illegal to do so.

The internet is great for buying Cameras,watches, groceries etc but if you are looking to buy something that has the chance of actually killing you from retailers who work from their back bedroom and get Plumb Center to deliver to you and have never fitted or even unboxed a fire/boiler in their life, then you are dicing with death.

Years ago a group of us, tried to stop B&Q selling DIY cooker adaptors and gas fire fitting kits being sold by them. We were unsuccessful as the regs didn't say they had to be fitted by a Qualified person, only a competent person. Forunately B&Q have mostly pulled out of gas fires now, apart from the flueless style, which is even more dangerous than a normal gas fire, if fitted incorrectly.

BG are causing major issues with the prices they charge and people think that all RGI's will shaft them as much as BG does. They wont as they have a business to protect, BG rest on their brand name and think it will get them all the business. But you have to work to the way the RGI works, if he asks for a deposit, let him have it. He will be a one man band, with overheads and a family to look after. He will most likely have to pay upfront for all the materials, so will be out of pocket.

Which brings me on to another question. To those who say they are willing to pay for the materials on delivery, as long as the RGI shows them the receipt for them, where is he going to have his mark up? If he makes , say 20% on the products, but shows you the receipt for wholesale price, you would baulk at having to pay over the wholesale price. The same would go for if he showed you the trade receipt, but then added the 20% margin from the goods, into the installation cost, you would say he is doing you. He has to make money somehow. How do the other RGI's do it when faced with this?

But he really doesn't have to do it that way. The public want to know/should know the rough cost. Anyone on here, a money saving forum, should be doing his/her homework and find out the cost.
That throws up the other issue that the private guy has with the trade, why should he pay any mark up on the product?

Sorry, for me either the trader or I get the bits and he fits them and certifies them, that way we all know where the money went.
mark ups on hardware is really where all this goes wrong.

Folks think that every trader will fleece them on the boiler etc??????????????????????

rustyboy21

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

But he really doesn't have to do it that way. The public want to know/should know the rough cost. Anyone on here, a money saving forum, should be doing his/her homework and find out the cost.
That throws up the other issue that the private guy has with the trade, why should he pay any mark up on the product?

Sorry, for me either the trader or I get the bits and he fits them and certifies them, that way we all know where the money went.
mark ups on hardware is really where all this goes wrong.

Folks think that every trader will fleece them on the boiler etc??????????????????????

Because that is the problem we now have with the internet traders. All boiler/fire manufacturers have a list price for their products. This is the SRP without the VAT usually. The distributor of the product then gets a % of them and then they add their own margin to it. The 2nd line merchant or internet retailer then buys off the distributor and adds there margin onto them. The issue then comes from the fact that they sell on their websites at a similar price as the one off installer pays to them to buy the product. Trust me, I know for a fact that 90% of fire internet retailers make on average £15 per unit sold, after paying out carriage and card charges. This is just for typing in an order exactly the same as as you do online and putting a different delivery address in , which is the one the end user lives at. So say they sell 50 fires in a week, they have made £750 in the week. I don't sell 50 fires in a week and I also install them. That is why the retailer who owns a shop sells at a higher margin, so at least they make some money out of, possibly the 8 fires they have sold that week. The internet retailer, who works from home, doesn't pay business rates, PLI, electric, gas, staff, some even VAT, where as the shop retailer does. I know one retailer who has a shop, but also an online presence. He sells a fire brand which is made in Poland and gets shipped to Newcastle docks on a weekly basis. He sells them online cheap , but as they have come from Poland, he does not declare them to VAT as it is free trade,duty paid. He sells 100's of them each year , he does not put the invoices though the books or his sales. I have said it is wrong, but he says he has done it for 4 years and no issue.


The RGI who goes to a 2nd line merchant, will most likely pay the same as you would pay if you went into the same place and bought it yourself. The likes of TP, PTS, Jewsons, City plumbing all buy from the same distributor and put their own margin on the product. They don't care who they sell to.


So looking at it that way, If the one off installer goes to the 2nd line merchant and buys the fire/boiler at the same price you have been quoted online for, by the same merchant, then how does he make his margin? You know what the boiler cost. Say it was £1000, you want to see the receipt before you give him any money, so you will only pay £1000 to him. Then he says he wants £700 to fit, you would be saying fitting is too dear, not paying that. But that is the only way he can make some margin, he cannot add it onto the boiler, because you know how much it cost , so he adds £200 onto the install to try and make some margin, but you have already been told install will be £500 as it was told to you, before you demanded to see the merchant receipt before you pay him any money. So he will be at a loss on the whole job.


Years ago it just used to be the likes of Plumb center we were up against as they would sell to Joe Bloggs at the same price we could buy for. Now it is numpties who don't know the first thing about the business, selling online at unreasonable prices which are killing the market and causing consumers to question everything and all prices.


Yes I am first in the queue to want a good deal, but a qualified installer has to make a certain amount to be able to exist. We are not rolling in it as some people think.

captainhindsight_2

Check out the home improvement fund before you commit to this guy, you can get upto 1500 cashback if you install a boiler and flue gas heat recovery after the cashback this will undercut the price you've been offered.

On the point of paying up front

Paying for materials upfront is not uncommon, think about it from his point of view he doesn't know you from Adam and he could install the boiler and you not pay.

You should expect to pay for materials and then the Labour after. If not all upfront.

cyclonebri1

rustyboy21 wrote: »

Because that is the problem we now have with the internet traders. All boiler/fire manufacturers have a list price for their products. This is the SRP without the VAT usually. The distributor of the product then gets a % of them and then they add their own margin to it. The 2nd line merchant or internet retailer then buys off the distributor and adds there margin onto them. The issue then comes from the fact that they sell on their websites at a similar price as the one off installer pays to them to buy the product. Trust me, I know for a fact that 90% of fire internet retailers make on average £15 per unit sold, after paying out carriage and card charges. This is just for typing in an order exactly the same as as you do online and putting a different delivery address in , which is the one the end user lives at. So say they sell 50 fires in a week, they have made £750 in the week. I don't sell 50 fires in a week and I also install them. That is why the retailer who owns a shop sells at a higher margin, so at least they make some money out of, possibly the 8 fires they have sold that week. The internet retailer, who works from home, doesn't pay business rates, PLI, electric, gas, staff, some even VAT, where as the shop retailer does. I know one retailer who has a shop, but also an online presence. He sells a fire brand which is made in Poland and gets shipped to Newcastle docks on a weekly basis. He sells them online cheap , but as they have come from Poland, he does not declare them to VAT as it is free trade,duty paid. He sells 100's of them each year , he does not put the invoices though the books or his sales. I have said it is wrong, but he says he has done it for 4 years and no issue.


The RGI who goes to a 2nd line merchant, will most likely pay the same as you would pay if you went into the same place and bought it yourself. The likes of TP, PTS, Jewsons, City plumbing all buy from the same distributor and put their own margin on the product. They don't care who they sell to.


So looking at it that way, If the one off installer goes to the 2nd line merchant and buys the fire/boiler at the same price you have been quoted online for, by the same merchant, then how does he make his margin? You know what the boiler cost. Say it was £1000, you want to see the receipt before you give him any money, so you will only pay £1000 to him. Then he says he wants £700 to fit, you would be saying fitting is too dear, not paying that. But that is the only way he can make some margin, he cannot add it onto the boiler, because you know how much it cost , so he adds £200 onto the install to try and make some margin, but you have already been told install will be £500 as it was told to you, before you demanded to see the merchant receipt before you pay him any money. So he will be at a loss on the whole job.


Years ago it just used to be the likes of Plumb center we were up against as they would sell to Joe Bloggs at the same price we could buy for. Now it is numpties who don't know the first thing about the business, selling online at unreasonable prices which are killing the market and causing consumers to question everything and all prices.


Yes I am first in the queue to want a good deal, but a qualified installer has to make a certain amount to be able to exist. We are not rolling in it as some people think.

I know what you are saying and agree, but the bit you miss is clarity, the end user now expects to know the cost of the "unit", what the installer can add as a "mark up" has been lost to the internet suppliers.