electriQ brand of kitchen appliances

Grumpysally

Does anyone have any experience of this brand? I'm looking for a cooker extraction hood and this one ticks all the boxes but I've never heard of the company.

https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/p/eiq60touchslim/electriq-eiq60touchslim-60cm-chimney-hood?tref=eiq60touchslim

Thanks

EssexExile

From their website I surmise that they don't actually make anything so it would be difficult to say whether it's a good brand or not. There's not much to a cooker hood, I'd just go for the quietest with good extraction.

neilmcl

I don't think they manufacturer anything themselves merely rebrand cheap, Chinese appliances for sale in the UK market.

https://www.kandbnews.co.uk/news/electriqappliancebrandlaunchedintomultiplesandonline/#:~:text=Brand aims to be “Aldi,BHS Direct, Amazon and Tesco.

https://www.ukwhitegoods.co.uk/help/about-the-appliance-industry/manufacturer-information/4057-electriq-appliances

Swasterix

I had one of these in our last house. It worked perfectly fine and looked really nice especially considering how cheap it was. I can’t comment on the longevity as we sold the house around a year after installing it but we didn’t have any issues in the year we had it. Can’t remember it being overbearingly loud, but I may have blocked it out of my mind!

The gent above is correct, they’re unbranded goods imported from China. Obviously there’s a bit of stigma there but I don’t suppose there is much that can go wrong with an extractor

ic

They're a brand owned by the parent company of appliancesdirect - as above they just source and import stuff from China.  The quality of one item is unlikely to reflect on the next, as they'll be from different factories.  Same as applies for any own brand really.

Grumpysally

Thanks for the above replies. I've decided to go for a B&Q branded similar model. Factoring in the venting kit and installation it's all my budget can run to. I've checked that compatible replacement grease filters are available. It's in stock at our local store, so there's an actual place I can go to to complain if things go wrong. Probably made in the same factory. 

JordanW94

AVOID THIS COMPANY AT ALL COSTS - WILL NEVER DEAL WITH THEM AGAIN.

I purchased an air source heat pump from Electriq last year. I was of course drawn to them as their prices were significantly cheaper than other alternative, well-known brands. I bought one of their units as a cost saving exercise - what a mistake.

Firstly - their salespeople on the phone sold me this as a DIY unit, telling me that I could install this myself like many of their customers. Not only was this completely untrue. If I had attempted to install myself (not F gas certified) I would have nullified the warranty (which by the way does not exist with this company).

After paying an additional (and unknown cost) of an F gas qualified engineer to install of £400 the unit worked for a year. At just over year old the unit malfunctioned and broke. A probe failure caused ice to build up on the inside of the unit and sheared off a propeller blade.

Secondly - I called Electriq about this problem - a clear malfunction with the unit. Bare in mind my unit has a 2 year warranty. They informed me that they could not send out an engineer and they would not pay for an engineer. 

Thirdly - I begrudgingly called out an engineer at my own expense. He informed me that I need them to send me a new probe and a new impeller. I called Electriq and they informed me that they no longer make the parts for this model and that I needed to PURCHASE A NEW MODEL! 

Fourthly - I reminded them that this was still under warranty. They said I must send in my installation certificate from the FGas certified engineer to validate the warranty - I promptly did this. 

They then dragged their heels for a week - claiming that they were looking into the matter. They then tried everything to worm their way out of validating the warranty, including; asking me to get the installing engineer to call them, they called the engineers company, they requested Refcom confirmation, their certificate number - all of which I provided. They then after one week of doing this informed me that my WARRANTY WAS INVALID BUT COULD NOT EXPLAIN TO ME WHY!?!?

As you can imagine I was incensed by all of this. 

As a 'gesture of good will' they then offered me another outdoor unit at a reduced rate of £350. As much as I did not want to purchase from them, it was my cheapest and most convenient option to get back up and running again which I desperately needed!

I then called back and told them I would like to purchase this outdoor unit. This was 8 days ago. They informed me that because it was a case it would have to be looked into. I did not receive a call back EVERYDAY FOR EIGHT DAYS after being promised one every day. 

On the eighth day (just now) I received an email. The summary of the email is this; "after reviewing your case we cannot offer you a replacement outdoor unit at a reduced rate. We would recommend you buy an entire new unit from us" - by the way this unit they have recommended is not at any reduced rate and it is significantly more expensive.

In summary;

Yes, Electriq had the cheapest product I could find.

But there is a reason for that....

- Their sales team are happy to outright lie to get sales.

- Their products are faulty.

- They will not validate warranties.

- Their customer service is appalling.

When I initially asked some local engineers about Electriq and their products I was warned - sadly the lure of a cheap product and saving some money got the better of me. It has ended up costing me thousands of pounds in extra costs and the stress in trying to rectify this has been terrible.

Yes, I will be taking matters further. I deal with small and large companies day in, day out in my job. I can honestly say Electriq are the worst company I have ever had the misfortune of dealing with. 

DavidC_Surrey

JordanW94 said:

AVOID THIS COMPANY AT ALL COSTS - WILL NEVER DEAL WITH THEM AGAIN.

I purchased an air source heat pump from Electriq last year. I was of course drawn to them as their prices were significantly cheaper than other alternative, well-known brands. I bought one of their units as a cost saving exercise - what a mistake.

Firstly - their salespeople on the phone sold me this as a DIY unit, telling me that I could install this myself like many of their customers. Not only was this completely untrue. If I had attempted to install myself (not F gas certified) I would have nullified the warranty (which by the way does not exist with this company).

Hi,

ElectriQ is a brand owned by Buy It Direct Ltd. They are also AppliancesDirect, LaptopsDirect, AirconditionersDirect and probably umpteen others!

As you say, the prices are often good, and that's great. Until something goes wrong.

Like you, I purchased a split air conditioner from them in Spring 2015. It was then advertised BY THEM as a DIY unit. It has a "quick connector" which is basically two sealed pipes in a kind of plug with a lever to lock them in, opening the valves in the copper pipe ends. We had the hole in the wall from a previous split unit that had died. So it was very easy once we;d had the old one removed. You literally just pass the wires and pipe bundle through the hole and plug it in! 

ElectriQ air conditioners can be Panasonic (like mine) or Hitachi so they are good items. The current ones might be Daewoo or Honeywell as those units look very similar. 

My Panasonic re-branded one worked very well indeed for about two or three months and then stopped working. I got a local engineer out to look at it and he hadn't got a clue what to do with it! He had never seen one of these connectors before and wasn't sure how he could vacuum it and re-fill it. He copped out saying that it was working but is wasn't powerful enough for our room. Utter cobblers. It's a 12,000 BTU unit in a single sealed room! He said it was pushing out air at 7 degrees but there was so little of it it was warm by the time it escaped the machine. But he pretended there was no fault. I found that the sensor was not working right so disconnected it myself and reconnected it and it sprang back to life. Like I say, when it works it works very well indeed.

Now, 7 years later, it has failed again after being intermittent for a year or more. I guess the heatwave killed it. The hot Summer of 2020 was the start of the problem. It would work sometimes but not others. Turning it off and on a few times eventually got it to work. I phoned AppliancesDirect, of whom I was a very good customer (I bought a lot of laptops from them for my customers) and they tried the old "Let's see the installation certificate". When I explained to them that they were selling it as a DIY kit and it had a QuickConnector they got all coy and stopped talking to me. Sounds like the way they treated you.

NOW it has broken again and this time shows an F5 error which is a temperature sensor in the outside unit. I'm wondering if that was a Friday Night component right from the start. I have an engineer coming to look at it but contacted AppliancesDirect to find out what value thermistor was required in case it was a weird one. Again they asked me for the installation certificate and photos of the installation. They are being total wotsits again. I'm not asking for a warranty repair. It is well out of warranty.  So again they are just being difficult. I suspect they got into trouble for selling these in the first place and now just want nothing to do with them. Also I am a qualified electrician and this is only an electrical job. I don't need to touch the gas parts. But they don't want to know. 

I've also bought a portable air conditioner from them in the past and some of my friends have too and those are still working fine so I wouldn't say avoid the company totally because they are cheap for some things. With the law changed now on air con you can't buy those DIY kits anymore in this country anyway so you're going to get an engineer to put it in so you will have some come-back then. 

I will say though, that I have not bought a single laptop from them since. I get them  from another company now. So because of their dreadful attitude they have lost out on the sale of around 30 laptops now and counting! Good Job Appliances/Laptops/AirCON Direct 😂