Duty of Care by Boiler companies to eldery

Addrianne

Long story short. We have an Ideal Boiler under guarantee, 3 years old. My husband is approaching 80, I'm in my 70's. We had our boiler serviced yesterday by a trained independant technician. During the service their was a heat exchange fault . The boiler requires a new part. Ideal Boilers have been contacted 6 times since yesterday  by us. The first available appointment for their engineer to call is 23 November. We have no heating or hot water. Do Ideal Boilers not have a Duty of Care to their vulnerable customers to provide Urgent call outs when the temperature is currently so low. We are boiling kettles for washing and have no heating in our home. At the moment it is 1 degree at 1pm with a low tonight of -1 forecast.

DullGreyGuy

So an appointment in 2 days? That sounds more than reasonable. When our fridge broke down in warranty it took 2.5 weeks for someone to come out to diagnose the problem and had it been repairable then another 1-2 weeks for the part to arrive and another appointment to fit it. Instead it was another 4 days for the retailer to arrange the uplift of the old one and delivery of a replacement. 

Age alone doesn't make you vulnerable, to say it does is age discrimination. If you are vulnerable you should flag it rather than assume the operator will consider that you are. On the basis in winter you've got an appointment in 2 days it sounds like you have been.

powerful_Rogue

Addrianne said:

Long story short. We have an Ideal Boiler under guarantee, 3 years old. My husband is approaching 80, I'm in my 70's. We had our boiler serviced yesterday by a trained independant technician. During the service their was a heat exchange fault . The boiler requires a new part. Ideal Boilers have been contacted 6 times since yesterday  by us. The first available appointment for their engineer to call is 23 November. We have no heating or hot water. Do Ideal Boilers not have a Duty of Care to their vulnerable customers to provide Urgent call outs when the temperature is currently so low. We are boiling kettles for washing and have no heating in our home. At the moment it is 1 degree at 1pm with a low tonight of -1 forecast.

I'd call that pretty good service at this time of year.

I would say thjat calling them 6 times in one day quite excessive.

Okell

If the first available appointment was three days hence, then that was the first available appointment.  As others have said, that seems pretty reasonable to me.

Unless you know of a specific duty of care owed to the elderly by boiler companies, I'm not aware of one.

Why have you no heating or hot water?  Presumably you have a combi boiler so no immersion heater - which in my mind is a good reason not to have a combi boiler.  Once it fails you have nothing.  Also no electric shower?

Regarding heating, do you not have - or can you not buy or borrow - some electric fan heaters or similar?  They may be a costly form of heating but it's only for a couple of days and they're a valuable backup to have anyway.

If you have a combi boiler as your only source of heating and hot water you need to consider getting an electric shower and buying some electric fan heaters as a backup when the boiler fails.  Also stuff like heated throws/blankets.  (Martin Lewis was recommending these a couple of years ago when energy prices took off)


PS  -  presumably the heat exchange fault identified by the independent technician required the bolier to be switched off on safety grounds? 

eskbanker

Addrianne said:

Do Ideal Boilers not have a Duty of Care to their vulnerable customers

I don't believe that boiler suppliers are in scope but there is the Priority Services Register which allows the vulnerable to be prioritised by energy suppliers, so if you're not already on that but feel you should be then probably worth pursuing that?

https://www.thepsr.co.uk/

Okell

eskbanker said:

Addrianne said:

Do Ideal Boilers not have a Duty of Care to their vulnerable customers

I don't believe that boiler suppliers are in scope but there is the Priority Services Register which allows the vulnerable to be prioritised by energy suppliers, so if you're not already on that but feel you should be then probably worth pursuing that?

https://www.thepsr.co.uk/

Thanks for that.  My wife and I are both pensionable age so it's handy to know.

I'd advise @Adrianne to contact them anyway to see if they can offer any useful advice

teaselMay

coming to repair it in 2 days time is excellent service, the first visit would often take longer than that no matter how vulnerable the customer. British gas cover our boiler and consider me vulnerable (I am) they do their best to come quickly but it's often a few days, especially when it's cold and everyone else needs them too.

We all have a responsibility for ourselves too,  it's worth investing in some alternative heaters for this time and future times. You could get them tonight in a local shop or delivered tomorrow from eg argos or amazon

ThumbRemote

You sound spectacularly ungrateful. They're coming on a Saturday for you!

Your boiler requires a new part. Do you expect them to magic this up? They'll have ordered it today, have it delivered tomorrow and be out to you on Saturday. 

You could have gone to Argos and got a fan heater today, rather than spending your time on the phone. 

Debbie9009

I agree with everyone else on here, that is really good service.

As a vulnerable person myself for medical reasons I always have a couple of electric heaters, hot water bottles and electric blankets which came in useful when my heating broke down on Christmas Day a few years ago.  I would advise you to get similar items so you are prepared if this happens again.

Grumpy_chap

Addrianne said:

Long story short. We have an Ideal Boiler under guarantee, 3 years old. My husband is approaching 80, I'm in my 70's. We had our boiler serviced yesterday by a trained independant technician. During the service their was a heat exchange fault . The boiler requires a new part. Ideal Boilers have been contacted 6 times since yesterday  by us. The first available appointment for their engineer to call is 23 November. We have no heating or hot water. Do Ideal Boilers not have a Duty of Care to their vulnerable customers to provide Urgent call outs when the temperature is currently so low. We are boiling kettles for washing and have no heating in our home. At the moment it is 1 degree at 1pm with a low tonight of -1 forecast.

Two days time - that sounds like amazing service!

Phoning them 6 times in a day sounds like harrassment.

Can you use electric heaters for a couple of days?
If you have no back up means of hot water, maybe you can visit the local leisure centre and use the showers there?

IvanOpinion

The problem is that everybody seems to be 'vulnerable' for various reasons these days, which makes it more difficult for those that actually are. Maybe appointments between now and your appointment have all been assigned to people that are more 'vulnerable' than you.

Hopefully you get all sorted out on Saturday, but I would agree with those that say you need to invest a little bit of money into a decent back up heater for such emergencies.