A frugal life is an easy life!

In principal, the warm front scheme is a reliable way of bringing boilers up to date, improving heating in homes, improving insulation to retain heat and save energy.

In practice, from start to finish in this case, warm front has been completely inept, failed totally and the manner with which any information request or timescales have been met, has been nothing short of disgraceful!

From application to completion - warm front proudly state that completion for fitting a new central heating boiler and replacement radiators is between four to six months. Posted here, are details of our case.

In October 2009, an application was made for a replacement boiler and radiators, under the warm front scheme.
The application was completed and passed without issue.
In November 2009, an advisor for the warm front scheme came out to the house, checked all the relevant paperwork, filled out all the information and verified that the application was ok to proceed.

Next, we were told, a head honcho would come out and plan out the work required, this could take up to four months.
Nobody came over the next six months. We received just two letters from warm front, stating that we were just waiting for the assessor to come out and plan the work needed.
We waited until August 2010 (Some TEN months later) before this assessor appeared at our house.
He measured up, he looked around, he finalised everything. On leaving he stated (In front of witnesses) "You will be looking at between four to six WEEKS, for the work to start."

That was almost twelve weeks ago.
I have contacted the man himself, via his office, twice. The first time he "couldn't come to the phone, but would call back" - no call came.
The second time he "was out of the office for the day but would contact me as soon as he returned, later that day" - again, no call came.

Today, instead of ringing his office directly, I rang the warm front "customer service team" - the reply I got, was pathetic!

• Could you please give me a time when the work will start?
  No, I'll have to read your account notes (put on hold for 10 minutes)
• Can you now give me a start date for the work?
  No, I will need to ring the warm front head department who are dealing with it, to find out what's going on (put on hold for another 15 minutes)
• Can you now give me a start date for the work?
  I'm afraid the installation has been cancelled! The fitting company tried to ring you once but were unable to get a reply so the job has been cancelled.
• Are you seriously telling me that a household's future heating requirements for the next decade at least, have been cancelled because the company fitting the boiler were unable to contact us by phone, on one occasion?
  Yes - but they did say they will reinstated the job now they know that you want it doing!
• You make it sound as if I've invited someone around for a cup of coffee! How dare they treat us like this!
  Our phone has been working, on the same telephone number for more than 20 years, if they cannot dial a simple telephone number correctly, it hardly inspires confidence in their ability to install a gas boiler and pipework!
  I'm sorry I can understand your frustrations! One of their assessors will contact you to let you know when they will visit your property!
• This has already been done. How long will this take?
  I wasn't given a timescale for this, they told me that the job will be reinstated today.
• Am I looking at another six month wait or will they get in touch within a week?
  They didn't tell me...
• Did you ask them?
  No!
• So I just have to sit tight and wait?
  Sorry, yes.

Utterly useless, the whole process!

It could be another week, it could be another six months, not a single person has got a clue.
One thing that is certain though, when the paperwork was verified and filled out, EVERYONE involved in the chain, warm front, eaga, the company supposed to be fitting the boiler, will all have already been paid!

UPDATE:
I phoned in with a formal complaint to warm front today (after reading their "customer charter") regarding the whole process and the complete failure to actually install a new boiler, which is the whole point of the scheme.

The response I got was stunning:

• I was asked for a run down of the complaint - I started by stating that the application went in, in November 2009 - immediately, the woman jumped in with "The government stopped all work in November 2009 for upto six months, so your complaint is all about timescales and your wait, you have to put your complaint in writing and send it in to our installation department at our head office!"
• I haven't finished yet, I have mentioned just one date so far - "you told me that it's a timescale complaint!" - No I did not, I told you when the application was first put in...
• "It doesn't matter, you still need to put your complaint in writing and send it to us" - can I tell you what my complaint is about? - "Please do not shout at me" - well stop talking over me then and allow me to tell you the details of the complaint!

It turns out that in yesterday's phone call, the reason I wasn't given any information after the lady had read through my notes, was because I have no account notes to read through - so why keep me hanging on hold for 10 minutes whilst, "I read through your account notes"?

The lack of information about fitting times and times to contact us was because they lady did not phone the installers - so why keep me on hold for another 15 minutes whilst she "Just rings the installers to see what's going on"?

As for our job being "reinstated" and "the installers will contact you" - this was a complete and total lie!
According to our account notes, the job remained cancelled and the installers would not be contacted, the lady should have contacted their warm front scheme head office (I know a head office full of incompetant people!) and asked them to sort it out with the installation company. Sadly, the lady did neither, so what exactly was she doing whilst I was put on hold?

This explains why the lady could give me not a single bit of information with any accuracy!

UPDATE 2:
The installers contacted me today, confirming they have at long last (after 10 months) received the job from the warm front team - I was advised to contact warm front myself, as the installers send off a quoted price to the warm front team and we must wait for it to be authorised by them and confirmed back with the installers - then they can order the parts and arrange for the work to be done.
I was advised that it can take anything up to 3 months, for warm front to authorise a job to go ahead.

Alarmed by this, I rang warm front's "customer management team" (I use this term loosely) only to be confronted by an abrupt (I am being polite) lady with a major chip on her shoulder.

I asked for confirmation that they had received the authorisation request and wanted to know how long it would take to go through - a fairly straight forward request?
Not according to the lady at warm front!
"I don't know why the installers are advising it can take up to three months to authorise a job, that's simply not true!" Said warm front,

So how long will it take, roughly?
"We don't give out a timescale for authorising work!"
Just roughly, two weeks? a month?
"We don't give out timescales but it's definately not as long as three months!"
So how do I know it's not true?
"You will have to trust us!"
But winter is coming and for the second year running, you will have held up the paperwork and leave us without a boiler and heating, with respect, I have a young baby in the house and this needs sorting out!
*sigh* "Give me your address then I will check we have received the authorisation request..."

Before I could even give our address, she put the phone down on me!

Nothing but hassle dealing with the warm front team, they are as much use as a chocolate fireguard!

Update 3:
After a year of waiting, we now have one shiney new boiler installed.
Just  few points to note;

• Promised a Baxi boiler - they fitted an ideal logic boiler, saying, "We have never fitted a baxi boiler, we always fit ideal logic!" - Not true, as confirmed by warmfront.
• On the inspection, the fitters were warned of an exceptionally good water pressure here - reminded of this just prior to fitting - they went ahead and fitted a 24 watt boiler. The result is having to trickle the hot tap to get piping hot water (which uses twice the gas to heat) - if the hot tap is ran as we did with our old boiler, ie, normally, then running a bath gives only lukewarm water (wasting yet more gas as the boiler tries to heat water that's going through it too fast) - had they fitted a 30 watt boiler, we could have had piping hot water.
• "A new boiler is more efficient" - our old back boiler was more than 30 years old, it's fair to say that a new boiler would be more efficient?
  WRONG!
  This time last year, we had used gas worth £80 via our prepayment meter - this month with new boiler, we have used £140 from our prepayment meter.
  It's ok, this is because British Gas have just put up their prices?
  WRONG AGAIN!
  This is before the 9% British gas price increase - our gas price has remained identical for two years, yet the amount of credit taken from the meter with the new boiler has exceeded the amount we paid last year, by almost DOUBLE!
• British gas informed me that the installers should have fitted a 30 watt boiler - the installers who put in a 24 watt boiler say they are wrong.

We are left in a rediculous position of having a boiler that cannot produce piping hot water (unless the hot tap is running at a trickle), uses more gas than our 30 year old back boiler system (uneconomical) and the installation company, whom warm front continue to refer us back to when we point out what is wrong say, "As long as the boiler is fitted to manufacturer's instructions we will not change the boiler. You should fit a device that will enable you to turn down your water pressure!"

As soon as it can be afforded, this great efficient boiler is going on the scrap heap and a new more powerful boiler will be put in its place.

Update 4:

Ten months after being fitted, nine months after all the faults with the installation were reported, we are still getting nowhere with the fitters that warmfront sent out to our house.

After phone calls to the officer who inspected the property originally, we finally got someone to come out and inspect the work done.
On arrival, the bloke showed me the form for their records, listing all the faults that needed correcting.
The sheet was blank - showing me that the new engineers who took over the maintainance of our boiler, had stood, seen and "inspected" the work previously hadn't taken a blind bit of notice of all the faults and given the job a clean bill of health. (No doubt the company that take over maintainance of warmfront boilers are associated with the Eaga group of companies as well?)

The bloke the fitters sent out went through all the duff wiring - earthed the boiler up running wires straight down the middle of a wall and dangerously wiring the boiler itself up to a temporary plug socket instead of its own fuse in the mains electric unit.
He agreed with me on the need for this to be changed "urgently" and also acknowledged that the removal of support under part of the upstairs flooring, that had been removed and not put back when they re cemented it up, also needed to be changed immediately.

The back room radiator, that has been turned off for months, was found to be leaking from a poor standard of fitting the radiator, whenever it is turned on, causing damage to the floorboard underneath if left unfixed.

The bloke assured me that the original workmen no longer worked for them, he left promising that workmen would be here Thursday or Friday of that week (his inspection took place on the Tuesday) as Wednesday his men were already booked for a job.

Thursday and Friday came and went, I spent two days of my holiday sat around the house waiting.
Another three weeks have passed without so much as a phone call from the warmfront fitters.

As it stands, we cannot heat our back bedroom, we have a boiler wired in to a temporary plug socket, which could start a fire, we have a partially concreted bathroom floor that could give way at anytime, causing the heating pipes underneath to be stood on. We have earthing strips running unsecured down the middle of a front room wall, when they know we have a toddler running around the house.

Shabby, unprofessional and rude is how I would describe warmfront and its contracted fitters. Not acceptable for a taxpayer funded scheme.