Association of Registered Gas Installers ARGI

Members of the public might like to know that "A Flagship scheme to help the poorest households heat their homes has been branded 'incompetent' and responsible for 'appallingly shoddy work'".

According to the Western Morning News (14.02.08), "Westcountry MPs condemned the Warm Front programme for forcing the least well-off to find extra money - because the Government will not let them use local firms to do the work."

It goes on to say: "...the project - run by the Energy Action Grants Agency (Eaga) - only allows the work to be carried out by its own approved contractors, with many homeowners having to pay 'top-up' fees to ensure the job is finished."

An (Eaga?) spokesman said 'While it may be possible to source cheaper quotes it is important to make like-for-like comparisons. Are other installers, for example, simply quoting for a boiler swap without considering the efficiency aspect, ongoing running costs and the potential impact of putting new boilers on older systems?'

"He said Eaga would be happy to receive applications for local companies looking to become Warm Front installers, and would give each case due consideration."

Having considered the above comments, perhaps homeowners would like to choose their own, probably much cheaper, installers and suggest they apply to Eaga to become a Warm Front installer. And if Eaga decline to accept those applications, perhaps Nick Harvey, MP for North Devon, or Dan Rogerson, North Cornwall MP, would like to know about it.

Doesn't help that the installing companies used are usually owned by EAGA/Warmfront as well.

Strange how this hasn't been mentioned

And here's a bit more from the Eaga website:

eaga is the UK market leader in the management of grant-funded programmes aimed at tackling fuel poverty. The company manages all four regions of the Government's flagship Warm Front programme in England for the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Home Energy Efficiency Scheme (HEES) in Wales for the Welsh Assembly Government and the Warm Homes Scheme in Northern Ireland for the Department of Social Development.

And it seems it has its own heating installation business. INTEREST.....OF ......CONFLICT or some such words spring to mind.

No wonder our Government haemorrhages money like a stuck pig.

i will watch what i say on this topic, but when we were an installer on this a few years ago part of the deal was to service the boiler at the end of defect, we started to find that customers were being contacted by a scottish installation firm to make arrangements for the service(and invoice!!) to be done by them, i queried this with EAGA and was told there was nothing against them as scheme managers passing this service work to any of the contractors, but funnily enough the only one who got the work was a firm recently purchased by EAGA, still irks me yet, when Scottish Gas took over running the scheme the prices got slashed even further and more and more decent contractors walked away, no wonder they don't have enough firms doing the work.

I found an Iguana ( EAGA owned ) employee had made a dangerous boiler installation for cash on the side!

As usual the householder did not want to complain about him.

Tony

Have started seeing one of those vans around my neck of the woods and wondered if it was local or national.

My mate left a reasonable job to go and work for them. He was promised the world as usual.
He is one of the best installers I have ever known so I tend to listen to his opinion on heating matters.
He has now managed to get his reasonable job back.
Nuff said I think.

Doesn't an iguana change colour to hide from predators?

Predators in this case perhaps being those who do the job right and report illegal and dangerous gas work.

Don't know about you guys but I never even enter into discussion about grant aid with my customers, they always seem to think there is a catch with big firms being paid lots of money to give their money away exclusively to another company owned by said big firm in the first place.

They usually opt for the sensibly priced install we offer them. No top up fees and a solid guarantee from a local tradesman who values his customers that much he doesn't walk away with the cheque, never to be seen again.

I'm sure I read somewhere recently that Warm Front had had its funding cut. Was that a figment of my imagination, or can someone else confirm that

hi, i'm new to the forum, so i'm busy reading and catching up with past posts. i have lost two ch installations and a boiler replacement to warm front. i have had requests to remove redundant gas wall heaters that warmfront engineers wont touch, also electric storage heaters. the boiler replacement i missed out on was my next door neighbour! i have already been round once to bleed radiators.(old lady, i'm a big softy!) what i have noticed is a lot of exposed pipework clipped surface with no attempt to hide it or box it in.no plastic trunking anywhere! i have heard it is nigh on impossible to get them back if anything goes wrong, is this true? also its an 0870 number to get hold of them.
thanks for the interesting threads i hope i will be able to contribute them.
martin

I inherited what had been a warmfront fit when I moved house, the letters I kept getting from A firm about having it serviced were practically threatening,
The conversation I had with them was most interesting when I phoned up to say I didnt want them to service it.

Searching through our local councils services and came across this

https://www.southkesteven.gov.uk/AZInfo ... e3523aa0dc

If they as it appears have it wrong I may be able to rattle someones cage looks like I just have to be registered with Warm frnt or Eaga and I can accept the voucher is it that simple. Or as I suspect they have it slightly wrong.

Regards Clive