Boiler quote red flags: what to look for before you sign

Most boiler quotes are honest. The trade is full of small businesses who live on repeat work and word of mouth in the same handful of postcodes, and they cannot afford to be anything else.

But a replacement boiler is one of the larger things a household buys, it is bought in a hurry, and it is bought by somebody who has no way of judging the technical part. That combination attracts a small number of people who are working differently. Here is what actually gives them away, and, just as important, what does not.

The first flag is not on the quote at all

It is on the ID card. Everybody knows to ask whether an engineer is Gas Safe registered. Far fewer people know that the answer is printed on the back of the card rather than the front.

The front carries the photo, the business name and a unique licence number, and licences are renewed every twelve months, so a card with a passed expiry date is a card that means nothing. The back lists the categories of work that engineer is actually qualified to do, each with its own expiry date. Somebody can be genuinely registered and still not hold the qualification for the work in front of them.

Turn the card over, find the boiler category, check the date, and if you want to be thorough you can check the licence number against the register itself before anybody starts.

Source: Gas Safe Register, What is the Gas Safe ID card; Gas Safe Register, ID card categories

A firm price given without anybody looking at the job

A price can be given over the phone or through a website form. Whether it survives contact with your house is a different question, and the answer depends entirely on what was assumed.

The variables that move a boiler price are not the boiler. They are the flue route, the length and size of the gas run from the meter, where the condensate can fall to a drain, the state of the existing system and how much making good the job leaves behind. None of those can be seen down a phone line.

So an unsurveyed price is not automatically dishonest. It is an estimate wearing the clothes of a quote, and the flag is not the price itself but the refusal to say which it is. Ask what has been assumed. An installer working properly will tell you without hesitating, because they have made the assumptions deliberately.

No make and model number anywhere on the document

A quote that says combi boiler is not a quote for a boiler. Models within a single manufacturer's range differ in output, in hot water performance, in the guarantee they carry and in whether that guarantee needs a particular filter fitted to hold.

If the paperwork names a range but not a model and an output, you cannot compare it with anything, which is often the point. It also means that if a different unit arrives on the day you have nothing to hold up.

The price that expires this afternoon

This is the clearest flag on the list, because it is aimed at the one thing a good decision needs, which is time.

It is also the one where the law is squarely on your side, and most people do not know it. If you agree a contract for work in your own home, having been approached away from the trader's premises, or you arrange it online or over the phone, you generally get a fourteen day cooling off period for services above a low statutory threshold. During those fourteen days you can cancel for any reason and get your money back.

There is one thing to understand about it. If you ask for the work to start inside the cooling off period, and often you will need to, the business can keep enough to cover what it has already done if you then cancel. That is reasonable. What is not reasonable is being told the discount dies at six o clock.

A price that is real on Tuesday is real on Friday. Anyone who needs your signature before you can compare it with anything else is telling you something about the quote.

Source: Citizens Advice, Cancelling a service you have arranged; The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013

Nobody has mentioned notifying the installation

A new boiler is notifiable work. The Gas Safe registered business that fits it has to notify the installation within thirty days, and once that is done you receive a Building Regulations compliance certificate in the post, normally inside ten to fifteen working days.

That certificate belongs to the property rather than to you, and it is the piece of paper a buyer's solicitor asks for when you come to sell. An installer who cannot answer a plain question about notifying the work is either not going to do it or is not registered to.

It is a fair question to ask before you accept, and it takes one sentence.

Source: Gas Safe Register, Building Regulations certificates

A guarantee quoted as a number with no conditions attached

Long guarantees are used as the headline on almost every quote, and the number on its own tells you very little. Manufacturer guarantees are conditional: on being registered inside a window, on an annual service, in several cases on a specific filter being fitted, and sometimes on the installer holding an accreditation.

So the flag is not a long guarantee. It is a long guarantee with nothing next to it. Ask what has to happen for it to hold, and ask who is responsible for registering it.

What is not a red flag

This list is easier to write than the one above, and it matters more, because most of the quotes people talk themselves out of are fine.

• Being the highest of three. A higher price often means somebody has priced work the others left out, which is the first thing to check before you assume it is margin.
• A one man business with a plain van and no marketing. That describes a large share of the best installers in the country.
• Asking for a deposit. A reasonable deposit against materials is normal trade practice; being asked for everything up front is the version to question.
• Wanting to see the loft, the meter, the drains and the airing cupboard before pricing. That is the job being done properly, not somebody looking for extras.
• A short document. A single page that names the model, the output, the scope and the exclusions beats four pages of stock photography.

Turning the flags into four questions

None of these need any technical knowledge. They just need answering.

• Which make, model and output, and what is the guarantee conditional on?
• What have you assumed about the flue, the gas run and the condensate, and what happens to the price if an assumption is wrong?
• Who notifies the installation, and when should I expect the Building Regulations certificate?
• Is this price open for a week?

The simplest protection is a second quote

Every flag above becomes obvious the moment you have something to hold it against. One quote is a number. Three quotes are a picture of the job, and the differences between them are where the real information sits.

If you want prices from Gas Safe registered installers who will come and look at the job first, we can arrange that.