When you look on the Internet you will quite often see a number of different articles and blogs that offer advice on choosing the right boiler systems for your home, these will focus on cost and efficiency above all else but they will not generally focus on the importance of choosing the right plumbing and heating company to complete the work on your behalf.
In this article I wanted to give you a little bit of information about my own personal experiences in the hope that you will see the importance of choosing the right company rather than just the right system.
A few years back I moved into a new home, which hadn’t been decorated in over 20 years and had the same central heating system installed for at least the same amount of time. We moved in the summer and the plan was to get our first winter out of the way which would give us enough time to save and then have a new heating system installed the following year.
Much like with most things our plan didn’t quite work out and a couple of months after moving in we went to turn on the heating and found that it wasn’t working.
In a panic, we started to call the numbers of different plumbing and heating companies to try and get people out quickly as we have decided early on to go for a completely new system rather than try for a short-term repair.
At this point I should mention that I do come from a family that worked in the building trade and I did therefore have an idea on price and time frame for completing this work, however, I soon found that many of the heating companies that we spoke to were more than happy to charge over the odds for basic systems because they knew that it was a matter of urgency to have the work completed. I have to admit that this was somewhat expected, but not to the level that we witnessed.
One of the companies that we spoke to was City Gas Services who are based in London and I was surprised to hear that they went against what we were being told by others and actually advised us on the best system at a reasonable price. They didn’t give us the cheapest quote, however the really important thing is that they could easily justify their quote with a breakdown which included the cost of the system that was going to be installed. Because they did this I could easily see where my money was going and I was more than happy to pay the extra because I instantly had an understanding that they were offering a service and trying to build a relationship rather than simply trying to earn a few more pounds before Christmas.
Now, I can’t say that the other companies would not have done a good job, however what I can say is I would not have had confidence in the end product had I chosen to go with them. Confidence is a very important thing when it comes to your home and your family and I certainly didn’t want to risk being without heating in the middle of winter or without hot water when my family arrived over the Christmas period.
The moral of this article is not just focusing on price, but also to focus on the people that you are dealing with. Money is obviously an important consideration, but confidence in the workers and in the system that they install is, in my mind at least, equally important.
The funny thing is that now three of my friends also have systems installed by the same company and they are all just as happy as I was with the price and the service.
