Last month Mrs P Edwards wrote about free replacement boilers, for those on benefits
Six years ago, in 2010, our central heating boiler packed up so we contacted the Warm Front team about a free replacement boiler, as we receive Council Tax Benefit. They came but said it would take several months to install it. So right through the winter of 2010//2011 we had no heating and no hot water. I had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was receiving daily radiotherapy. Fortunately, someone gave us a very large tea urn, which we used to boil water and add it to cold water in the bath. We were also lent 3 fan heaters. All this till May 2011 when we finally got our free replacement boiler. We had no savings, investments etc.
Anyway, our free replacement boiler was an Ideal, which was anything but ideal! Although it was serviced annually and we had insurance, in July 2016 it was condemned by an Ideal engineer, as it was apparently corroded with rust and was leaking! The insurance company said that we were not covered for corrosion! So we had to have a new boiler fitted, at £2,300. As we did not have that, a very close friend very generously paid it for us, so that we would not have to have baths with a tea urn.
So we no longer have a rusty, leaking, 5 year old Ideal boiler, but a wonderful Vaillant boiler, which also is far more efficient and cheaper to run! So much for free replacement boilers!
Edwin Self, Sheffield
