In 2008 I was contacted by South Ribble Council that I may be entitled to a new boiler if incapacitated or a pensioner through Warm Front. I was granted funding for a new boiler which was replaced by HIS of Preston in March 2009. I was also given 2 years guarantee covered by Warm Sure. Under this cover I had a fault the following May when I contacted them on the 23rd May but it wasn't until the 27th that a Bosch Engineer came out to carry out the repair (not a Warm Sure engineer). In comparison to the service I have had over the previous 21 years with British Gas this was to me a bad response. Since then they have carried out one service.
I did have a gas fire but I had to agree to have this disconnected to qualify for the grant so now I have no alternative heating. Yesterday my boiler packed up on me so tried to phone Warm Sure numerous times on the number they had supplied in their paper work, after being cut off I tried the company which installed the system who gave me another telephone number which was not a freephone number. this just kept me waiting 5 minutes before cutting me off. I tried this a number of times. I then tried ringing the number for Bosch who last attended a fault they had a message that due to the high volume of calls the lines were closed. So was unable to contact anyone.

I must admit that I had no idea that there was a web site for WarmSure until tonight when a friend experiencing the same problem with another make of boiler told me to look on the internet and there is a notice about pipes freezing due to the adverse weather conditions.

How crazy is this that we are having these boilers fitted and when we need the warmth from our heating it packs up because the pipes can freeze which stops the boiler from working. Surely this is a design fault and if it was a car they would be recalled for an adjustment. Surely in this bad weather for the elderly and infirm especially this can be as much a killer as a defective car.

It isn't just the boiler systems that have been fitted under this grant scheme that are experiencing this problem so surely the government should step in and force the company's that are manufacturing these boilers either by grant or from their own savings be made to make some adjustments to the installed systems. After all we didn't use to have this problem with the old style systems. This goes to prove to me that new technology is obviously not properly researched has surely these boilers are 'not fit for purpose'.

I am sure I speak on behalf of many households experiencing the same problem at this time of adverse weather conditions. In fact a caught the end of an report on the BBC national news at lunch time showing a home that was having to have their pipe cut into to release the ice.