Dear Editor,
I feel compelled to respond to your article in this month’s HPM Magazine.
I cannot think of a time when my husband has been asked to show his Gas Safe Register card to a customer.
One of the only ways to help stop the cowboys in the gas industry is to have to show your Gas Safe card when buying anything gas related, be it boilers or boiler parts. ‘If they can’t buy ‘em then they can’t fit ‘em’ should surely be the motto!
Customers only see a price when deciding who fits them a boiler. They don’t seem to understand a cowboy’s price from a legitimate business with overheads. It is only when they have a problem with the boiler, try to get the manufacturers out on warranty and then find out that the cowboy hasn’t registered the warranty in the first place. They then wish they had maybe spent a little more when they find out that no-one will touch it with a bargepole. No doubt the cheap installers aren’t paying tax for a double whammy as well.
I also cannot understand why a car has to have a yearly MOT and a boiler not. They are both as deadly if they are not maintained correctly are they not?
I am probably only repeating what has been said before on other occasions, but it isn’t half frustrating that nothing is ever done about it!
Rant over.
Kind regards.
Joanne Dunham, via email