Buying boilers

[acecharly]

Why do (i included) go to a merchant for a boiler. What would be the response from a manufacturer if you turned up on there door and asked to buy one? Ive never done this just wondering is there a minimum requirement?

whats the deal here?

Any thoughts or expieriences appreciated


Cheers

 

[Ray Stafford]

Hi Acecharly

The honest truth is that if manufacturers did that, merchants would stop stocking their products. As a merchant, why would I support a manufacturer that would supply my customer direct?

There is only one boiler manufacturer that I know that does sell direct. They were supplying my local council on a contract. As you can imagine, they had problems with things like flue parts - get to a job, and suddenly realise that you need a couple of 45 bends.

They had the cheek to ask me to stock the flue accessories, to support the sales that they were making direct to the council.

I just laughed at them.

 

[petercj]

Hi Acecharly

The honest truth is that if manufacturers did that, merchants would stop stocking their products. As a merchant, why would I support a manufacturer that would supply my customer direct?

There is only one boiler manufacturer that I know that does sell direct. They were supplying my local council on a contract. As you can imagine, they had problems with things like flue parts - get to a job, and suddenly realise that you need a couple of 45 bends.

They had the cheek to ask me to stock the flue accessories, to support the sales that they were making direct to the council.

I just laughed at them.

The Council appeared to miss the fact that you pay rates to them, and that to do so you need to sell things!

High Street businesses all over the country have gone under because Councils have yellow lined every last bit of road so that they can screw shoppers for car parking fees.

David Cameron has recently thrown more millions at a publicity campaign involving Mary Portas re some vacuous gesture for regenerating High Street businesses! The truth being that the more central Government have cut funding to Councils, the more the Councils have screwed the public for parking, and upped commercial rates, and High Street businesses have been collateral damage.

Is there any hope that one day someone might come along and start using joined-up thinking to run this country with?

 

[Ray Stafford]

In fairness to the council, the DLO would have operated in a silo - their job would be to sort boilers out as cheaply as possible within their budget.

My problem is with the boiler manufacturer - it was them that asked me to keep the flue kits, not the council.

In answer to the OP, the other point that I didn't mention was volume. Most of the big manufacturers really want to deliver in complete lorry loads. Thats why the national merchants have central distribution depots and independents use one of a handful of national or regional boiler distributors.

Some of the smaller boiler manufacturers will deliver in smaller quantities, but even they usually want pallet multiples.

 

[petercj]

In fairness to the council, the DLO would have operated in a silo - their job would be to sort boilers out as cheaply as possible within their budget.

That was my point, i.e. it's a systemic problem where everyone follows their own best interests and ignores the effect on anyone else (being the essence of Thatcherism). If the installer can cut out the middle-man in the supply chain to increase their profit margin, or become more competitive, they will strive to do so.

I wonder how Help-Link get on for spares with the WB boilers they presumably buy direct - probably have an arrangement with a national merchant I guess, as BG do. WB seems to be the preferred boiler by most of the big installers now: BG, Help-Link, Swale, Ultra, etc. Must have shaken the market-share of Valliant and the like.

 

[acecharly]

Peter....with the greatest of respect.....slip a chill pill dude, some things in this world you cant do anything about, government's and council's and all that talk will only serve them even more as you will end up having a coronary worrying about it saving them having to pay out your pension.

I do like your posts peter there very informative but seriously you must have trouble sleeping thinking about all that stuff.

Take it easy.

 

[petercj]

Peter....with the greatest of respect.....slip a chill pill dude, some things in this world you cant do anything about, government's and council's and all that talk will only serve them even more as you will end up having a coronary worrying about it saving them having to pay out your pension.

I do like your posts peter there very informative but seriously you must have trouble sleeping thinking about all that stuff.

Take it easy.

Thanks for the advice acecharley, but I don't have any problem sleeping, and last time they checked the old ticker it was working ok. Always have thought about the interconnected nature of things, guess we're all made different.

The Help-Link offers drew my attention because they must be getting extraordinary terms on the WB's they are fitting, and with 10 year warranties too. I wondered if it HL was a subsidiary of WB, so checked the company details, and it appears there is no connection, however, the figures involved look quite modest and don't seem to fit with the scale of the operation. Seemed a bit odd to me. Won't keep me awake though! lol

There's a lot of big money being fed into boiler fitting at the moment making things hard for the small installer, so good luck with your inquiries.

 

[AWheating]

why would a manufactures want to sell single boilers at the side door of there multi million pound factory when they can just ship a truck with hundreds on to the pts feeder depo? its not really cost effective as they have complete control over the price its sold for at the merchants anyway.

if you want to get a discount from a manufacture its easy, phone the local rep, tell him/her how many boilers of theres you fit and what number you need to fit on up and coming contracts and they will give you a rebate if its in there interest and you buy the boiler from an agreed merchant. Your rebate will be dependant on numbers of units brought as it is in all business, the manfacture will want to control every stage of the sale to garentee its margin after the rebate.

My old company had contracts fitting 40-50 boilers a week for 5 years so you can imagine the manufactures will fall over backwards to give you a rebate, free parts and extended warrantees. One job which was fit boilers and service them for 5 years (set price) and this was given to the boiler manufactures who agreed to give free parts for 5 years so no unforseen costs could effect the profit target.

it is not impossible to get £100-200 plus rebate from a manufacture if you buy enough boilers.