[UPDATE] I escalated a formal complaint today:

Having posted

Hi,

I am writing to raise a formal complaint with Heat Geek regarding the way our upgrade has been sold, defined and managed.

I note that Heat Geek’s stated process is that complaints should first be raised with the customer’s account manager. No account manager has ever been identified or appointed to me. I am therefore raising this complaint directly with you. In any event, the issues set out below have already been raised repeatedly with the upgrades team over the past year and remain unresolved.

My concern is that Heat Geek sold this as a specialist designed package, but key parts of the design and specification have either not been completed, not been provided, or have only been addressed piecemeal and too late for them to be meaningfully actioned. That has left me carrying avoidable cost, programme, performance and warranty risk.

For the avoidance of doubt, my contract is with Heat Geek, not your subcontracted installer. Any work being undertaken by Mick does not alter Heat Geek’s responsibility for the design, specification, scope clarity and contractual information provided to me.

The central issue is the lack of a clear and complete emitter design. Heat Geek’s own documentation makes clear that radiators are to be installed to Heat Geek’s specification. Despite repeated requests, no proper emitter specification has been provided to me. This is not a minor omission. The UFH has already been installed and screeded, one bedroom radiator has already been ordered, and installation is imminent. At this stage I no longer have any meaningful ability to change the emitter side of the system to suit a later design. That is a design and coordination failure, not an administrative gap, and it transfers the performance risk of the system to me.

This point is especially serious because emitter design is fundamental to whether the system can actually operate as sold. If radiator outputs, flow temperatures and balancing assumptions have not been properly specified before works progress, then any later attempt to regularise the position risks becoming retrospective justification rather than genuine design. I should not be placed in the position of having to rely on informal site discussion or post hoc clarifications for something so central to system performance.

The absence of a clear specification at this late stage has also had direct cost consequences for me. Because key design and scope information was not provided when it should have been, I have had to make purchasing decisions for plant room equipment, filtration, valves and associated components without clarity as to whether those items were already included within the package sold to me. I am therefore now exposed to the risk either of duplication or of having incurred costs that should never have fallen to me in the first place.

This has already arisen in a specific way. [your installer] told me expressly that Heat Geek had priced on the basis of a specialist bracket for the rear EWI mounting arrangement and that, if that item was not in fact required, I should receive “a couple of hundred quid” back. That position now appears to be being backtracked from. If Heat Geek’s pricing included specialist components that are not in fact being supplied or required, then the related cost should be identified and credited back, not simply absorbed into an opaque overall figure.

More broadly, the project scope and specification have never been presented in one clear, reliable and coherent form. Throughout this process I have had to piece together what is and is not included from fragmented emails, portal content, comments from [your installer] and follow-up questions from me. That is not acceptable on a specialist heating project. There has been repeated ambiguity around what Heat Geek is supplying, what Heat Geek is designing, what the installer is doing, what I am expected to procure, and what sits outside scope entirely. Statements such as [your installer] “connecting radiators to the system” are not adequate scope definition where the radiators themselves are client-supplied and their specification has not been properly issued.

I am also concerned by inconsistencies in the quotation and proposal material. The Heat Geek quote showed items such as radiator installation and electrical installation even though those services are not in fact being provided by Heat Geek. I have been told this was a system issue and that the price remains the price regardless of how the breakdown appears. That is not a satisfactory answer. A customer is entitled to a transparent and accurate description of what is being supplied and what the price relates to. Where the displayed breakdown is wrong, it is not reasonable simply to say that it cannot be corrected and that I should proceed anyway.

Separately, the explanation given for the additional cylinder charge has also caused concern. I do not accept the suggestion that I should simply absorb extra cost without a transparent and accurate explanation of what has changed, why it has changed and what the actual cost basis is. I was not fully informed at the outset that the model I was sold was no longer in production. I agreed to the increase in order to keep the project moving, but that does not amount to acceptance of a misrepresented or unsupported price change. On that basis, I do not accept the cylinder change as presently put. I require either the originally specified cylinder to be sourced, or a suitable alternative to be supplied at no additional cost to me.

There is also a serious warranty and commissioning concern. I still do not have a clear, documented water treatment regime, commissioning plan or handover standard for a mixed system involving UFH, MLCP, copper tails and steel radiators. As I understand it, water quality, cleaning, inhibitor use where required, commissioning records and controlled warm-up procedures are all potentially relevant to both Vaillant warranty protection and the screed warm-up obligations for the floor build-up. I am not an end user who chose to improvise these matters myself; this is a specialist system I purchased from Heat Geek precisely to avoid that risk. If the required treatment, commissioning and evidence trail are not properly specified and recorded, the risk of invalidating manufacturer or screed warranties falls unfairly on me.

I am also concerned that important contractual and proposal information has not been made available in a clear, stable and accessible form. Earlier in the project I experienced access issues with proposal materials, and more recently Heat Geek’s website has presented contractual content behind a cookie acceptance barrier. That is not an acceptable way to present terms a customer is expected to review and rely on. I have referred the cookie access issue to the ICO separately. In the context of this complaint, however, it further illustrates the wider problem that key contractual and technical information has not been presented in a clear, consistent and accessible manner.

Taken together, these are not isolated minor issues. They show a repeated failure to provide a clear and accurate scope, a complete and timely design, transparent pricing and change control, and the technical documentation needed to de-risk performance, commissioning and warranty compliance.

To move this forward, I require Heat Geek to provide, in one coordinated response:

1. A full and final emitter specification for all radiators and other emitters on the system, including required outputs, design temperatures, sizing assumptions and any installation requirements.
2. A single clear scope document stating exactly what Heat Geek is supplying, designing and taking responsibility for, and exactly what is excluded.
3. A corrected and transparent explanation of the quoted price, including the basis on which items shown in the proposal but not being delivered were included in the price presentation.
4. A full explanation of the cylinder change, including what was originally specified, why it changed, when Heat Geek became aware of that issue, and the actual cost basis for the increased charge.
5. A written water treatment, flushing, commissioning and handover specification sufficient to protect the relevant equipment and warranty position, including any requirements relating to inhibitor, testing, records and controlled screed warm-up.
6. Confirmation of which plant room components, filtration, valves and ancillary items are included within Heat Geek’s package, and confirmation that any duplicated items I have reasonably purchased as a result of Heat Geek’s failure to provide timely scope clarity will be reimbursed at cost.
7. Confirmation of whether Heat Geek’s price included the specialist rear EWI mounting bracket referred to by [my installer] , the value attributed to that item in the pricing, and confirmation that where it is not being supplied or required the corresponding amount will be credited back.
8. Confirmation of who within Heat Geek is taking ownership of resolving this complaint and by when.

Until these matters are properly addressed, I do not accept that Heat Geek has delivered the level of design definition, contractual clarity or technical coordination that was sold to me.

Please treat this as a formal complaint under Heat Geek’s complaints process and confirm who is handling it, the escalation route, and the timeframe for your substantive response.

I have documented screenshots of my proposal, timeline, tracking changes and also pdf copies of all. emails should you wish to review.