Where do I start?  

We have a nice new shiny Vaillant Aerotherm Plus (biggest model) it is stupidly quiet and it seems to work well - Good.  

Bad - Two leaks (one in a cold water pipe drilled into by an electrician and a major one in the ASHP supply pipe caused by a joint being very poorly soldered), a damaged bedroom carpet (burnt by rad change operation) repair bill picked up by the company, incorrect rads ordered to those promised (Stelrad C2 regular ones as opposed to the specced Stelrad C2 Planar), shower unit issues that were missed on the survey, dreadful electrical work done by the commissioning plumber in a rush (since put back by the company to a standard I'm happy with), missing condensate drain (see separate thread) still to be resolved, Insulation lifted in the loft and not returned, carpets lifted and not re-fitted.  Appalling communications throughout.

Someone has lost their job over this project and what was started in late July still isn't finished and I haven't got my RHI or MMSP details yet.

Not impressed.

@witchcraft, on the plus side your ASHP itself seems to be OK; it's the standard plumbing/electrical work that has been bodged. I hope you get it sorted.

Once your supplier has done their bit with Ofgem, applying for RHI is really easy and quick.

@kubak, I think Jenny posted her comments here in the comments:

RENEWABLEHEATINGHUB.CO.UK "https://renewableheatinghub.co.uk/advancements-and-heat-pump-developments"

Advancements and heat pump developments | Renewable Heating Hub

We recently had the opportunity to interview the team at Vaillant and they share their thoughts about the air source heat pump market in the UK. From a manufacturer’s perspective, what is the biggest reservation people have about heat pumps when it comes to replacing oil or gas boilers?The biggest...

Posted by: @witchcraft

Where do I start?  

We have a nice new shiny Vaillant Aerotherm Plus (biggest model) it is stupidly quiet and it seems to work well - Good.  

Bad - Two leaks (one in a cold water pipe drilled into by an electrician and a major one in the ASHP supply pipe caused by a joint being very poorly soldered), a damaged bedroom carpet (burnt by rad change operation) repair bill picked up by the company, incorrect rads ordered to those promised (Stelrad C2 regular ones as opposed to the specced Stelrad C2 Planar), shower unit issues that were missed on the survey, dreadful electrical work done by the commissioning plumber in a rush (since put back by the company to a standard I'm happy with), missing condensate drain (see separate thread) still to be resolved, Insulation lifted in the loft and not returned, carpets lifted and not re-fitted.  Appalling communications throughout.

Someone has lost their job over this project and what was started in late July still isn't finished and I haven't got my RHI or MMSP details yet.

Not impressed.

Name and shame.

@Morgan PM'ed you. I won't stick names on an open forum as I am aware of the reputational damage one poor review could do.  Happy to name them privately to people if anyone in the Essex or Suffolk area wants to know who to avoid.

I am based in the Thirsk area of North Yorkshire, & I have some good pointers on some of our local suppliers down here. My own supplier comes from Stockton-on-Tees, so If you're looking up there I can also give my impressions on some of those companies too.

Thanks, @witchcraft - I am looking and have a quote from an installer in Essex, so would be good to know who to avoid if you can PM me.

@timh, welcome to the forums. We disabled PMs on the site so that we can make the messaging system better. 

@witchcraft, if you are comfortable with it, you can post companies to avoid. 

@timh avoid Northern Gas Plumbing and Heating based out of Northampton. They were chosen for me and were rubbish. Fortunately I'm part of a trial which arranged for an alternative company to come in and sort the remedial work, they were much better.

@timh We are in Essex and used GCore for our installation.  Generally happy with the experience - there were the usual complications with taking longer then expected and some costs which possibly weren't properly clarified upfront. I'd have a liked if they could have given us a quick training session on how to use it set it up etc as well.

However, the work was good and their engineer (Malcolm) who did the install was decent and helpful.

We are in the South East and had our installation carried out by Doré Woodman. We had previously talked with several other companies and most of them left us feeling they were trying to make a sale rather than listen to our needs. Only one other installer didn’t ring alarm bells, but they then didn’t reply to us when we agreed to a paid survey and full quote.

Doré Woodman, on the other hand, did all the right things. The guy who visited us did a lot of listening and looking around, then discussed suggestions with us before making recommendations. When we bit the bullet and went with them, they were utterly professional and did what was needed.

So what makes them stand out?

There are two things over and above simple good service that stood out to me. The first is their attitude to quality. I overheard a conversation between two of the workmen, with one asking the other to talk him through the other’s plan of attack before they proceeded. It was plainly a process of sanity checking approaches before starting work and screamed to me that the company has a culture of quality control rather than relying on individual stars.

The second is communication. We were a retrofit which inevitably throws up surprises. There were two challenges Doré Woodman encountered, neither of which were reasonable to have foreseen. In those cases they were clear and frequent in their updates to us of what was happening, what they intended to do to about it and what progress was happening. In my mind, how a company deals with problems is far more telling than when everything goes right, and this lot were exemplary.

A couple of weeks later, we had an installation of our solar pv, this time by a different company. That installation went completely smoothly and the guys obviously knew what they were doing, yet they just didn’t feel quite as recommendable as Doré Woodman.

@majordennisbloodnok 

Whilst researching initially and since for answers to different issues this man has featured heavily.  Appears knowledgeable and fits the description you give.  Too far from my vicinity however.

YOUTUBE.COM "https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dore+woodman"