green Our boiler cost us the earth
They were sold a trendy eco boiler to make a profit AND save the planet. So how did Dennis and Pauline end up in court after spending £40 just to run a bath?
ACOUPLE faced losing their house after their decision to install a ‘green’ boiler under a controversial government-backed scheme saw them sucked into a legal nightmare.
After their boiler broke down, Dennis and Pauline Burton signed up for a £10a-month ‘ biomass’ boiler fuelled by wood pellets, believing it would save them cash and help the environment.
Under the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), launched by former Lib Dem energy secretary Chris Huhne to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, such systems can be leased for up to 20 years.
But the couple, from Derby, found the boiler unreliable and prohibitively expensive — simply filling a bath would cost them £40 worth of wood pellets.
Worse was to come, however, with a bombshell demand from the installers for £25,000. They said the couple had failed to send back paperwork that enabled the firm to claim RHI subsidies.
Convinced they had done nothing wrong, Dennis and Pauline sold their cattery business for a tenth of its value to fund lawyers to fight the action.
Now, a judge has not only rejected the installer’s case, but also found it had mis- sold them the boiler with false claims it would reduce heating bills.
Pauline says: ‘If we had lost, we could have had to pay them more than £60,000 because they were seeking their costs in addition to their damages claim.
‘This would scare many people and force them to settle out of court.
‘But we felt so strongly about the case that we were prepared to lose our house to get justice — I couldn’t let them get away with it. Someone needed to stand up against them.’
THE Burton’s victory is a new blow to the scheme, which a damning report by MPs last year revealed has wasted billions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash.
Coalition ministers — also behind the failed Green Deal environmental initiative — had expected 513,000 biomass or heat pump boilers to be installed under RHI. But there were just 60,000 by 2018. Yet, according to the Commons public accounts committee, the scheme is expected to have cost a staggering £23 billion by 2041.
In addition, it warned that burning wood was causing a ‘ serious public health issue’ by pumping out smoke, affecting air quality.
The Burtons signed up to a deal with Yorkshire firm Wood Boilers LLP after their conventional boiler broke in 2014. ‘They recommended a wood pellet boiler, which they said was green and would cut bills by up to 70 pc a year,’ Pauline says. ‘They were selling us a dream, but it turned out to be a nightmare.’
The boiler was installed for a nominal £100 fee, plus a £10-amonth lease, under which they had to return an annual form declaring they were buying the pellets from approved suppliers.
Pauline, 58, says: ‘At the start, we were thrilled, and the house was lovely and warm. But then the boiler started breaking down and it would cost us about £40 in wood pellets just to take a bath.
‘I had my son and his wife to stay, and had to say she couldn’t have a bath because I couldn’t afford it. It was so embarrassing.’
Pauline says engineers told them the boiler was costing so much as it was ‘strong enough to heat a nursing home’ and ‘far too big’.
Their nightmare began in earnest in February 2018, when a bailiff arrived, demanding £25,000. Wood Boilers alleged the Burtons had breached their lease by failing to return paperwork, which allowed the firm to claim RHI payments worth £33,000. It cancelled the lease and lodged a claim for sevenand-a-half years of payments — but the Burtons did not get the form so the firm secured a High Court judgment against them.
Pauline says: ‘To see a bailiff at our door frightened me to death.
‘We’re just normal people trying to get on with our lives. We’d never dealt with the courts before.’
After selling their cattery — their pride and joy — they hired law firm Nelsons to act for them.
This summer, a judge at Derby County Court threw out Wood Boilers’ claim, accepting that the couple had sent back paperwork.
He also upheld the Burtons’ counterclaim that the boiler was mis-sold to them on false grounds that their bills would go down.
Wood Boilers said the figures were ‘sales puff’. The judge disagreed and let the Burtons quit the lease. The boiler was removed.
Pauline — who is registered deaf — says the stress of the case left her needing anxiety tablets, antidepressants and sleeping tablets. Dennis says: ‘Pauline looks ten years younger now. We feared the stress was going to kill us off.’
Their solicitor, Oliver Maxwell, adds: ‘If you have been sold a dream story that turned into a nightmare, seek legal advice — you could claim misrepresentation.’
Wood Boilers shares directors and a registered address with A Shade Greener Boilers, which was approached for comment.
A Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy spokesman says the RHI scheme has helped nearly 80,000 homes to install low-carbon heating systems as part of efforts to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
He adds: ‘We have consulted on improving air quality by restricting new installations of biomass boilers in urban areas, and will be responding to the feedback we have received in due course.’