Johnsonandstarley Reviews

Claim

In 2 of the last 3 winters we have been without heating for 2 months

Five years ago we replaced an old 40 years Lennox G11 warm air system It was reliable although noisy but Lennox a large US manufacturer had withdrawn from the U K and we had no idea if we would be able to get it repaired if a major part failed We therefore made the decision to replace it with a Johnson and Starley C36D unit which came with a 5 year warranty We had problems from the start Johnson and Starley engineers had done the set up after installation but it didn t work correctly - the unit cycled on and off continuously even when the temperature was way below that set It took us a long time to get two Johnson Starley engineers to come and fix it Three winters ago the unit stopped working in mid-winter Our installer who had done the annual maintenance on the boiler knew that it was a failed condenser pump because he had had many other similar failures but was unable to carry out the repair because it would have invalidated the guarantee It took two months for J S to get an engineer to us and all that time we had no heating The engineer was on his very last job before retirementLast winter the unit stopped working again - still under guarantee We called our installer who told us that J S no longer employed any service engineers of their own and now relied on installers to carry out repairs Now followed two highly frustrating months for us and our installer while J S remotely tried to find out what the problem was by trial and error They started off by sending the cheapest components to our installer When that didn t fix the problem J S sent some more components and then some more It took two months and four visits from our installer to get the unit working again The components were sent by mail and each took about a week to arrive I offered to pay to have them sent by courier but nothing came of that As our installer pointed out if this had been say a Worcester Bosch boiler a service engineer would have arrived in a couple of days with all possible spare parts in the back of his van and fixed the problem in a couple of hours It took J S two months Enough is enough I looked up J S s financial results and the company appears to be in significant decline They are clearly having to put cost reductions ahead of customer service as the ratings on this site and in Which surveys show and may not be in existence when we have our next failure In two of the last three winters we have been without heating for two months and we are not going to risk that happening again especially since our 5 year guarantee expires later this year This summer we are going to replace the J S unit with a hybrid boiler fan unit from reputable manufacturers

If I could give 0 star review I would

If I could give 0 star review I would New warm air system installed in Oct 2023 for my mother in law who has dementia and many health issues Since installation it s failed more than it s worked 3 visits from installation engineers and still not working at coldest point of the year Is causing considerable stress for her and no compassion or understanding from Johnson Starley No heating once again and no resolution in sight

We are incommunities tenants and our

We are incommunities tenants and our boiler is johnson starley Absolute pile of crap these boilers are Last year we were 2weeks without heat or hot water till someone could fix it and it was winter Today it s gone again thing is on incommunities website they have video showing how tenants can fix it themselves ludicrous The amount of call outs weve reported for our boiler surely costs more than what it would cost for a decent boiler Its just a joke these boilers need scrapping Not a happy bunny Engineer booked for tomorrow that s if he turns up Johnson starley sort ur crap boilers incommunities get decent ones fitted It happens too many times

Moved into a new build property in 2017

Moved into a new build property in 2017 that has a Johnson Starley QuanTech HR 28C boiler Had intermittent problems with the boiler than after four years the boiler gets an error code of F53 Engineer comes out and is unable to fix it The boiler is 4 years old I have now had to replace the boiler as Johnson Starley only offered a two year warranty A two year warranty The one I have now is 10 years

QuanTec HR28C combi-boiler fiasco

In late 2018 we had a J S QuanTec HR28C bolier with an Aquair S-10 water to air space heater Since then this boiler has been no end of trouble The main PCB had to be changed by J S The boiler leaked internally and the temperature sensors trip error conditions on a regular basis Today the hot water has stopped working but no fault code indicated We have had two engineers in on around 20 occasions trying to sort it out but they fix one issue and another appears We were told it had a 8 year manufacturers warranty on the boiler when we purchased the system but recently we were told by J S that it was only 2 years Worcester Bosch are 7 years Although J S technical support provide some assistance for our ongoing out-of-warranty issues the whole system is a lemon I ve never seen such a poor piece of engineering We have spent nearly 1000 on boiler engineers trying to get this fixed but to no avail We re now considering ripping it out and installing an Ideal or Bosch system it would have been cheaper and simpler

Poor experience

Poor experience Have 2 properties with the J S warm air system The customer service is non existent If anything goes wrong don t expect support

Forget Warm Air Heating

Warm air heating is possibly the best form of home heating Only problem is it s fallen out of fashion and there is only one UK manufacturer Johnson Starley based in Northampton They provide no after sales service or technical back up relying on a few dealers service companies Twice now I ve had a problem with them Whilst I m a heating and airconditioning engineer I had no time to service the heating system so rang them to find out if they had any service dealers in Oxfordshire yes they advised and gave me a number only to discover on ringing it the company was based in Luton and wanted 100 hour call out plus travel time The last occasion I emailed their support team to establish if there was a quick solution to flame roll out of the water heater inspection port e g lint trap Pilot burner or controller rather than having to waste time stripping the water heater apart No answer apart from contact a service dealer which don t exist in Oxfordshire or anywhere near Further to J S response not much help from them but solved the problem myself Flame roll out is generally due to contaminated heat exchanger vent blocked with dust soot grime In J S heated it s a cheap poorly designed exchanger just a loop of steel finned pipe very difficult to access service I ve a system to clean in situ but in essence the exchanger should be removed but it s a time consuming expensive job Bad design I made suggestions as to how they could improve their product but no response at all

Great system poor service

Great system poor service We as a family have the J S system and it s good and I chose to have this fitted to my 2nd property but the aftercare is poor I ve raised issues to J S but outside warranty you are on your own which is a shame but I d not use them again The unit is JSHispec 65 unit Purchased Dec 2017 with 3 years guarantee April 2021 fan packed up which given this is an air system is quite shocking and I got a bill for 777 at my cost If the system can only run for for a year and a half max without starting to cost the purchaser money I question the robustness of this offering I m fine to share my entire situation but Johnson has been informed numerous times about this so I can t see how the attitude will change I live in a bungalow Serviced the item every year and have not over used this system at all I have spent nearly 10k with your company only to be shown the hand when I wrote in Regardless of warranty I d expect more than 2-3 years use out of a system before having to spend 1000 on a new fan When I was exploring options I was recommended to install a superior Swedish system which I should have considered more seriously If you want my details again let me know where to send these I m not seeking compensation which I think J S is concerned about But your after care needs to be called out and J S need to seriously consider customers and aftercare as that plays a huge part for me when investing in a product If you don t have confidence in your own product and have to hide behind short term warranties your brand will sadly not be one of choice for many Thank you for coming back to me I ve provided details on my situation I am not referring to labour costs I m referring to part costs 777 for a fan on a system barely used over 24 months I know J S take no responsibility for that or their system which is my point I ve emailed you since this posting and heard nothing so I ll leave this matter now but as I ve relayed Product good Service poor Which is a shame

For the sake of your sanity go elsewhere

We needed to replace our 43 year old J S warm air boiler I contacted J S and they sent an engineer to survey our house and give us a quote for a Quantec combi boiler and Aquair unit All contact with the engineer was through J S and I didn t realise that they were just a heating company and nothing to do with J S until we got the quote We were not given a choice of engineers Once the system was fitted this is where the fun started The boiler repeatedly started losing pressure and the pipes would rattle and bang in an alarming fashion After the first call out the heating company that J S sent to our house started ignoring us I had to chase them for weeks at a time to get them come back and resolve the pressure issues Each time they tried something new and the issue never went away They even ignored repeated requests to carry out the annual services This went on for over two years and the last time they came to try and fix the problem was only after I threatened them with the Consumer Goods Act J S took absolutely no responsibility for the company that they sent to our house to fit the system despite my repeated pleas for support The only support we re had from them is names of other heating companies to try In the beginning I was reluctant to try someone else as the original company that fitted the system should have been made responsible by J S for making sure it had been fitted correctly and was working We subsequently found someone else to service and repair the boiler The pressure banging issue was resolved but with additional labour cost to us to fit replacement parts We ve had about a year or so of respite and now that winter is here the boiler has started cutting out with an F53 error code as per reviews by others We are now using yet another actually fantastic heating company to help us They have replaced the parts as indicated by the error code flue sensor and PCB and the problem has not gone away Having come back to check it again seems that they need to replace a different sensor It now transpires that J S no longer make that sensor even though the boiler is only a few years old and the entire heat exchange unit now needs to be replaced - a four-hour job It s astounding - how can it be that the guts of a boiler need replacing for want of a sensor Thankfully the boiler is still under warranty but I dread to think how much it s going to cost to maintain once the warranty runs out It also amazes me that J S don t have in-house engineers to diagnose persistent faults and they rely on third parties - some of whom clearly cannot The best thing J S could do is recall that boiler and replace it with something else Something that doesn t mysteriously break down on a semi-regular basis A final note the Aquair unit is sold and marketed with a summer air flow feature I imagined this to be a switch or something on the unit It s not You have to change over cables and open it up to change settings on the fan speed to make it work Perhaps this is down to the fitters not setting it up correctly but it s so complex that we are nervous of using it in case something blows

Had Johnson and Starley hot air system

Had Johnson and Starley hot air system since the property was built First system was really good probably inefficient but fuel prices weren t such an issue then Replaced the unit for combi Quantec24C and hot air unit aquair s10 seven years ago and boy what a mistake that was The quality of the installation appears to be poor - J S factory engineer came down to assist local engineer who was fitting it but the unit has never given out much heat Had ecco fan replaced at a cost of 600 pounds just over a year ago and this marginally improved performance but still very poor and is quite noisy Another problem is that their is only one affiliated Johnston and Starley heating engineers in the whole of our region and not very responsive Three weeks ago the boiler developed a major leak with water pouring out the bottom of the boiler Contacted the local J S heating engineer at 16 30 but he said he had been drinking so couldn t come out and he also couldn t come out the following day Saturday He recommended we look in yellow pages for an emergency engineer Got different engineers to fix combi leak After trying J S engineer turned to insurance company engineers but they were horrendous and had to resort to local emergency combi repair engineer but now waiting for over a week for J S to send part and no light at the end of the tunnel Mediocre service all round My advise is don t bother with hot air as difficult to find someone to service it and performance is poor UPDATE J S responded below to my post by stating Johnson Starley do not have any affiliated approved or recommended installers so your comments about the local J S engineer being unable to attend as he had been drinking are totally incorrect as he has no connection to Johnson Starley apart from choosing to install our products along with many other manufacturers boilers and our own engineers are only for warranty call outs Yet after google search I found only the one engineer in the whole of my region who advertised himself as a hot air engineer able to work on J S products and on his website it states We are approved contractors to Johnson Starley so you can expect the highest levels of customer service and quality of work It is this engineer who installed the J S combi and hot air unit and has serviced it every year Read into this what you will Update on previous update following second response from J S sorry for the length but feel I need to clarify J S have reiterated below that they don t approve have affiliated or recommended engineers and they can t monitor every gas installer across the UK to ensure none advertise as such Yet there are very few hot air engineers across the UK who advertise that they will install service or repair J S hot air heating systems - a google search pulls up just a few pages of results Of the firms I found advertising on the internet numerous where representing that they were affiliated approved or recommended by J S This beggars the bigger question of why buy a hot air heating system What support do you have for a J S heating system if they don t have any approved affiliated or recommended engineers Who can you rely on to install service or maintain it Especially as once it is out of warranty J S don t want to investigate any problems that arise with their heating systems Furthermore when we were looking to replace our old J S heating system we found only one engineer in the whole region who advertised that they could supply a replacement J S hot air system This engineer represented that they were approved installers for J S We paid just under 4000 for the J S combi boiler and hot air unit a considerable amount with the invoice stating quite clearly that the engineers were Approved installers to Johnson and Starley Ltd This now appears to be a case of misrepresentation The current issues are just the latest problems we have had - ever since the system was installed as well as poor performance it has frequently shut down coming up with a F37 error message requiring us to re-pressurise it to get it working again I contacted J S a few years back about the poor performance and the problems with our system explaining clearly the issues and also stating numerous times the actions of xxx the accredited installer The J S Technical Services Department responded by advising that as the system was out of warranty they couldn t investigate further In this correspondence no indication was given that the heating company who fitted the system were not approved affiliated or recommended by J S and that in fact there is no such engineers out there