Novoferm Reviews 84

Fantastic Company!

My novoferm up and over garage door has been here since I moved here 5 years ago. Never had any trouble up until a couple of days ago. I rang up the Luton office and a helpful lady put me through to technical support where an incredibly supportive gentleman by the name of Roger Williams guided me step by step on how to problem solve the issue. Great customer service by a great team!

DO NOT BUY ROLLER GARAGE DOOR UNTIL YOU READ THIS.
I had a garage door fitted by The Garage Door Company (TGDC) in 2016. Their was no discussion on regular servicing they just took over £1000 for a single garage and their fitters fitted it. In fact their fitters “did me a favour” by selling me another spare remote for £15 which I have been told that they should not have done. The fitters left me with a book from the door manufacturers, Novoferm. Incidentally Novoferm and TGDC have the same director. The fitters told me that the door had a warranty of 10 years so should be trouble free - once again, no mention of regular service of £149.99/ year to validate the warranty although it does mention this in the 18 page A4 booklet if you care to read it after being given glowing reports by the salesman and the fitters. The fitters showed me a “useful” safety feature that these doors have in that if anything gets in the way of it closing it will stop and he demonstrated this by putting the door to close and putting his finger underneath and sure enough the door stopped and rewound up a little bit - THIS IS A CON AND THE FIRM KNOW ABOUT THE LIMITED ABILITY OF THIS SAFETY FEATURE.
Last week I was working in my garage with the door up and put a wooden seat on my drive behind my car as I was transporting it. I was quite desperate for the toilet so shut the garage door using the button inside and went off to the toilet whilst the roller door continued to close. Unfortunately, the chair was in the way and from the toilet I could hear the door hit the chair but instead of “the safety feature” kicking in, the door continued to try to close and before I could get to it, I heard some loud bangs and the door mechanism was broken.
To cut a long story short, several emails and phone calls to TGDC and Novoferm by me complaining that the “safety mechanism” should have cut in and prevented my door from breaking and it being in warranty fell on deaf ears. I was told by TGDC that they could fix the door - £99.99 to be paid now and further parts when fitter had assessed what was needed. They claimed that the “safety mechanism” had probably failed because my door was not serviced - THIS IS NOT TRUE as, the fitter came out took the cover off fitted 4 new plastic parts that grip the top of the garage door (£50.40 each = £201.60 - I was told this was a discount price as they are normally £60 odd each and I asked him why my “safety mechanism” failed. He asked what was under it and when I told him a chair he said that is why the “safety mechanism” did not operate. He said that if something is solid and remains there then the “safety mechanism” will not operate. He demonstrated this by putting his finger underneath and sure enough the “safety mechanism” kicked in but when he put his arm there and refused to move his arm, the “safety mechanism” did not operate - luckily, he pulled his arm away before my door broke again! He said that the company knew about this. We then had a discussion about children getting caught under it and he and I agreed that they would probably move out the way before any harm was done - but thinking about it what if they couldn’t move or got stuck - ARE YOU WILLING TO TAKE THAT CHANCE WITH YOUR CHILDREN/ GRANDCHILDREN?
Anyway, my door is now working - I will never use it when my granddaughter is here ever again.
NOVOFERM/ TGDC - £301.59 your salesman and fitters have conned me by selling me a door with a “safety mechanism” that only works if the thing that gets in the way of the door shutting actually moves out of the way! I look forward to your comments and reimbursement of £301.59. I’m thinking of calling trading standards to tell them of the inadequate safety feature on this door.

Stay away from Novoferm. Their Their Terms and conditions are designed to screw the customer. Their 10 warranty on the ‘safe and reliable operation’ of their garage doors is ONLY on the condition you carry out expensive annual services by the company that installed them for you. If you don’t have this done you are only covered for 5 years for manufacturing defects, 3 years for the control unit and 2 years for the remote control units. NO warranty is provided for wear and tear which is down to them to benchmark and gauge.
This caused us a major problem with Novoferm due to a concealed bearing failure that broke the dummy ends that support part of the axle. This mechanical failure caused to door to go out of alignment. The garage door is 6 years old and hardly used (maybe 3 times a week) as it contains gardening equipment.
We were very disappointed to be told by both 1st Choice (based in Kent) and Novoferm that the failed part; inaccessible inside a metal fascia box that had nothing to do with us, we would still have to pay over £300 for someone to come out and fix it.
The point is that bearings are not serviceable parts. When they fail they fail, so even if we had an annual service in place it would not have prevented this part from failing. We made this point to Novoferm but Ash Whitlock (head of warranty) and his female superior couldn’t care one bit. This is an amoral company. They didn’t even try and come up with an amicable solution, given that all our valuables inside were (and still are) unprotected from the elements or from being stolen.
Our point was that the bearing is a part made, supplied and installed by the manufacturer. Its failure had nothing to do over use or anything to do with us. So if parts like this fail they should be replaced by them, not the end user. On the other hand Novoferm might send someone out for you IF you pay them more money (upfront at the time of installation) for irrelevant annual health checks. This is wrong and quite likely an infringement of consumers’ rights.
In summary a total con of a company with no consideration for anyone other than themselves and their precious financial bottom line.
Avoid Novoferm at all costs, there are plenty of better choices out there.