A G S Home Improvements Limited www.agswindows.co.uk Review

Overall Rating

- They don't have pushy salesmen.
- The salesman have sensible advice about what is good to have.
- They seem to be competitively priced.
- When they do the work properly it is done to a good level of quality.

- Some of their fitters.
- I felt the company made no obvious effort to be quick in putting things right.
- I have asked the company several times over months for an insurance backed guarantee, and still haven't got one.
- They have not send out inspectors yet to check things properly.
- The contract says that you have to pay in full immediately after the installation, or they won't fix any problems at all.

I chose AGS Home improvements of Newton Abbot, because they were FENSA and GGF members, and had been in business for about 30 years or so. I presumed this would mean that they would do a good job.

4 weeks after signing the contract two fitters came round to do the installation. Where they used dustsheets, they used dirty dustsheets - I had to wash my carpets after they had gone. I spent hours cleaning dust and plaster off my kitchen floor. Every single door and window they fitted had something wrong with it, and the fitters didn't clean any of the windows.

As examples of what was wrong, here is a short list:
- About 5 panes of glass had scratches in them.
- One of them had a fingerprint in the foil of the double glazing unit.
- Some of the foil seals had been damaged by the fitters.
- One of the windows had a chip out of the PVC.
- One window had mastic stuck to the outside of the glass.
- Nearly all the edging was either too narrow or too wide, and just looked bad.
- There were gaps in the edging that hadn't been sealed.
- The front door had scuffs down the side.
- There was brick dust trapped in the hinge of the front door that was impossible to get out.
- There was expanding foam stuck to one of the hinges of the french doors (In the end it needed a new hinge).
- Several windows and the french doors didn't shut tightly. The french doors had a gap thicker than a credit card.
- One of the fitters had slipped with an electric drill and had left drill marks inside the doorway of the french doors.
- Nearly all the windows had dirty marks on them that I couldn't remove.
- One of the windows actually had filler dripping out of it, after the fitters had left because it had been done so badly.
- All the plastering work the fitters did was no where near straight.

OK - a company can't have 100% control over all its workers, and every company makes mistakes. I've always thought you should judge a company on how well it fixes problems, but it took 5 weeks until new fitters came out to correct things. They only had one day to work on everything so had to come back about 11 days later. The second lot of fitters did a good job, but were unable to tighten the windows that didn't shut tightly.

Eventually, after writing to the managing director, a third group of fitters came out to tighten the windows 12 weeks after the original installation finished. They weren't able to really make much of a difference, and told me that it didn't matter if the windows didn't shut properly - This isn't true as it means the windows don't keep in the heat, and they only have one seal stopping rain or draughts. Also if it didn't matter then why did AGS send them out to fix them??? Anyhow I paid for windows that shut properly, and that is what I should have been given. The french doors now have a draught after the third fitters played with it.

As of writing this, 13 weeks after the installation finished, I still don't have my windows fixed properly, and I still don't have an insurance backed guarantee despite months of asking for one.

The company doesn't send out proper inspectors after the job is finished - when people came out they only looked at the specific problems I noted and nothing else.

They have never rung to see how the fitters got on. It was up to me the disgruntled customer to keep getting in touch and keep trying to make them get their act together.

Apart from complaining to the GGF or taking them to court, there is little you can do to make them hurry up and fix things, as their contract states that they won't come out to look at problems unless the bill is paid in full.


May be I was just unlucky, and AGS Home Improvements were having a bad 3 months. I have heard far worse double glazing stories than mine so AGS double glazing isn't the worst company ever, but obviously I wouldn't use them again, and I wouldn't recommend them to anyone who asked me.

The moral of the story is don't choose a company that uses contractors - make sure the fitters are fully employed by the company. In this way there is likely to be some consistency in all their work. Make sure that the company you use inspects the windows itself properly after the installation, and that it doesn't make you pay until you have had a chance to check everything yourself. In that way it is in their interest to correct everything quickly.