Glen Dimplex Home Appliances

Glen Dimplex is an Irish company formed in November 1973 as Glen Electric in Newry, County Down, employing ten people. In 1977, Dimplex, the leading brand in the UK electrical heating market is acquired and the now household name of Glen Dimplex is formed.

In 1985, Glen Dimplex acquired three UK businesses, Morphy Richards, the market leader in small domestic appliances. Blanella, a manufacturer of electric blankets and Burco Dean Appliances, a manufacturer of products for the catering industry.

Over a period of time Glen Dimplex garnered a reputation for acquiring failing brands and turning them around into profitable businesses and to be fair to Glen Dimplex they seem very good at it and have saved several British (and foreign) brands by doing this.

Up until this point Glen Dimplex had focused on small appliances, mainly in the heating arena but then in 1992 acquired Belling, a leading brand in the UK cooker market what was at the time quite a surprise in the industry. After that in 2001, Glen Dimplex acquired Stoves and New World, two more leading brands in the UK cooker market.

Somewhere in all this Glen Dimplex Home Appliances (GDHA) was formed as the appliance side of the business and most recelnt in February 2005, GDHA acquired LEC Refrigeration , the UK based manufacturer and distributor of domestic and technical refrigeration probably saving LEC from almost certain demise.

With GDHA there is good news and bad as there is with most manufacturers these days. What you have to bear in mind is that all three core brands (Belling, New World and Stoves) are cooking brands and none of them are known for much outside of that arena. This meant that products sold that were not cooking products were generally outsourced and made by others, such as Brandt dishwashers with a Belling name on them. 

The good news is that many cookers for all three brands (or a lot of them at least but not built-in) are still being produced at the old Stoves factory in Prescot near Liverpool and is one of the few remaining appliance manufacturing facilities in the UK. Commercial refrigeration is also produced in Bognor Regis on the old LEC site but now all domestic refrigeration is outsourced, mainly being bought in from China as we understand it.

So, a mixed bag.

Currently the GDHA Group account for the following UK brands:

• Belling
• Stoves
• New World
• LEC

Glen Dimplex do also manufacture for third parties, notably for MFI under the Hygena and Diplomat brands before MFI collapsed and they still will makes cookers for other manufacturers.

Glen Dimplex Appliances

The cooking products are pretty much mid-market but do cover a fair range of price points. The best description of the quality is probably that they are "okay", nothing outstanding but nothing particularly bad either.

The new LEC refrigeration is unproven as yet although we would hold serious reservation on any product being supplied from China as, thus far, none have been proved to be of good or even acceptable quality. We would expect that this is the case to be competitive on pricing.

Glen Dimplex Spares

Although covered for each brand on their own pages we have found, as have others, that getting some spares can be problematic at times but, in fairness, this is not normal. Usually getting spares for any of the GDA brands is not too much trouble at all and, if we havent' got it in stock almost any spare part can be obtained quickly.

Glen Dimplex Service

Service is carried out by GDHAs own workforce, it isn't cheap.

Thankfully almost all the independent repairers will take on most GDHA products and are normally substantially cheaper than GHDA. and, as you wil read on all the GDHA brand's pages:

When you call Glen Dimplex for service outside of warranty, according to reports we've had, they will route you to a warranty company who will try to sell you onto a maintenance contract for a monthly fee. The offer will seem tempting but it is actually expensive when you add it up but you can find out more about this from this article and make your own mind up, at least you will be informed.

The independent engineers are liable to repair any New World appliance cheaper and more quickly that Glen Dimplex and, you don't have to deal with a call centre trying to sell you onto a never ending maintenance contract. You can search for an approved applaince repair company using our Find An Engineer search facility completely free.

Of course if you choose to service your New World appliance yourself you have to appreciate that there is little to no servicing information available publically. In fact, there's very little service information available outside of Glen Dimplex themselves but then, they are going to promote their own service and try to protect that business.