Take Their Tools Off Em.

[SimonG]

Replaced some rads a while back and was asked to look at the custs mothers bathroom, less then a year old, she's not happy and wants an expert opinion.
The original job was bath out, swap towel rail to opposite wall, new wc, new basin, tile floor and plastic cladding to walls. She only got one price and was given an oap 'special' £750 and she provided tiles, adhesive, grout, plastic cladding, cladding adhesive, wc, basin, tray and enclosure. It was poor and the 'contractor' (and I use the term loosely, very loosely) who she told me had done it I have only heard bad things. The cladding was rough as bulls lugs, no trims had been used and the boxing in was falling apart. She can only use the shower on half as the tray fills up because the shower waste runs uphill. The floor tiling is horrendous, but has to stay as her budget won't run to ripping it up. So I priced up to rip it all out and tile including new wash basin as they had cracked that when installing. New it would be interesting but was really surprised when I started this morning.

The tray had been installed after the cladding, the riser kit fell off the wall only held up with liquid nails, wc is 4" off wall as they have used 2 pan connectors and it rocks, holes in walls under the cladding (big holes), the shower valve fell off the wall and there must have been a sale on speedfit fittings, in 1 metre length of pipe there where 4 straight connectors. All the compression fittings had ptfe tape on the threads and the enclosure had been 'sealed' to the tray with decorators caulk. It was out in less than an hour.

Apparently it took 3 people a week to install, two full time and one 1/2 time. The two full time where 18 year old 'plumbers', the par timer was the boss.

My neck is stiff as all I've done all day is shake my head. It's costing her double to get it put right.

How can these people stay in business?

 

[REDSAW]

wow!.
what narks me off is that they get the jobs?.

 

[PlumbBobBob]

and they probably thought they did a good job as well.

 

[tamz]

It could have been worse and the OAP special was 5 grand! There is too much bad "workmanship" these days. What amazes me is people accept it as they know little better. There is no excuse.

 

[SimonG]

I must admit I had a bit of a go at her with regard to why she didn't get them back to sort stuff out. She didn't want the hassle!

 

[tamz]

She didn't want the hassle!

That is just like your average pensioner. They don't breed them like they used to but they shouldn't have taken advantage of the woman. Sometimes they type guys actually think they do a decent job. If you meet them in a merchants shame the *******s in front of everyone.

 

[armourer]

I have seen this sort of things a couple of times and on occasion phoned the previous bloke up and given him a chance to put it right.

I have always been polite but the usual reaction is "Who the **** do you think you are".

The trouble is at least on gas jobs I can threaten the with a gas safe inspection but on plumbing there is no regulations or governing body so you are stuffed.
Most of the time it is just a handyman trying to earn a crust and he just has not got the skill or knowledge to carry out the job.

I know its a bit controversial but I think its time to we had a governing body you need to be registered with or at least you can complain to?

The way it stands at the moment anyone can stick an advert in the paper and say they are a plumber and get jobs.

I am not a big fan of legislation as I find Gas Safe and Corgi before them, to be costly toothless wonders but what do you do in cases like this?

 

[REDSAW]

is it called trading standards?
but like you say, if she dont want the bother!.

 

[stevetheplumber]

Untill gas safe get some teeth to act on reports from us and not the customers its a waste of time
ive can go out now and get pics of several wrongly fitted flues but no one will act on the info

 

[gaspastemania]

I am always saying about how poor alot of the plumbers that are supposed trained these days .The amount i have worked with on site in the past who cant even fit a toilet suddenly driving around with their names on vans is unreal.i worked with a friend few months back as helping hand and when i stated to him his under floor pipework was going to cause airpockets and oxidents he looked at me with a dumbstruck expression.
Convo i had from a random builder today asking me how do i fit a cylinder , building vans with plumbing advertised on vans is on increase. all this makes it harder to find work!!
On the flip side of the coin custs can be just as bad as dodgy tradesman at times !!

 

[Guest123]

I think a lot of the skill involved in training as a plumber has gone. When I was young and back in the day, I was taught leadwork, soldered joints, cast iron gutters and downpipes, lead run joints, copper fitting of all types and a whole host of other things that required skill in order to become a plumber. Nowadays plumbing has become very much the realm of the diy'er and handy man, although still not to the standard of a professional, less skill is involved than say 20 years ago. I do not mean to disrespect any of the young guys out there who are doing a great job, but many of the skills involved in plumbing are being lost in the so called name of progress.

Almost every plumber who works on older properties will at some time or another come across cast iron, lead etc. and it's still good in these modern times to have the skills to work with them.

 

[sparra1100]

ive been to one recently that was a right mess must have been leaking for ages as the floorboards were rotted womans only noticed it cos its come thro the ceiling 12 months later, ceiling was papered so probs thats why its took a while to come thro and she paid loads to get it done the rad pipework is all shapes and ways yet if i left a job like that i be reported

 

[Resolute]

Almost every plumber who works on older properties will at some time or another come across cast iron, lead etc. and it's still good in these modern times to have the skills to work with them.

I think I was one of the last to complete the Lead section on the 6129 - they dropped it the following year. I liked the lead work, I wasn't great at it but I enjoyed it - hard work though! But at least I understand the principles behind lead work if I ever come across it. But I've never had any dealings with lead pipe work - wouldn't know where to start with a wiped joint!

I didn't do any work on cast iron though!

 

[Dannypipe]

I had a call to look at a bathroom once which was almost as bad as the one mentioned here. The tiling was probably to worst part though. Terrible. The plumbing wasn't much better.

Anyway the client just wanted me to tell her it wasn't up to scratch so she could sue the last guy. She told me she wanted a quote to put the work right and redo the entire bathroom and for me to do a brief report on what was wrong with the install. Naively I did this thinking I would get the work to redo the bathroom.

She never called again. Just wasted my time, and then probably lived with it bad as it was.