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Post by Telemachus on Nov 9, 2019 21:07:25 GMT
I nearly always do “stuff” myself, because I nearly always find alleged “professionals” incompetent. Plumbing, electrics, mechanics, building, decorating etc. I suppose the definition of ”professional” is that they charge for their services, as opposed to any measure of competence.
Anyway against my better judgement I agreed to have a plumber install a new sink mono-tap in my rental flat - the tenant told the letting agent the body of the tap was leaking and water bypassing the sink and going onto the floor, so urgent!
Bill was £200 including VAT. I guess the tap might have cost £50-70, the rest was labour. Just how long does it take to attach a tap?
Anyway, 4 weeks later the tenant moved out. The checkout report showed the sink tap hanging off by the hose tails! Without the pressure of time I went to sort it out. 2 obvious reasons why the tap fell off;
1/ the rubber sealing washer between tap and sink, which was stepped (top hat kind of shape) had been installed upside down. This was instantly obvious as soon as I tried to reattach the tap, and meant that tap wouldn’t sit properly. In order to flip the washer over, of course I had to disconnect the pipework.
2/ the nut that holds the whole thing together has a thin end and a fat end. The thin end should go against the locating plate, but it was upside down.
To fully disconnect the tap, flip the washer and nut around, correctly install and reconnect the tap took less than 15 minutes. Labour charge (which I suppose has to include travel) must have been around £150. Which is quite a lot for a job done properly. But outrageous for a job done incompetently and stupidly done with no thought.
Ive asked for the labour cost back, and next time I will make more effort to do it myself. It’s the only way to ensure a proper job is done. No wonder this country is in crisis. People are so lazy and incompetent. And it will get worse once all the Polish plumbers are sent home!
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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2019 21:10:18 GMT
We only use plumbers and gas engineers on the basis of personal recomendation.
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Post by Telemachus on Nov 9, 2019 21:21:00 GMT
We only use plumbers and gas engineers on the basis of personal recomendation. Yes good idea. If it had been planned I’d have done it myself. The letting agent has a property maintenance division which I think is just a front for various self employed folk. Anyway, they are now well aware of my displeasure! As an aside, I was looking at the central heating setup in this flat, which is a new build 2014. Seemed a bit all or nothing. To cut a long story short I discovered that the thermosat which is one of these “EBUS” things, was incorrectly wired into the boiler, there are 3 boiler terminals, and 2 wires. It doesn’t matter about polarity but it does matter which 2 out of 3 terminals the wires are connected to. Yup they chose the wrong 2, even though there was a near photo real diagram in the install manual. So incompetent!
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Post by Gone on Nov 9, 2019 21:24:28 GMT
We only use plumbers and gas engineers on the basis of personal recomendation. Yes good idea. If it had been planned I’d have done it myself. The letting agent has a property maintenance division which I think is just a front for various self employed folk. Anyway, they are now well aware of my displeasure! As an aside, I was looking at the central heating setup in this flat, which is a new build 2014. Seemed a bit all or nothing. To cut a long story short I discovered that the thermosat which is one of these “EBUS” things, was incorrectly wired into the boiler, there are 3 boiler terminals, and 2 wires. It doesn’t matter about polarity but it does matter which 2 out of 3 terminals the wires are connected to. Yup they chose the wrong 2, even though there was a near photo real diagram in the install manual. So incompetent! Possibly not incompetent, this way they get paid for fitting it, and paid again 6 months later when you ask them to have a look at it as it doesn’t seem to work as wanted/expected.
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Post by Mr Stabby on Nov 9, 2019 21:28:31 GMT
I would bet the farm that the plumber was called "Piotr" or "Stanislav" or something similar.
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Post by Telemachus on Nov 9, 2019 21:35:00 GMT
I would bet the farm that the plumber was called "Piotr" or "Stanislav" or something similar. I doubt it. More like “Angus” or “Findlay”. Or worse, “Ruaridh” (which is like Rory only with more letters for the sake of it). IMO Eastern European tradesmen are usually much better than Brits
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Post by bodger on Nov 9, 2019 21:36:43 GMT
10 years ago I went on one of those websites asking for fixed prices for doing building work. I had done a detailed design and got 4 responses. One guy was a part-time theatrical producer and actor who filled in his time doing building work. He arrived in a beat up 15 year-old Peugeot van. His intelligence and attitude was immediately evident. I hired him on a day rate basis and he has done various work for me on 7 occasions since, some big jobs, some just a couple of hours. Although he does contract work on building sites he is always available within a day or two, or at the weekend. He does excellent carpentry, plumbing and roofing, and made a fantastic job of a complex parquet floor. For electrical work or plumbing he arranges for others to do the work, all with a similar work ethic.
The moral is - once you find a bloke who does a proper job, keep him sweet and make the job worth while .... and don't select on the basis of cost.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2019 21:41:07 GMT
10 years ago I went on one of those websites asking for fixed prices for doing building work. I had done a detailed design and got 4 responses. One guy was a part-time theatrical producer and actor who filled in his time doing building work. He arrived in a beat up 15 year-old Peugeot van. His intelligence and attitude was immediately evident. I hired him on a day rate basis and he has done various work for me on 7 occasions since, some big jobs, some just a couple of hours. Although he does contract work on building sites he is always available within a day or two, or at the weekend. He does excellent carpentry, plumbing and roofing, and made a fantastic job of a complex parquet floor. For electrical work or plumbing he arranges for others to do the work, all with a similar work ethic. The moral is - once you find a bloke who does a proper job, keep him sweet and make the job worth while .... and don't select on the basis of cost. This. We found a diligent guy who did a load of external work for us, fencing etc. Problem is he split up from his wife and bogged of to Ireland.
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Post by Telemachus on Nov 9, 2019 22:19:14 GMT
Well yes but I have the skills to do most of these jobs myself. Comes from years of arrogant attitude “if that numpty can do it (badly) then how hard can it be? Answer: not very!” On this occasion time was of the essence and I couldn’t do it, which pissed me off. I expected it to be expensive but I hoped it would be done adequately. As usual I was disappointed.
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Post by peterboat on Nov 9, 2019 22:40:06 GMT
Like you I do all these jobs myself, maybe its for the same reasons as you? I find google a great tool for getting clues on what may have gone wrong with something then fixing it. As for your Polish plumbers often they arnt as good as you think, One of my mates is Peter who owns PC Kellys its a largish plumbers and they have tried them in the past but to many complaints about shoddy work has stopped that. They now bring lads on training them up themselves get better results they find. As always they get complaints but often their are two sides to a story, and that might be the case with your repair
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Post by Telemachus on Nov 9, 2019 22:49:44 GMT
Like you I do all these jobs myself, maybe its for the same reasons as you? I find google a great tool for getting clues on what may have gone wrong with something then fixing it. As for your Polish plumbers often they arnt as good as you think, One of my mates is Peter who owns PC Kellys its a largish plumbers and they have tried them in the past but to many complaints about shoddy work has stopped that. They now bring lads on training them up themselves get better results they find. As always they get complaints but often their are two sides to a story, and that might be the case with your repair Well to be honest I’ve never had a polish plumber. No tittering at the back! but generally Eastern Europeans seem more hard working and better at customer service than fat lazy Brits. However apprenticeships for locals are to be totally commended. As to sides of the story, how many sides can there be to a tap installed incorrectly on 2 counts, which falls off after 4 weeks?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2019 22:55:14 GMT
In my experience workers from Eastern Europe have a way better work ethic than people born in the UK.
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Post by Telemachus on Nov 9, 2019 23:01:13 GMT
I would bet the farm that the plumber was called "Piotr" or "Stanislav" or something similar. It’s unfortunate that you don’t have a farm to bet.
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Post by thebfg on Nov 10, 2019 1:44:16 GMT
In my experience workers from Eastern Europe have a way better work ethic than people born in the UK. I'll second that. Work seems to be a chore for most young brits. I've had one day sick, when I was hospitalised in 18 years. I always put a shift in too, no matter what I'm doing. I normally find any foreign colleagues are the same not just polish. I have two people both under 20 of long term sick with depression.
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Post by patty on Nov 10, 2019 7:38:07 GMT
Ive used local workers from check a trade sites..mixed results really. However word of mouth local guy did rip me off so out of preference now I use these sites
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