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Headhurts

MB Enthusiast
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Joined
Nov 29, 2015
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1,501
Location
Near Coltishall, Norfolk
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Mercedes GLC
Apologies to any plumbers on here that do a good reliable job but I have yet to find one.
The last one I used has let me down four times, shame on me for allowing it.
It almost seemed p**s taking, I needed an outlet kit fitting to my bund tank and a small seepage from an air valve in airing cupboard, I was told that I needed to nearly empty the oil tank for this job to be done which I have done so being so low I needed a date from plumber he had let me down a couple of times and getting him to answer the phone was nigh on impossible he did not respond to texts or emails but as I had committed to him for this work I percevered and managed to get hold of him last Tuesday, he promised he would come Friday or Saturday morning to do this work but never materialised nor did he answer his phone or respond to texts.
I still seethe that someone can treat a customer this way and on reflection the fact he rarely answered his phone or returned calls should have alerted me as quite often you need plumbers in an emergency so he would have been no use to me.
I have one friend who is a builder and he told me plumbers are the worst of the tradesmen and another friend who has several properties he rents said the same thing.
Why would this seem to be endemic with this trade? I do understand that a plumber may from time to time have to let a customer down when responding to an emergency but they should always let the people who are expecting their visit know.
I will now take out a contract with a large company so this does not happen to me again.
Rant over, has anyone else had similar experiences?
 
Mixed bag with plumbers, the one that did the entire water and central heating piping in my house was excellent, and reasonable. His apprentice, a friend of mine who is lead viola player for among others the London Sinfonia, having now qualified, does all my work, and I can highly recommend her.

In London I never found a reliable one.
 
I've been in and around the building trade pretty much all my working life and have to agree with you; plumbers are the by far and away the least reliable of the trades.

My only saving grace as a property developer is that I encouraged my nephew to get into plumbing and gas and he's well on his way at only nineteen, very conscientious young man with a good work ethic. He now does all my work and he's absolutely snowed under with work because he never lets anyone down!
 
Sorry, he's not interested in the job. That's what tradesmen tend to do when they don't want the job. Naturally, they can't change their telephone number.
 
What was interesting about my friend Sharada's experience training to be one (at the tender age of 49) was that the instructors were nigh on useless at the job (a Megaflow hot water tank at her house was piped by one completely incorrectly) and the young lads doing it (while good fun she said) had absolutely no work ethic and lacked even basic competence by the end of the course. Now fixing your gas central heating in London. She came top but quite sincerely felt that she was not properly qualified so carried on with an apprentice position until she became more experienced.
 
Unfortunately, I don't think that it's just plumbers. In my experience most of the building and decorating trades seem blighted by people that are incapable of doing things properly.

My family had a building company and always did things 'old school' with an eye for detail and the upmost respect for clients and their homes. So, it makes my heart weep when seeing some of the so called professionals that are operating today.

Due to my health problems, we've had to employ some people to do work on our home: we had a plumber that installed a towel rail upside down despite me setting it position for him, let alone the fact that I have had to reinstall all of the toilets and a bath because of their poor workmanship; we had a plasterer that put a screw through a wire in the ceiling and then got bolshy about having to fix the problem; a decorator that would have made an excellent F1 driver with the number of excuses he came out with, sometimes even before he'd done anything, e.g blaming the walls for his poor wallpapering joints and the paper for not sticking to the walls, let alone having to borrow my tools and equipment to do various tasks. I could go on, but needless to say, if you find anyone decent, hold on to them! Fortunately, I have the skills, and tools, to rectify most of the issues that arise from the ineptitude of those we've had the misfortune to use.
 
I always do everything myself, supervised by the better half, no escaping her

My wife is quite happy to accept less than perfection from trades, I can't. I have been told that my perfectionism is a problem for me, and it's even something therapy has tried to address, however, I always feel that if someone is going to take my perfectly good, fully use able, hard earned money, then it's not asking too much for their work to be of the same standard. I could accept slightly iffy workmanship if, say for example, my money was only worth 50% of its face value, but, as far as I know, it has the same buying power as anyone else's!
 
Likewise-I do as much as I can myself. The amount of friends whom have had 'professional' plumbers in to do work have mostly had leaks or done an atrocious job . I have never been taught plumbing-I just watch and pick things up and my own work has never been the cause of a leak. I have plumbed in my kitchen three times and my bathroom twice, moved rads, installed outside taps etc. PS-I would be too worried to work for someone else....just in case.
 
My Plumber is GREAT. Providing I time the season correctly he invariably arrives with a Pheasant or a Rabbit in hand. Is always pleasant, and allows me to borrow his kit for jobs that I can do myself. :)

Yes he has his own time zone, but as a one man band, he has to respond to urgent jobs, elderly people and such, thus my leaky tap would take a back seat.
 
Sorry, he's not interested in the job. That's what tradesmen tend to do when they don't want the job. Naturally, they can't change their telephone number.

It could be but I did get him round once to service my boiler which is bread and butter stuff and he also let me down on two days for this, my personal opinion is that they have so much work that customer service is something they cannot bother with, this man apparently lives near me but I do not know exactly where so it could have been an easy earner for him if not he should of least had the guts to tell me he did not want it before I ran my oil right down.
But I get your point
 
My Plumber is GREAT. Providing I time the season correctly he invariably arrives with a Pheasant or a Rabbit in hand. Is always pleasant, and allows me to borrow his kit for jobs that I can do myself. :)

Yes he has his own time zone, but as a one man band, he has to respond to urgent jobs, elderly people and such, thus my leaky tap would take a back seat.

You are lucky to have found a decent one, I too understand that other jobs may be more urgent but the least that they can do is let the customer know they will be delayed. Also bear in mind that my oil tank is very low and I am desperate to get this done and fill the tank up, I have contacted another one recommended by a neighbour and he answered his phone stopped his van got his diary out and is (hopefully) coming to carry out the work this coming Tuesday.
 
I've used 2 over recent years. They generally don't answer their phones, letting calls go to voicemail.
They don't return calls.
Standard of work decidedly average.

For my own house I did most of the plumbing & heating myself but had to use one of these plumbers as I needed his certificate for ASHP (for the RHI) & unvented cylinder.
So he supplied & connected up the ASHP, supplied the underfloor heating kit for me to install, supplied & installed the cylinder & controls in the airing cupboard.
When the heating was fired up, him & electrician were here on the phone to the supplier (NuHeat) & there seemed to be a problem to get it working. Initially the electrician was blamed as he must have wired it up wrong:rolleyes: I did the first fix & electrician did the second fix. Could have done the second fix myself as wiring diagrams supplied made it simple, but the wiring needed signing off at the end so I had to get him to do it.
After half an hour of checking (with the plumber looking smug), the electrician took me aside to tell me that the plumber was on the phone again to the supplier - turns out that he hasn't read the labels on the pipes in the airing cupboard and has connected the flow to the return & visa-versa.
He then blamed me for putting the pipes in the wrong place (before installation I had asked him where to bring them up through the floor and they were exactly where he had marked them:doh:) He still blamed me & said he would return the following day to cross the pipes over behind the ASHP which would have looked a pig and he was intending to charge extra to correct my "mistake":wallbash:
That night I stripped out his pipework in the airing cupboard & connected it correctly. Following day he accepts that it was neater to do it in the airing cupboard but says it would have cost me more than crossing the pipes over outside if he had done it.

Arrogant ar5ehole
 
Our local plumber (Mahoosive Sign Written Mercedes Van) Gives me a cheery wave every day as he drives past me (lives around the corner). Happy to forget that he has accepted three jobs from me and not shown up once despite repeated calls, texts etc.

They have to much work that allows them to cherry pick what they want to do.
 
Just how difficult is it to solder a copper pipe together,or glue a plastic one?
My ex bil runs his own plumbing contractors, the stories of guys he's had
to fire on their first day,normally followed by a length of gas pipe in hot pursuit
of them is almost endless.The trouble starts when these numbnuts decide to get
some business cards printed and prey on homeowners.
 
I have to agree. Been in the building trade since being 16 and plumbers do seem to have this reputation. My advice is the same as above. If you've got a good plumber (or other tradesman for that matter) keep hold of them, and if they're busy then wait for them (if possible)

In this day and age with so many means of contact there's absolutely no reason to let anyone down. If I'm going to be just 15 minutes late I phone or text the costumer.

It the same old thing. Good, honest, Reliable & tidy tradesman will always be busy. If you phone someone up to do a job and they can start the next day then ask yourself why.

Ant.
 
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Our local plumber (Mahoosive Sign Written Mercedes Van) Gives me a cheery wave every day as he drives past me (lives around the corner). Happy to forget that he has accepted three jobs from me and not shown up once despite repeated calls, texts etc.

They have to much work that allows them to cherry pick what they want to do.


That's something else I pride myself on. If I price a job and I'm too busy. I'll be honest with the customer and give them the option to pencil a date in, or get someone else. It's so unfair to leave people waiting on you. Why waste his and your time. :dk:

Ant.
 
I no longer feel victimised reading the replies, I must hope this guy turning up next week is the one, at least he answered the phone and made a diary entry.
Still beats me how they can treat people this way, personally I try my utmost to be punctual and reliable and treat people the way I would wish to be treated.
 
I did find a good plumber via RatedPeople (certainly in the London area there is a critical mass of users) where the feedback is a decent guide to reliability. Prior to the arrival of the t'internet though it really was a lottery. I recall one evening returning from drinks with colleagues and I was pretty beered up. Using the loo in my beautiful new marble bathroom I became aware, very slowly, that I was getting a bit wet (not on my feet as might happen with dodgy aim) and it slowly sank in that it was coming from the flat above. Visions of the ceiling collapsing, so I found Yellow Pages and started leafing through all the AAAAA Aardvark plumber listings ringing them one by one until finally an emergency plumber was dispatched. The call out charge was hideous and they charged by the half hour. Guy came in, said he needed to check something, and disappeared. 20 minutes later I twigged the game - he was going to spin it out as long as possible, so as he was snoozing in the van, I opened the door and woke him up. Turned out to be a leaky washing machine above, which was easily fixed.

My second bad experience was when highly rated builders were refurbishing the flat above and I had been the model of helpfulness. This time I was sober and was at my desk when the new central heating was connected. I watched as water began to drip and then flood down all my walls, destroying my new drawing room ceiling (finally replaced after 4 floods from the previous occupants - they dumped their coffee grinds into the waste pipe which oddly enough blocked). It turned out the plumber hadn't tested it with gas first. Then when the damage had been repaired by a profusely apologetic builder (I think close to a heart attack from this and money issues), the new shower upstairs overflowed. This time I lost it, and then as that was repaired, the snarky skinhead foreman, not clocking I was there joked to his mate that they should bodge it, I went intergalactic and he was sacked on the spot by his boss (I think for dramatic effect). In the end it was not a bad result as I was selling my flat and they redecorated it all for free.
 
I've never been impressed with any tradesmen, every time I make the mistake of employing one I regret it. But as I rapidly approach the grand old age of 70 my back complains even more than I do about the tradesmen I'm forced to employ. Staying on the plumbing theme for instance, I recently decided to get my sealed CH boiler "professionally" serviced for the first time after 8 years in this house. OK, so he did gas leak tests that I've never done (no leaks found) but then he checked the pressure in the expansion vessel and declared that it was faulty and needed replacing. The boiler had to be removed to gain access to the vessel so I was pleased when he said there was room to fit a replacement vessel next to the boiler at a much lower cost. He couldn't do it there and then so we booked an appointment for a week later. In the meantime I thought about the problem and checked it out for myself. Sure enough the pressure in the vessel slowly dropped after pumping it up, but having read that the vessels had a membrane to allow for water expansion I thought it strange that the pressure dropped slowly. So I did just what I've always done when a tyre is losing pressure but I can't find any damage - I checked the Schraeder valve. Yup, it wasn't sealing so for a few pence I got a new one and replaced it. The pressure held and I'd saved the cost of having a new expansion vessel installed. Just like most car mechanics it seems, plumbers don't necessarily think, because they don't pay for unnecessary parts.
 

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