Dynorod rip-off charges!

felicity1

After unusually heavy rains this afternoon, we have blocked drains resulting in our cellars flooding by around 4 inches of water.

Call Dynorod. 15 minutes to get through, quoted £175.08, plus VAT, per hour.

Feel this is an extortionate amount, am unblocking my own drain and getting rid of water myself.

dreamypuma

felicity1 wrote: »

After unusually heavy rains this afternoon, we have blocked drains resulting in our cellars flooding by around 4 inches of water.

Call Dynorod. 15 minutes to get through, quoted £175.08, plus VAT, per hour.

Feel this is an extortionate amount, am unblocking my own drain and getting rid of water myself.

Because labour (usually 2 men), transport, equipment, training, insurance, maintenance, PPE, advertising and marketing etc are all supplied for free by this good government.

Should have charged you £10 and hour, you can't find their number anywhere, turns up late because they drive a Robin Reliant, and trys to do the job with a bent nail and rusty hammer. Then when it all goes wrong there's no come back, as they've gone under. You could have come on here and had a moan then.

Unblocking drains is rarely cheap with these boys, but at least you have a choice, and you more often than not get what you pay for.

ukjoel

Dynorod is owned by British Gas now and their game isnt the hourly rate but getting you to sign up for a 1 year monthly direct debit.

We had one blockage I couldnt clear so I signed up and since then I have had 6 or 7 minor blockages/toilet leaks etc which I could have sorted out but easier to give them a call and they are round within a few hours.

If the money was that good then everyone would be donning the extra long rubber gloves and prodding around in the drains for half the rate.

moonrakerz

felicity1 wrote: »

Feel this is an extortionate amount, am unblocking my own drain and getting rid of water myself.

In that case you are not being ripped off - so why call it a "rip off" ?

J-Man_4

I unblock our sinks etc by tipping some bi-carbonate of soda down followed by vinegar. Obviously this may be a more difficult task though.

marleyboy

Have you tried cheaper alternative drainage companies, Dynorod are likely to charge full whack, but their are bound to be cheaper alternatives.

trumpton

You can sometimes unblock them yourself with a blast from a standard presure washer. I agree Dynorod are very expensive, but there are certainly cheaper companies out there. Hope you get them sorted. If it is a really big blockage you can hire jet hoses, pumps and other gear to do the job, but it may be cheaper to get someone local out:

http://www.hss.com/how-to-unblock-a-drain

Altarf

Actually I think Dynorod are less of a rip off than a lot of the drain clearance companies, because they don't charge a 'per hour' price, but have a fixed price to fix the problem - http://www.britishgas.co.uk/products-and-services/maintenance-and-repair/plumbing-and-drains/plumbing-and-drains-repairs.html

In a previous house I had a problem with the kitchen drain, which used to block in the winter (cowboy builders not putting enough fall on the drain). The first time it happened I tried the 'cheaper' companies that had a lower hourly rate, but found that once you had added on the call out charge, the time that they ummed and ahhed over how to fix the problem, it came to more than Dynorod. With Dynorod it may not have been cheap, but you knew what you were paying from the start.

bigjl

So would the OP come out to work for a loss, if you feel their charges are expensive then set yourself up in business and compete with them, once you realise that a business has to cover its outgoings, including driving to where they are needed, and make a profit.

For example I do most of my own car servicing, my neighbour doesn't so he has to pay for somebody that can to do it for him, he then has to pay the hourly amount that the person he is paying wants to charge.

And the reason for the 5 minute wait on the phone is that due to the heavy rain they have had lots of calls, most of whom where happy to pay the money for a proper service, I used to laugh when people came to the garage I ran in north london trying to get their new Mercs and Bmws serviced at the cheapest rates due to being able to afford the payments but not the running costs, a similiar attitude to the OP in my opinion, if you want a proper job it costs, simples.

marleyboy

I have to say when my drain blocked, I hired a local drainage company, a man in a van turned up, got out his jet hose and did the job perfectly, (the blockage ran under the pipe between the the rear n front of the house, he even cleaned up the mess after him, as well as double checked the drain from the front driveway, it took him just over n hour to complete and it cost me £30, a lot cheaper than Dynorod would have done the job for.

zppp

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