B&Q bathroom installation -should I avoid?!

lofty517

I am a fitter for B&q and have been for 3 years none stop, from my first hand experience i can tell you that B&q have some first class fitters and some real cowboys who think they can fit kitchens, Bedrooms and Bathrooms. In the 3 years i have been working for them i have fitted approx 110 installations and i am please to say that they have all been completed between 5 and 7 days. However this is only because i have resolved all the problems caused by jumped up sales people and surveyors that don't know there !!!! from there elbows. I think the product supplied by B&q from either their IT range or the Cook & Lewis range are as good as any of the other High street outlets if you have the correct fitters installing it!The bottom line is they take all of your money up front and expect the fitters to sort absolutely everything else out as well as waiting weeks at a time to be paid! and we don't earn even a fraction of what B&q charge the customer to install it! I am only still with them because it is regular work and a little bit of security i suppose.
What i suggest anyone does if they are going to purchase a Kitchen, Bedroom or Bathroom from B&q is to find out the name of the installer who will be carrying out the work and ask for at least 10 of their previous customers details for references. Don't paint all their fitters with the same brush because some of us are as good as you get!:beer:

Leif

paidinchickens wrote: »

I have worked in several stores and they all work pretty much the same.

What about Homebase? A colleague was pleased with their service. I will ask the fitter to quote me directly so I avoid going via Homebase.

Leif

Oh, and why don't people go direct to fitters, and cut out the thieving, err, B&Q?

lofty517

thats the best thing to do, that way the customer saves £100's and the fitters get paid on completion,but make sure you ask the fitter to arrange for you to speak with at least 5 of his previous customers in the last couple of months.

deanos

Is it something you can do yourself ?

I ripped out our entire bathroom and fitted a new suite and laid new floor and tiled, it really is not difficult and as long as you take your time you will get a good result

BTW i have worked for Homebase and B+Q in the past and would not recommend getting anything fitted by them, by all means buy the items there but employ a local fitter

serenitybathrooms

Try Looking at a web site called Freeindex. All the companies are reviewed by their customers on this site. You should be able to get a local company who will do a superior job to the national companies.

erdd2

We purchased and fitted bathroom suite from B&Q....did not remove sticky labels until complete...low and behold a crack....B&Q inspected this then sent out a bathroom fitter with same bath within 2 days.....all tiling put back in place and a voucher for inconvenience.....a few hundred miles from you though!

serenitybathrooms

Before selecting a company for your bathroom refit, check out their customers reviews. You would not book a holiday without checking the hotel reviews on Trip Advisor first. Check out local tradesmen on Freeindex. You can contact companies with excellent reviews directly. I invite all my customers to have their say on this site. Needless to say I always bend over backwards to make sure all my customer reviews are positive. I also give prospective customers email addresses of customers who have had a similar re-fit to the one being proposed.

AndyDeez

Just had a visit from the B&Q designer for a refit on a small cloak bathroom (2m x 1.9m) and was a little shocked when I was quoted £5000:eek: I think I will be shopping elsewhere !!

Greenst

Leif wrote: »

A builder I am using told me not to buy a bathroom suite from B&Q. He had a customer who provided the suite, they installed it, but it missed a component. It took B&Q 6 months to supply the component which I understand was essential. The customer was very unhappy. Such poor service is not uncommon, apparently.

I am hoping to get my bathroom done soon, I was looking at h&q bathrooms in the beginning as I saw a design I liked in there a very good friend of mines brother is a fitter and will be doing the job. When he came to quote he said not to use b&q he didn'trate the quality of products and said at lot are cheap made in China and if something goes wrong its hard if not impossible to get parts.
A customer of his wanted to cut costs and got s b&q toilet, the internal workings broke and it was impossible to get replacement parts so they had to get a whole new toilet!!
I posted the same question on here some months ago. I have a limited budget but have spent the last few months shopping around mostly on line comparing prices and have now got almost everything I need from UK companies and recognised brands. It's worked out cheaper surprisingly than b&q I have found a much nicer and classier suite than the one I thought I loved in b&q and am having it fitted by a tradesman with s good reputation and who's previous work I have Seen. It takes w bit more keg work to shop around. You can get glossy brochures from plumbers merchants much nicer I found than looking on line then order from there or shop on line. It gets quite addictive trying to better prices.
Look at delivery costs and factor that in and it the prices include v
at. It's not that difficult once you know the style and colours you want. I found much nicer better quality taps from a UK company than anyrhing h&q had to offer.