damage to home whilst fitting B&Q kitchen

emmpea

I hope someone can give us some advice! We are in the process of a B&Q kitchen fit, costing £12500.
The experience has been "eventful" to say the least!
Lots of items and appliances have been missed from the order, but the main thing was damage to our home. When the fitter went into the loft to fix the cooker hood to the beam(we are in a bungalow), he trod on the pipe to the hot water tank, split the tank which caused water coming through the hall ceiling and lights, resulting in the ceiling being bowed and cracked, wallpaper loose, all insullation wet through, needing a new tank, loft hatch needing to be made bigger..... the list goes on!
At first the fitters boss said it wasnt their fault, - he said the tank was leaking!- absolute nonsense, but the fitter, a genuine chap, confirmed he had caught the pipe. The fitter told us to get a plumber ourselves, we have been 6 full days with no hot water, no bathing facilities.
Yesterday he tried to patch the ceiling, it is a total mess. He hasnt even tried to paint the loft hatch area. We now have loose and damaged wallpaper, carpet and underlay damp.
We have had the divisional off site manager from homefit here yesterday. What an insult! When asked about compensation he said we could have £15 per day for not being able to get washed etc!- but... we had the right to check into a hotel which they omitted to tell us, which would have been £760! The fact we should have gone on holiday last week but had to wait in every day for things being done,... he said because he had had to come out and see us entitled us to £30 as well!- unbelievable. We are now going to have to have the full hallway reskimmed and then redecorating, more days of mess and workmen here. The hallway was only decorated last year, the wallpaper travelling through to the lounge, we tried to see if we can get the paper, but of course it is now discontinued!, so all for B&Q we will have to completely change the decor, not have the same through decor, and have put up with days off stress and upheaval.
Can anyone advise what kind of figure I need to look at for recompense , we have told him pointblank the guideline amounts he has given are offensive, and he has said this is an exceptional event, he hasnt had this before, and asked what we are looking for? The installation cost was £5000.
Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
Many thanks Emm.

LesleyMatt

First port of call should be your home insurance. Tell them what happened, have you got legal cover with your home insurance? If you have then they would deal with recovering the costs from B & Q I would have thought

emmpea

Hi, thanks for the reply. We did ring our insurance, and loss adjuster confirmed we still have claim open, however, if we go down this path it will effect our claims history and obviously future premiums, which we should not have to absorb, the work will be done through homefit, its just the other compensation issues we are stuck with.

al69

emmpea wrote: »

Hi, thanks for the reply. We did ring our insurance, and loss adjuster confirmed we still have claim open, however, if we go down this path it will effect our claims history and obviously future premiums, which we should not have to absorb, the work will be done through homefit, its just the other compensation issues we are stuck with.

You may find just by ringing them and enquiring has already affected your next years premium. My brother rang his insurer to enquire if it was worth claiming on an accident they had at home and he didnt claim in the end.
The next year renewal came through at a silly price so he rang to find out why. Because he had made that enquiry they deemed he was more of a risk even though he hadnt claimed !!

Make sure you record every bit of damage done, take photos galore and when everything happened and write everything down.

Get your insurers on to it if you can but bear in mind at a future date you may be going to small claims court to recover your losses from B&Q hence why you need to document everything you can NOW.

nearlyrich

Surely the fault and therefore the cost should lay with the installation company? These people often try it on hoping you will be grateful for a low offer, respond to their offer with a full breakdown of the true costs of the issue. If you have legal cover with your home insurance by all means get advice on what you are entitled to. Sounds like a nightmare hope you get straight soon.

Annie1960

Get onto Twitter and complain on the B&Q Twitter account. Keep complaining every day until they sort it out.

They should be bringing their insurance company in to sort this out for you. If they won't do this, get your own insurance company involved who will deal with their insurance.

paddy's_mum

You could, of course, simply point out this thread to the manager of your local B & Q...

I'm quite sure that negative publicity won't be high on his list of things to achieve this week!

ryder72

Your first point of call has to be your insurer. They have a legal obligation to put your home right on account of the insurance policy. This will ensure that they do the job properly and will remain liable for the quality of work done to you house.

They will then pursue whoever it is that has been at fault and recover their costs etc. That shouldnt be for you to worry about.

This may put up your insurance premium for future years and you may or may not be able to recover this from the party that has caused this damage. For this you need legal cover. Hopefully you have this cover.

If you dont have legal cover and arent able to recover your increased premium, its a small priice to pay to make sure your home is put right and your insurer is the best party to do this.

You would expect the people carry out works to remedy this work for you and if they are a professional company, they will, but they may skimp on the scope and quality of work and you may not have come recourse to subsequent action.

This may sound unfair, but remember that this does not work any differently to your car insurance so dont hang around and get it sorted with your insurer.

emmpea

Thank you so much everyone for your kind assistance. We will take on board all of the advice, they have now said they will cover the work, but no word on any form of compensation for the week of no water and mess/stress etc, not to mention our lack of a weeks holiday! Anyway, we will start a new week and month with positive thoughts, and hopefully things will move forward! Although yesterday we should have had a new replacement hob delivered, they telephoned at 8am to say it was coming, ....... and of course after another full day of waiting in it didnt arrive, and still hasnt!- so no change there then! The mention of B&Q sends shudders, we now call them Bodge it Quick!

dexterwolf

Sounds like a right nightmare. I would as other posters have said complain to the area manager once the house has been sorted. the negative feedback for installations or on Twitter may at least get you a few hundred pound in vouchers I would have thought.

emmpea

Thank you, once everything is straight again I'm sure we will appreciate our new kitchen, at present we dont! All we wanted was a new kitchen, not plastering roofs, re decorating, replacement water tanks etc etc,extra weeks of upheaval and mess, it's worse in a bungalow as every room links into another via the hallway, so our home-living quality at present is tough.The fact I have health issues, a fractured vertebrae and chronic pain is the last thing I need to cope with on top of this mess.
Thank you for all the guidance and messages along the way.
Regards Emm.