Fed up with plumbers

SevenOfNine

Yes, all of you tarred with the same brush. I'm heartily sick to the back teeth with plumbers.

They advertise, plumbing, heating, bathroom installation, no job too small, blah blah blah. So I call, usually obliged to leave a message (fair enough, most likely in the middle of fitting something). So it's a short but clear message, name, number, my estate & brief outline of job.

On occasions when I've reached an actual person, two asked me to email info, then failed to even reply. Two made appointments to pop in, then didn't show up. One called but decided job was more involved than he liked to take on nowadays. About 4 messages have not elicited any response at all.

My rant :mad::mad::mad:.........STOP ADVERTISING!!

tacpot12

Unfortunately, your experience is as a result of the severe skills shortage in the UK, which means that plumbers can take the pick of the jobs and customers available. Even plumbers with some availability are so very busy that they may not get back to customers in the time that customers expect.

Perhaps Plumbers should be more specific in their advertising, e.g.

"Skilled and busy plumber is available to complete any plumbing job taking between one and a half and two days starting from the 28th November 2019. All applicants to send an email of no more than 50 words outlining the nature of the job, specific customer requirements, site address and the amount of pay offered. Interviews will start in two weeks time and a deposit of 25% will be required to secure your slot in our schedule."

fred246

I had a funny experience. I thought my boiler needed repair so one Monday morning I got the yellow pages out and phoned loads of them. All too busy. Would get back to me etc. No response. The next Monday I had decided I needed a new boiler. Got the yellow pages out. Phoned a few. Could give me a quote. Looked out of the window. There were 4 vans lined up. New boiler is opportunity for massive profit. If you need your boiler fixing always tell them you need a new boiler until they are in your house and then ask for a repair.

p00hsticks

fred246 wrote: »

If you need your boiler fixing always tell them you need a new boiler until they are in your house and then ask for a repair.

and how exactly is that approach giving them any motivation to do a good repair job for you ?

fred246

If you tell them you want a repair you get 0 plumbers so no chance of a repair. If you ask for a free quote for a new boiler at least you will get a house full of plumbers. Once you have the free quote your small talk moves on to a repair. Hopefully one of them will be honest enough to say it can be repaired.

SevenOfNine

I'd like paying for the whole day I stayed at home because one of them said "I'll pop in today in between jobs". I expect he may have thought he could fit it in at some point, but I haven't heard from him since so it seems he was half hearted about taking on the work anyway.

I'd like an apology from the one who said he would be round on a particular evening to take a look then didn't bother. Clearly a text was too much trouble.

No response whatsoever from others seems to be their "too busy" response.

Perhaps my own advert might be more fruitful. 2 Geberit concealed toilet cisterns leaking, to be replaced with same. Easy access to both. Possibly 2 days work. Only Eastern Europeans need apply as reliability a requirment.

One good thing though, I made a full list including 'no response to message', 'no show for appointment' & 'haven't contacted yet', as a friend wants a new bathroom suite installed, save her wasting her time as well!

fred246

You just need to ask them for a free quote for a new boiler. They will be there in seconds. Then say "while you are here I need my toilet fixed" or "I was thinking of a new bathroom". Top tips from the MSE forum.

Pennywise

The "trades" have you by the short & curlies and they know it, hence why they don't have to provide good customer service - they're all already busy so don't need the work unless it's easy and profitable.

The good ones don't need to advertise as they have a steady stream of repeat business and referrals. These are usually the ones with proper qualifications and experience. Unfortunately, they're also usually expensive, because they do a proper job and that takes time, plus they usually use quality materials which cost more.

The ones who advertise all the time need to do so for a reason - people never want them back, so they need a stream of new "mugs" as they don't get repeat business nor referrals. These are the ones who usually don't have proper qualifications/experience and have gone into the "trades" because they couldn't do anything else.

If the education system was more geared up to the trades, we'd have more of the first group and the second group would be pushed out.

Manxman_in_exile

We had central heating problems. Very old boiler but didn't want to replace if we could help it. Tried several plumbers - none solved the problem, despite a new pump etc etc.


Happened to mention it to my boss and he told me his plumbers were excellent and could fix anything.


Got his bloke around, tried different things but couldn't sort it. Said he'd done as much as he could safely do on his own, would have to get his mate with him, and he'd call me back. Though that would be the last I heard from him.


Three weeks later (he'd warned me they were very busy) he 'phoned me and asked if they could come round the next day.


They came, and together they fixed it in five hours - at reasonable cost. My wife and I were amazed at how effective the central heating was! They got one radiator working again that hadn't even warmed up in years.


We use them for all our plumbing now, and if asked, I recommend them. (Not that that means much. One of the earlier "useless" plumbers had been recommended by a friend).

SevenOfNine

I have an outstanding heating engineer, but he doesn't do this sort of basic plumbing.

I think it's the disappearance of apprenticeships over the years catching up now. That & tradespeople just seem to want the big money jobs now.

Thankfully there's the internet & all the forums, a massive help if having to give DiY a go......can't say I'm massively fond of being up close & personal with soil pipes though!

Manxman_in_exile

Around here a lot of plumbers only do "wet work"*. I think they see that as a nice money earner without the costs associated with GasSafe registration.


* First time I heard this phrase I thought we were talking about MI6 assassins, but I'm sure we don't have any.