Negotiating discount with plumber.

enthusiasticsaver

Any advice on how much discount to ask for from plumber doing shoddy work?


His quote was higher than other plumbers who quoted but they were jack of all trades whereas he sub contracts in the separate tradesmen which we liked as we have found jack of all trades sometimes are not great with things like electrics, etc. He subcontracted a carpenter, tiler, sealant guy and electrician. All of them were great. Original quote for an expected 12 day fit was £5k with that covering all contractors.


He installed the WCs wrong ( wall hung so they need to be secured on a frame) my husband made him reinstall one properly as per manufacturers instructions which he did not even read. He ran out of time to fit the other one.


His pipe work in the loft was awful and we cleared the loft area he needed access to of insulation and the boards but the pipe run was so high we would not be able to put the boards back down because he did not cut them down and literally just threw them in. We asked him to re do it but he said he couldn't and we would have to put up with it. My husband redid it himself in a few hours and it was then fine.


He cut out incorrectly in the bathroom furniture for an inset sink and just stuck it back and although it does not show we know it is there and suggested he should have got a replacement fascia panel. He also did not take care on installing the furniture and the fixing batons were done up too tight pulling the frame away from them.


A few leaks here and there which he took a few days to correct rather than doing it immediately.


He did not install the shower screen and door etc until the last day in spite of me asking him to make it a priority (two and a half weeks without a working shower in this hot weather is not nice). He then found the door was incorrect (wrong sided handle) and it took five days to get a replacement. In the meantime he had started a new job and could not install it so my husband did it instead. He wanted us to wait another week until he was free. No way.


He had his carpenter build a false wall to hide the plumbing and we asked for an alcove shelf which he said he could do. It looked awful with the metal frame not having the angles done correctly and sharp edges. Again my husband has redone it and made a much better job of it.

How much discount would you ask for considering my husband did half the work and he made such a shoddy job of it leaving it incomplete?

He was recommended by the plumbers merchants but it turns out he has only been in business around 18 months so quite inexperienced and is a friend of the plumbers merchants. In the past my husband has put in all our bathrooms and he is a perfectionist but this guy fell well short of that. Is £5k expensive for labour only?

southcoastrgi

Difficult to say without any pictures to back up your complaints however one thing I would say is if the pipes were laid on the ceiling joists in the roof then these timbers aren't big enough to cut pipes into so I wouldn't have cut them in either

enthusiasticsaver

southcoastrgi wrote: »

Difficult to say without any pictures to back up your complaints however one thing I would say is if the pipes were laid on the ceiling joists in the roof then these timbers aren't big enough to cut pipes into so I wouldn't have cut them in either

He would not need to cut into the timbers. The loft floor was raised to accommodate the thicker insulation so there was plenty of room to lay the pipes on top of the joists. He would have needed to cut the piping though rather than just put the whole length in. The old shower had piping running under the loft boards with no issues for 25 years. The shower was moved from one side of the bathroom to the other so it did involve new piping but he knew that when he quoted.


Pictures would not help as the bathroom looks fine. When he first installed the WC pan there was a lot of give when anyone sat on it because it had not been installed as per manufacturers instructions. He fastened the frame to wood rather than the wall and did not put it far enough back because it was easier to do that. Same with downstairs one. He told us it would be fine with extra sealant which is patently untrue.

enthusiasticsaver

Calpol4life wrote: »

Bathrooms looks fine? So you are happy with the job then?

Just dissatisfied with the journey?

It looks fine because my husband has either redone some of his work, done some for him or stood over him while he redid it properly. You should not have to do that with a professional and we are certainly not paying full price considering he only half did the work. We checked every day and if unhappy we made him redo it which then meant he ran out of time so my husband had to finish the job. Still things need doing.

jk0

Personally, I would work out how long your husband took to rectify the items, and 'charge' the plumber at the same hourly rate as he charged.


I bet he won't be happy, but neither are you, and you should not have to put up with this nonsense.

Alfrescodave

Have you actually paid the £5K, if yes then move as you have very little leverage.

If not paid, did you inform the plumber (who subcontracted the job) that you were not happy with how the job was going? This communication should have taken place during the work not after when your husband had fixed the problems. The plumber could then have seen how bad the work was and fix/negotiate a new price. Its worth speaking to the plumber but I wouldn't hold your breath.

enthusiasticsaver

Alfrescodave wrote: »

Have you actually paid the £5K, if yes then move as you have very little leverage.

If not paid, did you inform the plumber (who subcontracted the job) that you were not happy with how the job was going? This communication should have taken place during the work not after when your husband had fixed the problems. The plumber could then have seen how bad the work was and fix/negotiate a new price. Its worth speaking to the plumber but I wouldn't hold your breath.

We have not paid him yet and he has acknowledged a couple of the mistakes and agreed a 5% discount initially.

We did inform him and gave him a chance to rectify. He is here at the moment actually correcting the leaks. The bit my husband did was the pipe work in the loft as the plumber said it could not be done and the reason he left the pipes high was because he did not realise there were boards there as we took them up for him to give him easier access. This was regardless of the fact the rest of the loft is boarded and the loft boards we took up are stacked up beside the area he was working on. I did ask if he needed his eyes tested but I think lack of common sense is what happened here. Anyway he said he could not correct it so my husband did it.


The second issue is that the shower screen was incorrect (wrong handed) even though the box was labelled correctly so it was the manufacturers who put the wrong screen in. I asked him to make the shower a priority after the tiling and aqua panels and tray was in but he left it to the last day of a two week refit and then it was too late to get a new screen in time before he went off to start his new job. As we had been without a shower for more than two weeks we told the manufacturer to send out a new shower screen and plumber could not give us an installation date. So my husband did it instead. He told us it was our responsibility to check the manufacturers had sent the right thing. As we do not normally get tradesmen in maybe that is right but I still don't know why he left it to the last minute to do that. He was putting up bathroom cabinets on the wall before looking at the shower screens and checking the plumbing for that.


Until the job is finished I will not pay him.

addewilson852

Well said your husband It's completely our responsibility to ensure the quality of product that manufacturer had send to us. I was make same mistake during my pipes installation I didn't check the quality of pipe and do it install as it is. After some time it gets damages and start fluently leakage . Eventually I had fixed by doing pipe relining.

Risteard

addewilson852 wrote: »

Well said your husband It's completely our responsibility to ensure the quality of product that manufacturer had send to us. I was make same mistake during my pipes installation I didn't check the quality of pipe and do it install as it is. After some time it gets damages and start fluently leakage . Eventually I had fixed by doing pipe relining.

In English?