Plumber call out

nofoollikeold

I'm pretty much retired from plumbing, but in my opinion £470 is an outrageous price for fixing a leaking cistern.  Replacing the siphon and inlet valve and fitting an isolation valve shouldn't take more than 2 hours even with problems and difficult access.  £ 60 for parts (at most) is £200 an hour for labour.  Not even in Central London!  Charging for "paste" - no, its a standard consumable item.

SoozyJ22

Thanks @nofoollikeold for confirming I'm not being entirely unreasonable here. 
Sorry for the drip feed regarding costs, but I know I'm in an expensive area (outside London, but inside the M25) so was trying to get a feeling for the principles of the costings, regardless of hourly rate in use. 

Jeepers_Creepers

SoozyJ22 said:

I haven't mentioned costs so far, as I wanted to concentrate on the time aspects, but between the two visits it's come to £470 (incl. VAT) so quite a significant sum of money. The initial call out £126 was and then £343 for the fixed price second visit. It just seems a lot for what boiled down to an hour and a half's work + what could probably have been half an hour's investigation. 

I understand it's poor form to cuss on here, so I won't. But that's ******* criminal. It's very Pimlico-Plumbery.

Many plumbers would replace your complete cistern and pan for that money.

Time to find yourself a nice honest local plumber. Would you like to say where it is you live?

twopenny

It's not so easy but perhaps someone can help like Jeepers said.

That price does sound outrageous but he's not helping himself because you won't recommend him to others.

I had a dreadful time when my boiler water tank burst, some plumbers were nice and helpful, some just ignored my calls but I got one who was 'available now' and he tried to deceive me and rip me off.

The one I have now is local, not the cheapest but he helped with the boiler problem, left towels and a fan heater, made good and arranged for the old boiler to be collected. Even did a good recondition of my new place, old boiler and fitted a rad thermostat for free. Then charged a lot for the next one lol.........for knowing he will come out and fix things that stay fixed I'm willing to pay a little more. Besides I know where he lives should I wish to berate him

SoozyJ22

Well, it's too late for this time since the work's already done. I need to get the bathroom replaced next year anyway so have a list of other local plumbers/companies to contact for quotes and hopefully that will help me find someone good for the future. If you can recommend anyone near Watford I'd be happy to get some details. 

I'm absolutely kicking myself for agreeing for them to come back and do the work, but I think the sunk cost fallacy kicked in, as well as an assumption it must be more complicated than I though to justify the cost being quoted. That and being totally snowed under with work and just wanting to get it all sorted. 

The interesting thing now will be how to respond to their likely email request for "5 star feedback". They accidentally sent me an email after the first visit so I'm assuming I'll get another. 

Jeepers_Creepers

SoozyJ22 said:

Well, it's too late for this time since the work's already done. I need to get the bathroom replaced next year anyway so have a list of other local plumbers/companies to contact for quotes and hopefully that will help me find someone good for the future. If you can recommend anyone near Watford I'd be happy to get some details. 

I'm absolutely kicking myself for agreeing for them to come back and do the work, but I think the sunk cost fallacy kicked in, as well as an assumption it must be more complicated than I though to justify the cost being quoted. That and being totally snowed under with work and just wanting to get it all sorted. 

The interesting thing now will be how to respond to their likely email request for "5 star feedback". They accidentally sent me an email after the first visit so I'm assuming I'll get another. 

You'd presumably have been £126 down had you told them not to come back? Anyway, as you say, fait accompli.

All you can do is to write a fair and honest review. Praise where it's due - they added a valve, lube'd the ballcock (missus!) and sorted the leak - but you can certainly include your suspicions that the initial call-out duration was excessive as the plumber was clearly having a 'social' call during it, and the source of the leak was very obvious - a faulty seal betwixt t'cistern and t'pan? List the parts replaced and their value, quote the overall cost you were charged, and state the time the job took - let folk make up their own minds from this. 

SoozyJ22

Jeepers_Creepers said:

You'd presumably have been £126 down had you told them not to come back? Anyway, as you say, fait accompli.

All you can do is to write a fair and honest review. Praise where it's due - they added a valve, lube'd the ballcock (missus!) and sorted the leak - but you can certainly include your suspicions that the initial call-out duration was excessive as the plumber was clearly having a 'social' call during it, and the source of the leak was very obvious - a faulty seal betwixt t'cistern and t'pan? List the parts replaced and their value, quote the overall cost you were charged, and state the time the job took - let folk make up their own minds from this. 

Yes, the £126 was payable regardless. And yes, the leak was in the seal. 

I've just re-read the feedback request email and it says to contact the owner with any constructive feedback or if not happy. This is a different person to the plumber that came out and certainly was very responsive when I dropped him a quick email on Bank Holiday Monday regarding the feedback email sent in error. I feel I should give him a right of reply before leaving an honest review, so will try and construct a polite email saying my feedback won't be 5 star given my retrospective concerns around the high price, but also pointing out the things that were good (good communication, turned up on time, work done seems ok etc) and acknowledging that I had agreed up front to the costs provided so have to accept responsibility on that front. 

Jeepers_Creepers

Good decision. 

(Did he replace the ballcock arm which was sticky? Again, these are cheap items (you can even fit better models that don't have this 'arm and ball') and it's the labour to swap them that costs. Ie, a job that would have added little to the bill. I mean, a job that should add little to a bill...)

Spookily enough, my brother has had exactly the same issue on Friday! Leak into the flat below. Plumber out yesterday and it seems to have been the same seal between the cistern and pan that failed. I should find out what it cost him soon. (He's in W2)

Le_Kirk

Jeepers_Creepers said:

Spookily enough, my brother has had exactly the same issue on Friday! Leak into the flat below. Plumber out yesterday and it seems to have been the same seal between the cistern and pan that failed. I should find out what it cost him soon. (He's in W2)

What a shame he isn't in WC.  I'll get me coat!

SoozyJ22

Jeepers_Creepers said:

Good decision. 

(Did he replace the ballcock arm which was sticky? Again, these are cheap items (you can even fit better models that don't have this 'arm and ball') and it's the labour to swap them that costs. Ie, a job that would have added little to the bill. I mean, a job that should add little to a bill...)

Spookily enough, my brother has had exactly the same issue on Friday! Leak into the flat below. Plumber out yesterday and it seems to have been the same seal between the cistern and pan that failed. I should find out what it cost him soon. (He's in W2)

I've just checked and the ballcock arm is definitely not new. The way he explained the problem to me was that there's a part which creates a vacuum or some kind of suction to draw water on and that was failing due to old age. So just that siphon part has been replaced as far as I can tell. 

At least mine didn't leak into the downstairs flat (or if it has they haven't noticed!) With hindsight it must have been slightly leaking for a while as I've cleared up some rusty stains between the cistern and pan previously, but it wasn't until I got a damp foot while standing at the basin one morning that I realised there was a problem - I guess I should be glad for an uneven floor that routed the water that way!

It'll be interesting to hear what your brother paid.