Should I pay a plumber even if he didn’t fix the problem?

kmo277

Back in October my boiler kept dropping in pressure so I called a plumber. He is used quite frequently by my sister and she had never had any complaints so I got his number off her and text him. He came round, diagnosed the issue and said he’d come back with a part, which he did quite promptly. He then fitted the problem and left me the invoice, wanting payment within x days. After 1 day my boiler went back to how it was before, constantly dropping in pressure so I called him back to have a look. He said he thinks I should call ‘ideal’ directly and get them out to fix it. I assumed (maybe incorrectly), that the invoice was now null and void, as he didn’t fix the problem. This week my sister tells me that the plumber has told her that I haven’t paid my invoice!? Am I wrong in thinking I should have to? On much reflection I think at the very least pay for the part he used as it is in my boiler. But the invoice is for £300, by his suggestion I called out ‘ideal’ who fixed the problem for another £300. Please advise me on what is correct here? Part of me thinks he is trying his luck with my sister one week before Christmas because he thinks she can afford to pay on me behalf. 

rob7475

It's a difficult one. Unless he's advertising a no fix, no fee service you're a bit stuck. What part did he replace? If he gave up after his first attempt, it's a bit poor and I wouldn't be recommending him to anyone.

Depending on the issue, boilers can be a nightmare to diagnose and fix first time. Unless you know a good reliable gas engineer, I'd always be inclined to use the manufacturers service. Most manufacturers will offer a no fix, no fee repair.

I used to have an old Vokera 20/80RS combi boiler. At the time it was heading for 20 years old and was having issues. Vokera charged me £200 for a fixed price repair including parts. The Vokera engineer was struggling to find the issue and ended up having to change the majority of parts in the boiler until it was working. I ended up with a mostly new boiler for £200 that worked fine for years after until I moved house.

tacpot12

I don't think you can regard the invoice as null and void, unless your contact with him was a fixed fee to fix the problem. You owe him for his time and the part, but can negotiate with him over how much you pay because he didn't diagnose the fault accurately. I think if you can agree that you will pay him £150 to £175 it will be an acceptable outcome for him. 

TELLIT01

You have to pay for his time and labour plus any parts fitted, unless you can show that the part replaced was not required.  The fact that it hasn't cured the problem doesn't necessarily mean it didn't need to be replaced.  There may be more than one fault, but it was a combination of problems which caused the failure. 

We had a similar situation, although thankfully we had a service contract.  An engineer came, replaced a part, and everything was OK for a couple of days then the fault reappeared.  Another engineer diagnosed another problem and the same cycle repeated.  On the third visit a fault with the mother board was discovered which had effectively been masked by the other two genuinely faulty items.  Since that was replaced there have been no further issues.

bouicca21

For boiler problems I’d always call a heating engineer rather than a plumber. 

Ectophile

bouicca21 said:

For boiler problems I’d always call a heating engineer rather than a plumber. 

But don't forget to ask for their registration number with the Engineering Council UK, to make sure they really are an engineer.

For anyone else reading this, if bouicca21 is going to post a deliberate wind-up, I might as well post a wind-up back!  No, there's no point in asking if your plumber is registered with the Engineering Council, it's very unlikely they will be.  You should be checking their Gas Safe number instead.

fenwick458

I think you have to pay. without hearing the specifics of what part was replaced that is. 
you might find that it's common for a boiler to exhibit symptoms "x" and the known fix is either to replace part "y" or part "z"
your sisters guy took a punt and replaced part "y" and that didn't fix it.
maybe he had considered quoting for replacing parts "z" and "y" together for £500, but thought that would be too much and you would likely not want to pay that much, so took a chance at the cheaper option.
maybe there was no way to prove if the second part was working/faulty until the first one was fixed?
if you think about what you are saying, no boiler engineer would bother trying to keep the cost down on a repair if it was a risk to them, they would just say "boilers dead it needs replaced it's £2000"  and that way they would be able to guarantee it'll work.
faultfinding and repairs is always tricky
this is without knowing the exact details, and assuming it was a competent decision to replace the first part.
(for example, if a boiler engineer was called to a fault where the boiler wasn't firing and started replacing radiators and demanding money for it, they would be wrong to do so)

onomatopoeia99

Ectophile said:

bouicca21 said:

For boiler problems I’d always call a heating engineer rather than a plumber. 

But don't forget to ask for their registration number with the Engineering Council UK, to make sure they really are an engineer.

For anyone else reading this, if bouicca21 is going to post a deliberate wind-up, I might as well post a wind-up back!  No, there's no point in asking if your plumber is registered with the Engineering Council, it's very unlikely they will be.  You should be checking their Gas Safe number instead.

Maybe they have attained CEng status through CIPHE?  Although if they were to, I doubt they'd be fixing boilers.

fred246

This is why plumbers love fitting new boilers rather than fixing old ones. They aren't very good at fixing old ones and fitting new ones is SO lucrative.

grumbler

fenwick458 said:

your sisters guy took a punt and replaced part "y" and that didn't fix it.
maybe he had considered quoting for replacing parts "z" and "y" together for £500, but thought that would be too much and you would likely not want to pay that much, so took a chance at the cheaper option.
maybe there was no way to prove if the second part was working/faulty until the first one was fixed?
if you think about what you are saying, no boiler engineer would bother trying to keep the cost down on a repair if it was a risk to them, they would just say "boilers dead it needs replaced it's £2000"  and that way they would be able to guarantee it'll work.
faultfinding and repairs is always tricky

It may be tricky, but that's what they are paid for. Unfortunately, the only that most of all these so called 'engineers' can do is eliminate possible faults by randomly replacing various parts and blocks - and charge the customers for their incompetence. Good ones will, at least, make an educated guess in advance and have all possible spare parts there and then.

It's just hard to believe how a respectable word 'engineer' was devalued by this industry.