Help - David Plumbing & Heating

nikon-user

Dear all, please can someone help.

it concerns the above “company”.

Last week I noticed water on my kitchen floor. I called the above company that looking back, on the internet looks a bit suspect (agency?). They aren’t your typical “local plumber”. So anyway, I called them, explained the situation & they agreed to visit Saturday morning. I asked if there was a call out charge, to which they said, “yes, it’s £50.” So I agreed to that (seems fairly standard).

Visited, here for about 10 minutes, said I had an underground leak and asked if I had home insurance. I said yes. I was told he would text me back with a quote. He texted back a quote of £1040 but also asked if it was OK to come back with another engineer/plumber. I said “yes, OK”.

He came back with another (seemingly more experienced plumber). Again here for about 10 minutes only to be told that it wasn’t an underground leak but was a simple case of a leaking washing machine inlet hose (something I thought would have been easily identified by any competent plumber on the first visit).

He asked me to text him in 24 hrs to tell him if it worked (leak had stopped), which I did. He texted me back saying he needs to collect £150 from me, which is for any time spent after the call out charge. 

I rightly or wrongly have a bit of a problem with this.

1. A call out charge and 10 minutes to identify a leak with no work carried seems fair to me. To add on £150 (per hour) seems a little excessive to me. No actual work to repair the leak was done.

Am I liable to pay, or at least negotiate? I know many trades people and the call out charge, if one is applied, usually means a call out + a quick diagnosis & no work undertaken.

Thank you. Please don’t roast me, it just seems a bit excessive.

cymruchris

nikon-user said:

Dear all, please can someone help.

it concerns the above “company”.

Last week I noticed water on my kitchen floor. I called the above company that looking back, on the internet looks a bit suspect (agency?). They aren’t your typical “local plumber”. So anyway, I called them, explained the situation & they agreed to visit Saturday morning. I asked if there was a call out charge, to which they said, “yes, it’s £50.” So I agreed to that (seems fairly standard).

Visited, here for about 10 minutes, said I had an underground leak and asked if I had home insurance. I said yes. I was told he would text me back with a quote. He texted back a quote of £1040 but also asked if it was OK to come back with another engineer/plumber. I said “yes, OK”.

He came back with another (seemingly more experienced plumber). Again here for about 10 minutes only to be told that it wasn’t an underground leak but was a simple case of a leaking washing machine inlet hose (something I thought would have been easily identified by any competent plumber on the first visit).

He asked me to text him in 24 hrs to tell him if it worked (leak had stopped), which I did. He texted me back saying he needs to collect £150 from me, which is for any time spent after the call out charge. 

I rightly or wrongly have a bit of a problem with this.

1. A call out charge and 10 minutes to identify a leak with no work carried seems fair to me. To add on £150 (per hour) seems a little excessive to me. 

Am I liable to pay, or at least negotiate? I know many trades people and the call out charge, if one is applied, usually means a call out + a quick diagnosis & no work undertaken.

Thank you. Please don’t roast me, it just seems a bit excessive.

So a £50 call-out fee - and then an additional £150 for the repair? £200 in total?

As much as it was a simple repair - you're not paying for the '10 minutes' - your paying for all the other costs associated with it - getting to and from your property - (supposedly) their expertise (although it seemed to fail on first look - but at least he brought someone else back who then correctly identified it) - their overheads (van lease, insurance, office rental etc.)

It depends on where you are in the country as well - if it were somewhere like London, I'd be fairly happy to have had someone out, and fix the problem for £200.

If you were in a little village in an area where everything was considerably cheaper - you might argue that the £200 was just a little over the top - but likely not by much.

That's my own view though - see what others say.

nikon-user

Thank you Chris. The leak wasn’t repaired though. The isolator tap was just turned off. It stopped the leak but not repaired it (i.e. the hose washer wasn’t replaced per sé). If he had attached an inexpensive hose or replaced an O ring it might feel less wrong.

I live in north Bristol.

cymruchris

nikon-user said:

Thank you Chris. The leak wasn’t repaired though. The isolator tap was just turned off. It stopped the leak but not repaired it (i.e. the hose washer wasn’t replaced per sé). If he had attached an inexpensive hose or replaced an O ring it might feel less wrong.

I live in north Bristol.

Ok - so the leak has stopped - but the offending item hasn't been replaced - did they discuss whether they'd do this? Is it something, now that you know what it is, you can order another and swap it over?

nikon-user

They didn’t discuss this no. If they had replaced it then charged me £150 on top of the £50 call out I think I wouldn’t be so worried about it.

it’s not that I don’t want to pay £200 for no work done if this is normal, but equally I don’t want to get scammed either

pinkshoes

The first visit should be ignored. Water on floor vs underground leak - that's ridiculous! The man is an incompetent!

So you should look at it as a £50 call out fee for the 10 minute visit where they turned the tap off to stop the leak. I would absolutely NOT be paying £150 for someone to turn off a tap! That's a 2 minute job.

Any plumber I know would charge only the £50. They would then quote as a separate job to fix the problem. In this case I would NOT be getting this idiot to quote to fix it as he clearly has no idea!

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Distance contract so charges should be stated in a durable medium, did they give you any info by email or in writing to say what the fees are beyond the call out?

nikon-user

No they didn’t. He did give me a quote of £1040 via text to repair the underground leak after the first visit. In the same text message he wanted to come back with an extra person to confirm (as a 2nd opinion).

I was told it was £50 to the emergency company then £150 per hour/any part of an hour after that. I know many people would be unhappy with this set up but where do I stand legally?

nikon-user

My response after being texted I need to send payment:

What is this payment for please? I have paid the £50 call out charge and you identified the issue (albeit after 2 visits). I can fix or replace the hose myself saving you doing any work.”

The response from the plumber was:

”Hi, yes the emergency company charge to knock on your door and 150.00 per hour and anything in that hour so your outstanding amount is 150.00.”

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Can you link to the website you booked through please OP? 

nikon-user

Hi Lunatic. They actually don’t have a website. But Google is revealing. They pretend to be a local plumber but actually looks like a centralized agency. I Googled for a local plumber (Bristol) and this was top search.