Advice please on some plumbing work done.

[midas]

Hello
My mother called in a plumber as her bathroom tap needed replacing.
The whole job turned in to a 4 hour nightmare and cost her £270 (The tap cost £35)
Firstly the plumber said he couldn't find the valve to turn off the supply to the tap so ended up draining down the whole system. After fixing the tap he said there was an airlock in the system. In the end he gave up trying to sort out the airlock and said he had changed the system so that the bathroom cold tap is fed direct from the mains. Annoyingly he did end up finding the valve to turn off the supply so all of this could no doubt have been avoided.
I feel my mother has been ripped off and also is is OK to leave the system as he did?

Opinions please?


Thanks

 

[Dean744PiN5]

so less the tap thats 4 hours at £58 per hour which is very reasonable including some materials for converting to mains.

Its not the plumbers fault if no one knew where the shut off valves are, get this all the time with people who don't have a clue where their stopcocks ect are and so have to spend time finding them and they are not always easily found or accessible, this time has to be accounted for and charged.

Airlocks happen, again not the fault of the plumber. Obviously we have to give benefit of doubt over the internet.

And don't make the mistake that everyone does of equating money charged by a trade business to wages earnt by the tradesman, business costs have to be covered in the hourly fee including wages,(people don't do it with any other business so why do they expect tradesman just to charge enough to cover wages and nothing else)
if we all just charged wages we would run at a loss go out of business and then the general public will have to fix all of there own stuff without the knowledge or tools to do so.

 

[cajar]

Typical response from a plumber defending ridiculous charges.

£270 to change a tap is outrageous. Since the stopcock was accessible the whole time, the 4 hours escapade can only be put down to his incompetence, why should the customer pay for that?

Airlock was introduced because he drained the whole system.

I'd offer him £100 if you feel generous.

 

[Dean744PiN5]

imagine going into work everyday being told exactly how long you should take to do a task and if it takes you longer the time will be deducted from your wages.

You don't know the full situation what the plumber was up against what access to the bath taps and valves was like, the age and state of the system.

Would hate to have you as a customer, £10 would probably be too much for you!

 

[midas]

Typical response from a plumber defending ridiculous charges.

£270 to change a tap is outrageous. Since the stopcock was accessible the whole time, the 4 hours escapade can only be put down to his incompetence, why should the customer pay for that?

Airlock was introduced because he drained the whole system.

I'd offer him £100 if you feel generous.

This is how I feel about it given that had he of made more of an effort initially to find the stop valve in the first place it wouldn't have come to this.
Always happy to pay whatever the going rate is even allowing for unforeseen circumstances.
Nobody has commented about whether running the bath tap now from the mains is OK?

 

[Dextraneous]

So, having been unable to find the stopcock to prevent the tank from refilling, he drained the system down by presumably tying the tank's float up So the stopcock is a red herring. Then the plumber was unable or incapable of putting a bung in the outlet pipe Then he managed to get an airlock in it. Then he changed the supply to mains, putting paid to any hope of using a mixer tap in the future without having to alter the plumbing further.

Plumber sounds mildly inept in everything other than charging over the odds. Get in touch with rogue traders on the offchance he's a crook.

 

[cajar]

imagine going into work everyday being told exactly how long you should take to do a task and if it takes you longer the time will be deducted from your wages.

You don't know the full situation what the plumber was up against what access to the bath taps and valves was like, the age and state of the system.

Would hate to have you as a customer, £10 would probably be too much for you!

Welcome to the real world. Would you pay £25 for a burger because it's the burger flippers first day and it took them an hour to make it?

You can't charge nearly £300 for changing a TAP, that's ridiculous, and it puts every other case where you say the plumbers charge is reasonable into doubt.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Keyboard plumbing is always easy and straightforward

 

[Dextraneous]

Makes one wonder if the reason why the tap was changed was due to an airlock

 

[longdogs]

Personally I would have 'bunged' the pipes in the water tank rather than draining the whole system.

 

[Steelmasons]

For the works carried out then I would have charged I excess of £500 , plus materials of course.

 

[Agile]

To the customers reading this!

I cannot understand why so many people don't know where their stop cock is located. Its essential to know so that it can be turned off if there is any serious leak.

In this case the plumber spent a lot of time there primarily because the owner did not know where the stopcock was located.

In some houses there is no stopcock. Should a plumber charge you for an hour spent looking for one?

Tony

 

[ajsdoc]

I honestly can't believe someone wouldn't know where the stop cock is, or the consumer unit for that matter.

If I rent a holiday cottage I tend to look and see, I also look for smoke alarms and have a think how I'd get out with the kids at night if I heard it.

Maybe I'm just weird or have OCD, but it seems strange not to consider these things to me.

My wife thinks I'm mad, though.

 

[Dextraneous]

Just to reiterate from what the op describes the system was gravity fed and so the main stopcock wasn't needed, nor was there a need to drain the system. When the plumber failed to resolve the airlock, he magically found the stopcock in time to add another hour's or so work at £58. Sounds inept or fishy

 

[Dextraneous]

For the works carried out then I would have charged I excess of £500 , plus materials of course.

To bung the cws and change a tap