I found a bathroom fitter (on this website!), but have had nothing but problems with him since he started. He claims to have 20 years of experience (though in Poland, I think) but I have not seen any evidence of this. We agreed a payment of £4500 to fit our new bathroom for labour only and a deadline of 2 weeks. However, one month and £2500 later we only have the plumbing and tiles in place. Here are my issues:
1) The plumbing has been installed using short-cuts. He is refusing to install a Surrey flange for my new shower pump, saying he has never heard of a "Surrey flange" and also both the hot and cold supplies have been teed off of the current hot and cold water supplies. I am worried that my £400 shower pump will be damaged.
2) He refused to lay ply down on the floorboards before tiling. When I finally got him to agree to lay cement boards down as a compromise, he instead went behind my back and glued a decoupling membrane onto the floorboards using a contact adhesive and tiled on top of this. I fear there will be cracks in the tiles before too long.
3) He seems to have no idea about electrics - telling me I could swap the pullcord for a switch in the bathroom and wanting to put the isolator switch inside the room instead of outside - yet he wants to carry out this work and then get a mate in the business to sign off on it.
4) He wants to paint the newly plastered walls with PVA, even though I have asked him not to, but he just does what he wants.
I am a bit frustrated with his behaviour.
To summarise, I want to get a proper plumber to come in and sort out the plumbing (the floorboards and painting will just have to be written off), and I would like to take out the cost of bringing someone round out of the £4500 I was going to pay the bathroom fitter.
Where do we stand with doing this legally?
I should add we have no written contract, just an email stating what will happen.
Many thanks.
Are you a tradesperson and able to answer this question?
Do you really need to ask for advise on what to do.
You know full well what he is doing is completely wrong.
You know more than him.
Tell him straight, Never return to your property. and there is NO more money to be had.Trust me you will being doing him a favour. He has ripped you off and thinks he can continue to rip you off.
YOU are the client. And when did you think a bathroom fitter earns £2,250.00 a week.
He's not an MP.
You Know what to do and don't be fearful. .
Answered8 December 2014
3
Anonymous user
Oh dear, sorry you have has so much trouble with your bathroom. First advice I can offer is speak with citizens advice bureau see what advice they could offer. Second speak with your plumber about your concerns and stress that he puts right what he has done wrong, if he doesn't take him off the job and poss speak with trading standards. Re the Surry flange, YES it is advised that one is fitted to the cylinder as this will help take away any air from going in to the pump which could ultimately cause it to fail or damage it. Re the tiled floor, YES this needs to be ply lined at the least. Hope this helps.
basically you have given him a chance to correct the things your not happy with and he has not as such you are with in your rights to sack him and now get someone else in to correct any mistakes and Finnish the job of to your satisfaction.
this time list the things you are unhappy with and the reason why you feel that you do not have the confidence any longer in him to complete your job, then save the rest of your money to be able to get a proper tradesman to complete the job.
definitely would not be paying an other penny to this guy.
good luck Alex
Unfortunately it sounds like you are not getting the service you deserve! It also sound like you know more about bathroom fitting than he does.
I work with other nationalities and find that it is the same everywhere. You get good and bad tradesmen but on the whole i have found the standar of work to be high. The problem arises when they dont kknow about the way we do ithings in the UK.
In responce to your issues
1. You are completely right a Surrey flange is needed to stop air being pulled into the pump and the feed for the hot should be the first of the hot water tank and a the cold should also be the first of the cwt again to stop air pulling into the system.
2. Cement board like hardibacker are the best to use but decoupling membrane is also good but it has to be put down with flexible tile adhesive and then tile on top as normal.
3. What you are saying is completelly againts Building Regulations and no competent electrician would sign this of. It sounds like it never will be signed off.
4. Painting newly plastered walls with PVA is actually standard procedure in Eastern Europe as some of my Romanian chaps use this method. In the UK we water down the first coat of paint to create the seal but either way is fine. At least he has got one thing right!
Basically i would sack him ASAP. This is not going to get better in my experience anyway.
With regard to payment he doesn't sound like the kind of guy to return any money but £2,500 for painting, floor and plumbing is about triple what it should cost.
I would send him an email (so that there is a paper trail) stating your grievances and that you would like a proportion of the money to be returned. Say that the bathroom is not being fitted to the standard you specified and the time period is not reasonable. I normally 10 working days to do a standard bathroom but two men can completely refurb a standard bathroom in about 6 -10 working day including new plumbing floors plaster etc.
You can also report him to trading standards and my builder.
Legally you there is not much you can do apart from terminate his contract and ask for the money back and when he most likely doesn't give it back spend the last £2,000 with someone more competent.
At least you didn't give him everything up front. Good Luck
