Hi all,
Wife (and unofficial admin) of a plumber here, I'd appreciate some thoughts on this situation please.
Last week a builder asked my husband to change a rad in the dining room at a job he was working on. Nothing complex. All done easily.
2 days later he gets a call from the builder to say customer is complaining of a leak. He visits the property to find a rad valve is leaking - but not on the rad he changed. The leak was on an upstairs rad valve that needs replacing. He tells builder it is nothing to do with his work, he didn't even go into that room.
Builder says no worries, change it and he will cover the bill, good customers of his etc etc. Fine. All done.
He has now had a call to say there is no hot water 4 days after last visiting the property. He has been out and the 3 port valve has gone.
Says to builder "Again, not my fault, this is an old house. Fault with 3 port valve is electrical inside, nothing to do with pipework"
Builder tells customer, customer says absolutely must be plumbers fault as "it was working before he came here, plumber must be dodgy as already had a leak"
Builder explains that he covered the leak as a goodwill gesture, but wasn't plumbers fault.
Customer doesn't care, and will withhold money from the builders bill until it is sorted.
I suppose I am asking WWYD in this scenario?
As it stands, we have 2 bills outstanding with builder for the work undertaken, I don't suppose he will be in a hurry to pay if the customer is withholding money. Builder is v reasonable but is stuck in the middle here.
But surely a plumber cannot be expected to be responsible for all pipes/parts etc of an entire house just because they have done some work there? That is ridiculous.
I don't know how we proceed from here though.
Wife (and unofficial admin) of a plumber here, I'd appreciate some thoughts on this situation please.
Last week a builder asked my husband to change a rad in the dining room at a job he was working on. Nothing complex. All done easily.
2 days later he gets a call from the builder to say customer is complaining of a leak. He visits the property to find a rad valve is leaking - but not on the rad he changed. The leak was on an upstairs rad valve that needs replacing. He tells builder it is nothing to do with his work, he didn't even go into that room.
Builder says no worries, change it and he will cover the bill, good customers of his etc etc. Fine. All done.
He has now had a call to say there is no hot water 4 days after last visiting the property. He has been out and the 3 port valve has gone.
Says to builder "Again, not my fault, this is an old house. Fault with 3 port valve is electrical inside, nothing to do with pipework"
Builder tells customer, customer says absolutely must be plumbers fault as "it was working before he came here, plumber must be dodgy as already had a leak"
Builder explains that he covered the leak as a goodwill gesture, but wasn't plumbers fault.
Customer doesn't care, and will withhold money from the builders bill until it is sorted.
I suppose I am asking WWYD in this scenario?
As it stands, we have 2 bills outstanding with builder for the work undertaken, I don't suppose he will be in a hurry to pay if the customer is withholding money. Builder is v reasonable but is stuck in the middle here.
But surely a plumber cannot be expected to be responsible for all pipes/parts etc of an entire house just because they have done some work there? That is ridiculous.
I don't know how we proceed from here though.
