Our shower wasn’t working this morning. Phoned a local plumber before going to work and left my wife with strict instructions;
“If it’s going to cost more than £40 for the part give me a call”
I had also asked the guy to quote for some additional work, down pipe repair, moving our mains stopcock and replacing bathroom taps.
My wife calls me about 3pm to tell me the diagnosis. Turns out the plumber is scared of dogs (our Greyhound was more scared of him), also our little boy was really upset just looking at him. Plumber suggests he can do the lot for 4 hours labour (85ph) plus parts (£80 for new shower etc..). I said to my wife it sounded reasonable we should go for it as I will never get round to doing it myself so we agreed for the him to do the work on Thursday. Just before hanging up my wife said “He said the shower was probably broken because we never turn it off at the isolator”. A bit odd I thought, not really a likely reason for failure.
On returning home this evening it transpires he diagnosed a broken shower on sight, saying the heating element was broken. He only took the cover off to find out what wattage it was for the replacement. On seeing the shower he also said “I don’t like electric showers, because the pressure reduces as you turn the temperature up”
Also my wife (usually a very good judge of character) felt VERY uneasy about him.
Not 100% convinced I read the instruction manual for our shower. Fault diagnosis table in the back says water flowing but no heat > clean inlet filter as a 1st step. It took me literally 30mins to turn off the water to the shower (in the loft) and clean the inlet filter. Job done working shower!
So obviously I am not keen for this guy to do any work for us now. Not sure if he is trying to rip us off or just lazy or incompetent. If only I hadn’t sold those old Bombers.