Had a few issues with our boiler and drains a couple of weeks back and called out a plumber. He came round looked at the boiler and said seeing as it’s in warranty to go through that, he phoned them up to check and confirmed. We’d had a slow draining bath and shower connections and were getting ‘smells’ outside when we flushed the loos. He gave the bath a plunge (I’d done that), flushed the loos but said he couldn’t smell anything then left. Probably here after 15/20 minutes.

I suspect our bath system needs a proper clean (and given its a shallow angle run possibily a wider pipe fitting) and the drains properly rodding, but he a) gave no advice and b) didn’t offer to do anything.

He’s just sent an invoice after 2 weeks for £65. Now I know he’s a business and needs to make money and all that but he’s not actually fixed any of the issues we had. Seems steep for the time he was there and a bit off not to have told us at the time. AIBU to tell him to have another go at pricing up being here for 15 minutes?

You called him out. What did you expect – a freebie ? He has to get there somehow (bus ?). Wear it, he could have stiffed you for £300 for something unnecessary….

That’ll be his standard call out fee so not much you can do about that. He came and gave you his advice. How’s the warranty claim progressing. If he’s a domestic plumber may well not do external drains. Get a drainage firm to jet or rod your drains or do a camera survey to identify any problems or buy a set of rods yourself if you think it’s something that will need doing regularly.

mrhoppy- when you called him and gave him your address details etc.. you did ask what his call out fee or hourly rate was didn’t you????

Well no I expected him to fix the problems to be honest, like I asked him to do. He chose to not really do anything. The boiler was reasonable, everything else was his Dilligaf approach, and £200/h seems optimistic.

Jeez. Really? 🙄

He’s had to allocate time to get to you, then elsewhere afterwards, plus the amount of time he could reasonably expect the job to be. So maybe he’s allocated 3 hours or so, for your job. £65 is nothing. The ‘quality’ of his work is another matter; if you genuinely believe he hasn’t done what you asked him to, then simply withhold payment, and explain this to him.

A neighbour has a similar problem (as do we but to a lesser extent); very shallow drain angle and possibly too narrow a waste pipe. Our plumber went round to fix hers, then went again (at no extra cost) as she complained it was still blocking up, then another plumber went round and had a go. It’s still blocking up. I suspect she’s putting stuff down the drain you’re not meant to, like meat fat, coffee grinds etc.

If you happen to share you house with a menopausal woman who has long hair I’m afraid your drains, especially your shower drain, will be almost always blocked up with long hairs.

Next time call your LBS. Then you’ll see a PROPER bill.

£65 is cheap for callout fee. That around two hours time its cost him ( travel time, taking the phone call, making the invoice etc)

If your bath is slow draining I can heartily recommend pouring a bottle of Tesco plug’ole cleaner down it and leaving for an hour or two. It’s basically a caustic soda gel, so needs to be treated with respect, but dissolves “hair and soap” ! Maybe even a Fatberg too.
Can’t help on the boiler

^^^^
That or any of the liquid drain unblockers (Mr Muscle etc). They work a treat.

I have some sympathy for the OP as I would hope a plumber would do a little more.

Unfortunately the reality is that it doesn’t sound like he communicated very well with the plumber in the first instance.

Also that plumber isn’t going to get much repeat business is he, if that’s how he works…

Alternatively the plumbers been called out to a broken boiler which he can’t touch because it’s under warranty and a non existent / intermittent drain fault which he couldn’t smell / replicate or doesn’t do drain work so has given the customer the smallest bill possible.

you’re not supposed to put coffee grounds down the drain?

He was called to come and look at a faulty boiler, a bath/shower run that wasn’t draining properly and the outside drains because of an issue flushing the toilets. It was fairly clear.

If he doesn’t do outside drains then he really ought to have mentioned that (but didn’t either before or during), but he did nothing other than say he couldn’t smell anything despite it fairly clearly smelling of shit. He plunged the shower/bath run and got it working ‘better’ although the shower still backed up into the tray so not great. The only thing he really did within what we asked for was advise on the boiler (fair enough). It pissed me off because I can (and do) plunge and use unblocker, I wanted it sorting but he didn’t seem interested in actually doing anything beyond turn up, scratch his balls and leave. I’d have no issue in paying a call out charge if there had been nothing for him to do, but there was and he didn’t/hasn’t. I’d have happily paid him lots more to actually resolve the problems. I resent paying him and still needing to get someone else in to sort out the problems.

I’d also have been less irritated if the invoice said call out fee but he’s not mentioned that and had the gall to list resolving the boiler and cleaning the drains.

you’re not supposed to put coffee grounds down the drain?

I didn’t know this either. And my new cafetiere habit. Oh jeez, am I in for some sort of drain apocalypse?! 😮

Only £65? Invoiced too, not cash on the day? Why do you think that is an issue? He came, looked at it & gave you advice. Surely he’s entitled to be paid for that? Have a word with yourself mate.

TBF, this does sound like a bit of an OP fail (inexperience*). If it was me I would have plunged the slowly-draining shower and poured some caustic soda in the outside drain.

If the plunging didn’t work I would try some Mr Muscle stuff and if the caustic soda didn’t work I would rod (I bought some from ScrewFix a couple of years ago to unblock the most unholy of fatball blockages that I discovered just after we bought our new house. The old guy must have lived off chips judging by the several feet of sludge in the drain and several inches of grease build-up on all surfaces in the kitchen.

Only as a last resort would I call a tradesman and I wouldn’t be asking a plumber to look at exterior drains.

OP – did you have the boiler installed yourself? If so, did you contact the fitter that installed it or another random fitter? Did you know it was still in warranty?

*Inexperience – at our last house (going back 15+ years) we renovated the whole place ourselves and I thought it a great idea to flush away used kitchen roll after we had finished our daily cleaning of paint brushes. When the drains started pouring all over the back yard I called DynoRod. That taught me two lessons: 1 – don’t flush kitchen roll down the bog and, 2 – Don’t use DynoRod (the bill was eye-watering – something like £140)

Never mind all that, these are quite fun jobs – the DIY equivalent of popping zits and lancing boils. Acquire yourself some drain rods and a drain snake and get stuck in, there’s not much to **** up.

there’s not much to **** up.

Unless your drain is the old ceramic type that has a blockage, but has also dropped a section, which jams the drain rod.

Then you have to call out the drain specailist on a Sunday at £150/hr as you fly to Indonesia on a business trip on Monday.

I’ve got getting the drain lined to look forward to when I’m back!

Only as a last resort would I call a tradesman and I wouldn’t be asking a plumber to look at exterior drains.

Having repeatedly plunged and Mr muscled it then this was it.

The plumber that originally fitted the boiler has moved away now unfortunately, didn’t think it would be a warranty as it was a mix of low pressure and ignition faults it was having which could have been many things not warranty related and we’ve had it nearly 5 years.

Like I say I’d have no problem paying to get it fixed, I’ve got no real desire to go rodding shitty drains. I will quite happily pay to not have to do that.

And mattbe, every job I’ve had done has had payment either as an up front or payment/quote on completion before leaving, not a ‘cash’ thing. 15 minutes here, not fixing owt and then sending an invoice for work completed to instruction having not sorted anything out does kinda strike me as a bit off really.

why are you telling STW all this and not just ringing the plumber to explain your concerns?

Rocket dog that’s not how single trackers work. Was it bra or knickers in the post?