Owning your own home

I know you did the work yourself, but did you offer them any money for their time? He may say no, but I'd imagine they've lost out on some other work too being +ve.

I had plumber #5 out yesterday looking at why my unvented system was discharging water out the overflow when running. Seeing as the guy who installed it no longer works for the company he worked for when it was fitted, and has now ghosted me. And the owner of the company started making noises about coming to fix it, has also ghosted me. A more experienced guy came round yesterday and replaced a lot of potentially dangerous "fixes" the first guy added when he originally tried to stop the overflow. He removed a non return valve that could have caused the whole thing to go bang and has noticed that there is no extra power to the pump so it shuts off as soon as the boiler stops, instead of continuing to push water around for 4 min. Also added a stopcock to save having to turn all the water off in the street. So far he only charged me for his time, not the additional stop cock valve or random bits of copper he used.

Also, he has been the only one to diagnose a minor issue back to the fault of the Tado control unit. It's always been the case that when you turn the HW on, you get HW only. But if you turn the Heating on, you get Heating and HW together. So I used HW only in the summer, and now Heating only, as it is currently doing both. The previous guys have said that is just how it is. This guy was more, "nah, that's not right". So took the control unit off and proved it by shorting the correct terminals (pretending to be a switch) and showed both HW and Heating coming on independently. So I have a "ticket" open with Tado.

He has to come back and fit a pressure relief valve to hopefully resolve the overflow, and to run a new cable from the pump down to the boiler.

@stevo_com I didn't offer him money at the time, but will slip him something (oo-er missus!) next time I see him.

Good luck with your system!

It’s a bit more per window than I paid - are they going to redecorate too though?

Cheers. At best, it's probably been costing us a bit more than it needed to. At worst, it was a potential bomb, but he did point out the other 5 safety valves that were still working. A scary thing would have been if the thermostat on the boiler went wonky while we were running the heating, and because that is also causing the hot water to run, if the boiler ran away then the it could potentially super heat the water to 120 degrees so turning on the taps would produce a fuck ton of superheated steam.

So yeah, I've just asked him to fix it and have put the original plumbers in my "well you can get fucked" bucket.

a lot of potentially dangerous "fixes" the first guy added

Cool If you are on the set of Mythbusters. Less cool if not.

Yep. I left the word "bomb" out of the explanation to ms_com.

Daughter is buying a house in Greenwich (I know, how is that even possible?) and needs to find someone locally who can lift a couple of floorboards on Friday to enable someone to inspect damp bits, hopefully without doing too much damage to the boards. We’ve been out of the area for years now and don’t have contacts for this sort of job. If anyone can help, please do PM me!

You/your daughter/anyone can easily lift the boards, but you're likely to damage the first one.

Trades are unlikely to take on small jobs right now as they are in demand (Brexit).

Got any local neighbourhood facebook groups or the like?

Often see general handymen advertising there (or recommended) with more availability than specific and/or qualified trades

@Jingle_Jangle might know someone?

Thank you folks. I guess my daughter (and her bf) are terrified of being accused by the owner of trashing her floor. I will suggest fb as an Avenue to explore.

My advice is to ask builder for a quote.

While people said surveyor are not worth the money, it can be helpful in finding out what else is going on, providing they’re a decent one.

Thanks Ed - they’ve had one survey done which recommends further investigation, but the person lined up to investigate won’t lift the boards, at least that’s my understanding.

I reckon pop a card through his letter box to say thanks with a 50. I'd do that.

And after all that, they’ve found someone to do it. I will try and find out how much they are paying!

They have permission from home owner to lift boards?

It would seem so - they’ve had their offer accepted and the finance is all lined up, so I guess the owner has to play along.

That'll be why the damp specialist doesn't want to lift the boards then. If it all goes tits up and a screw goes through a pipe/cable when they're put back that's one bunfight that no-one wants to be involved in.

The video tour is comedy gold
https://sandersonjames.co.uk/index.php?option=com_propertylab&task=showproperty&id=1089&addthisprop=favourite&Itemid=124

…with a name called Melvin!

Unvented is really dangerous if yiu don’t know what your doing, and it’s certainly not something you bodge or put in quick fixes. That’s fuckin idiotic! Glad you got someone who knows what they are doing.

Got one to fit on Friday, which should be fun.

Be interested to see what comes of it. Unless being able to poke about was a condition of the offer or they’ve already exchanged it’s very good of them to let it go ahead. Or a little naive.

Yeah, I wouldn’t accept someone sending a contractor to lift floorboards.

But then again, if I had noticed / seen damp, I would sort it myself before sale.

Hard for me as a consumer to know that, or at least the finer details. I checked the installer had the appropriate G3 ticket, which they did. I can't possibly know what is and isn't dangerous beyond that. I didn't know for example they were supposed to leave me with a black book with the benchmark readings from the install in order for the warranty to be valid. Guess what they didn't do?

It REALLY gets on my tits that even when you try to be a responsible homeowner and get the right people in, pay them good money, on time without quibbling over every detail, you still get shafted. So much so that now I get hit with a massive wave of anxiety, verging on panic attack levels, when I'm handing over the money. I'm constantly doubting myself now if I've picked the right person (despite being careful about reviews and experience) or if they've fucked something else up that I couldn't possibly know about. And it feels like the only way to not get shafted, is to learn enough about the job you are paying to have done that you may as well get the cert yourself and DIY it.

I swear, this past year has only taught me that 90% of tradies are cunts. The amount of money I've spent having jobs redone or fixed because the previous dickhead fucked it up, I could have spent getting a new bathroom.

Before anyone comes back with #notalltradies, just check yourself. There are enough stories on here saying the same or similar. If you're on here, it is highly likely that that statement is not directed at you personally. And I have a few people I still trust and wish they could do everything. The guys who did my door, they took forever, but said they would take a long time and their work was immaculate. And @ColinTheBald, absolute diamond to deal with. The guys who I've recommended to Damo. Everyone else, I'd prefer if I never saw again. This new plumber, seems good, but I'm still on the fence about until he's done.

It REALLY gets on my tits that even when you try to be a responsible homeowner and get the right people in, pay them good money, on time without quibbling over every detail, you still get shafted. So much so that now I get hit with a massive wave of anxiety, verging on panic attack levels, when I'm handing over the money. I'm constantly doubting myself now if I've picked the right person (despite being careful about reviews and experience) or if they've fucked something else up that I couldn't possibly know about. And it feels like the only way to not get shafted, is to learn enough about the job you are paying to have done that you may as well get the cert yourself and DIY it.

ZMG so much this this this I thought it was just me

I think there's a lot of people in the game who are not aware they are incompetent.