AIBU - plumber / bathroom charge

[Quit4me]

Just wondered if this was normal practice?
Bathroom has water coming through the ceiling to a downstairs room. It’s the seal on the side of the bath that keeps opening up rather than pipe work, so when showering, water is running down the back of the bath.
Guy from a local bathroom fitting / plumbing company comes out and takes a look. Says it’s going to be a big job. Needs the plasterboard taking down, aqua board going up, chipboard floor replacing, retiled.
Left saying that he would get his boss to email across a quote. Fine.
Got an email later from them saying that the bathroom needed ‘ripping out’ but they were so busy, they can’t do anything until July so we will probably be better going elsewhere.
No quote given.
Got a bill for £70 for coming out.
Feel a bit cheesed off because we didn’t even get a quote out of it!
What do you think / what would you do?

Did you ask what their call out fee was before he came? TBH, I'd be glad he was honest that he can't fit you in and didn't drag you on for weeks/months! Its more than likely either too small or not the jobs they want to do, rather than not being able to fit you in, but who knows. Many trades are Very busy right now.

Are you having to turn your stop cock off to prevent further leaks or did he actually stop it?

Thank you for your reply. I didn’t have to turn anything off because the water is coming through when we have a shower - not via the pipes, but running down the walls if you see what I mean. When the shower isn’t running (or when you just point it into the bath) no water gets behind the bath or runs down

Could you try filling your bath up with water and re-sealing round the bath yourself?silicone should do it, if that's where the waters going through?

I have only once paid for a quote and it was in different circumstances. I would not expect to pay a call out charge for that. I think they are being very cheeky. Unless they told you that they would charge you then I wouldn’t pay.

The majority of plumbers will charge a call out charge and £70 sounds about right ime.

They've probably just not given the quote because they'll have thought the fact they can't do it until July would put you off. If you don't mind waiting then you could email them back and ask for a quote. Or ask for a list of what needs done so you could email round a few other plumbers for quotes/dates but without them having to come out to avoid call out charges

Sounds ridiculous,

If it's as described and it's leaking between bath and wall just cut out old silicon and replace.
Use something decent like plumbers gold with a good sealant gun.

£20 for sealant and a gun.

They sound like rip off merchants, those things they suggested are appropriate if you're having the bathroom redone but no way necessary just to sort out a leak.

We used this on our bath and it worked great and was easy to install ourselves. I would be annoyed at the £70 call out charge when he didn’t actually do anything.

www.byretech.com/acatalog/bath-seal.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjwgtWDBhDZARIsADEKwgNlt7jiUPnpJmdQS8TAwjMX2LFtqLpKSrXcbbn4QCtiltHgYXFWv4oaAhEZEALw_wcB

if its professional and to repair any previous water damaged areas, it sounds correct, the same with the call out charge, as for a quick fix, as others suggest , silicone seal or similar chemicals, should fix the issue.

[quote BonnyandPoppy]We used this on our bath and it worked great and was easy to install ourselves. I would be annoyed at the £70 call out charge when he didn’t actually do anything.

www.byretech.com/acatalog/bath-seal.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjwgtWDBhDZARIsADEKwgNlt7jiUPnpJmdQS8TAwjMX2LFtqLpKSrXcbbn4QCtiltHgYXFWv4oaAhEZEALw_wcB[/quote]
Still there time, fuel, expert knowledge that's being used to give the quote, otherwise you could get x people using a professional service to give a quote on the affected areas and what needs fixing, then with that knowledge they use another cheapest company to fix the issues or attempt the diy personally.

I’m another vote for bath seal or caulk it. Stop using the room first, and run a powerful fan with windows open for a day first, to give everything a chance to dry before you tackle it.

I can see how this could happen, but it does feel potentially a bit cheeky. Depends what the conversation was before they arrived and how long they spent assessing it / trying to do something. If you simply (and clearly) wanted a quote only and it was a 5 min job, then it's cheeky. If they were hoping it was relatively simple job, came out with the intention of doing the job, got stuck in but then realised they couldn't do it within an hour or two, then not as cheeky.

I can understand your frustration but I would assume that in order to work out what the issue was he needed to do some investigation and saw that there was a fair amount of water damage. A call out fee is reasonable but I would have expected that to have been an upfront discussion.

We thought we had a similar issue as we'd had it previously, however, it turned out to be a leaking joint from the tap. This meant the sink cupboard and side of the bath needed to be dismantled for access to the tap. Then he fixed it and refitted and sealed everything. Less than an hour's work was about £100. I felt this was quite steep but you're paying for the knowledge and in fairness, if it had been more easily accessible then it wouldn't have been as much anyway.
The not giving you a quote makes sense if they can't give you a good time frame as they're assuming you'll want the work done before then and quotes take a while to prepare.