Not to pay all this plumbers bill?

[buswheels]

We've had an absolute nightmare with our plumber so this is a sideways way of getting some advice really.

We have some faulty pipe, it's small pieces in several places but easily accessible, the fault is that it is prone to leaking.

It's leaked twice in the past and we've had a plumber come out and replace the leaking bits took 40 minutes or so cost 125 quid.

second time (a couple of years ago) I asked about replacing it all before it leaked again and was told it wasn't worth it.

fast forward 2 years, another leak, husband calls different plumber, who disappears to fix leak, gets clearly very annoyed, goes off for a few hours, comes back fixes it and says

"you will need to replace all the plumbing around the house the pipes are too narrowed" goes off and takes photos measurements.

I'm thinking umm they were fine 2 years ago what's going on?

Then we get a bill for 600 pounds which states xyz pipe broke needed to get about 6 things to fix and took 5 times as long as previous plumber.

So we run taps for ages (so much brown water) and attempt to run hot water for shower and dishes and our hot water has been reduced to a trickle from shower and kitchen sink (we only have 1 bathroom)

eventually after a lot of tap running the trickle improves but our previously lovely powerful shower has a feeble output.

We complain plumber comes back, thinks that crud has got into the system and is backed up behind shower and kitchen sink hot water, tries to get shower open to see if he can fix, can't get it open cheerfully says you'll need a new shower now but it is going to be expensive you'll have to retile the bathroom. At the same time as repeatedly saying you need to replace all your plumbing and goes off round house to measure take photos.

So this 1 plumber can't fix anything, gives us a bill of 5 times the previous cost and leaves us with the need to replace the shower and retile the bathroom and tells us we need to replace half our plumbing.

We're getting another plumber to look at the plumbing again but what to do about the bill and consequential broken shower?

I'm tempted to offer what it cost us a couple of years ago plus maybe 10% or offer the whole lot plus us counter claiming for a new shower and tiling the bathroom to fix the damage he caused. He can get his business insurance to pay.

Most of the bill is for parts/work caused when he broke the pipe but of course it's not new plumbing so how do you get the balance between wear and tear/age and damage caused by a workman?

Sorry it's so long!

He sounds like a cowboy, I would put in writing and not pay a penny.

Did he not give an estimate before proceeding with any work?

Is he actually a plumber with credentials or a handyman that thinks he's a plumber? Where did dh find him?

He does sound dodgy but equally if you’ve repeatedly had a similar leak the first plumber sounds lazy and should’ve repaired it properly.

I don’t know where you stand on the broken shower etc, can you claim any of it on your home insurance?

We had a bathroom leak and the insurance paid out to replace pretty much the whole bathroom.

I'd just pay it and get someone else. You can't really argue as you don't know the exact work involved despite what previous plumber done leak might be different this time. He hasn't actually broke the shower though he couldn't get in to it and it's an issue with the water pressure, he will argue he hasn't done anything there.

I had similar happen when called plumber about our boiler. He kept farting about and not really doing anything then hit us with a bill of several hundred pounds. He did fix it but no parts or anything and a month later it broke again!

You need to ask upfront about the price though! I had a leak in the bathroom and he had to remove the floor tiles and some wall tiles and then fix the leak, and retile etc. He gave me a price for the work. He said it would be 2 days but it took nearly 3 but he had already quoted a price so that's what we paid.

When I was having major renovations, I priced the jobs with four plumbers. For an identical job the range of prices came in from £11k to £32k. When you renew your house insurance, can I suggest you get an extra policy tagged on for home emergencies. That really saved me when the boiler water tank burst, and we had a stop tap started leaking. It cost £20 for the extra policy per annum.

Have you taken the shower head off? Try that before you do anything else. It does sound like it may be clogged because of the work. (I had on in a rental that was filled with pebbles!).

If you had that much brown water it’s a good bet that it’s clogged. No advice on the bill but if it is a simple fix, you’ll know not to trust the plumber.

Hi thanks for all your answers I do appreciate them.

Yes he’s a plumber has been working locally for years, was recommended by someone, not sure what the agreement/quote/estimate was dh was home and organised it. I suspect he was placated by the cheap cost last time and the simple aspect of the job, since the water was leaking he probably told him to go ahead having no idea or expectation that he would break the pipe, take 5 hours and stuff our hot water at the same time.
The faulty pipe is in several different places in small amounts when it leaks we get that bit replaced (we asked about replacing all the bits and the original plumber said not worth it)

we’re overseas, insurance is crushingly expensive here and hard to get we really don’t want to claim on our insurance for this. Happy to claim on his but our premiums are so high and will be loaded even more. We’ve been broken into twice, dh was knocked off his new bike which was trashed so we’ve had a couple of claims recently. I see people (generally on line) claim for so much and we wonder how they can get insurance! No such add on policies available here unfortunately.

Thanks for the tip about the shower head I will look into that at the weekend.