Awkward One

[hammers4spanner]

Had a call from a cust from 4 months ago at about 9 a.m this morning that a set of taps i supplied fitted had gone faulty and not turning off. Took me 30 mins to get there another 30 messing about with them and they were knackered .Phoned up the supplier and was asked to remove them and bring them down and they will exchange for a new set .

When i was at the suppliers i asked who pays for my running around /petrol/time etc for this as its only the tap that they have supplied is faulty .They just said we are giving you a new tap at no cost which is pointless to me as its not covering a few hours of running about .

Got back to custs house explained the situation and half hearted asked her to cover some money (£40), she was a bit why should i (which i don't blame her). Was an awkward moment but for defective parts supplied by another who if any should pay the plumber for his/her lost time?

 

[Roger Welton]

This is why we mark up parts to cover any comebacks, personally whilst it annoys me when it happens its a business expense and I wouldn't have asked for payment and apologised for any inconvenience.

 

[Best]

I think it goes like this -
You say you supplied the taps, so I reckon you are responsible for replacing them if faulty & under warranty. After all, the faulty tap is not the customers fault.
The supplier is responsible to you. So I think they have to cover your losses.
Maybe Ray will clarify exactly what is true

 

[gassafe]

It's your loss unfortunately...

This is why we mark up fittings supplied by us, if the custard supplied then its chargeable...

I would not have asked customer to fund anything as its not there fault & they paid 4 months ago!

 

[TFGplumbing]

I remember getting paid a days labour by a certain gas fire company due to them sending faulty items on two occasions on the same job.. lavley

Technically I don't think your out of order charging, get the customer to write the manufacturer a ****ty letter; The goods were still under manufacturers warranty, the might compensate perhaps

 

[hammers4spanner]

I think it goes like this -
You say you supplied the taps, so I reckon you are responsible for replacing them if faulty & under warranty. After all, the faulty tap is not the customers fault.
The supplier is responsible to you. So I think they have to cover your losses.
Maybe Ray will clarify exactly what is true

Well i was thinking something along those lines they supplied a faulty product nothing at my end was incorrect .The supplier on other hand in my view supplied a product unfit for purpose .However when i asked who pays my time talk about backs against the wall and anyone but them.

 

[hammers4spanner]

It's your loss unfortunately...

This is why we mark up fittings supplied by us, if the custard supplied then its chargeable...

I would not have asked customer to fund anything as its not there fault & they paid 4 months ago!

Well put it like this in the last ten days i have had 2 actuators faulty ,two outside taps ,and todays .

No markup covers that

 

[stevetheplumber]

your contract will be with the merchant who should liase with the manufacturers on your behalf we got paid to peplace a water main that had solidified plastic in it which allowed it to pass a presure test but had no flow and included taking up a finished parking area

 

[Best]

A one off faulty tap or actuator, I would just take it on the chin. Look at it like your own insurance policy where you charge each customer a mark up on materials and you get the odd loss where you have to call back on a faulty part.
However, where the same part on something keeps failing on one job or different jobs, or where a larger job fails - like a new boiler or cylinder & causes hours of loss to you to replace whole item, then you should be compensated. Just send a detailed bill into merchant.

 

[Best]

Take an example where you buy a part of a merchant and a few months later the part is faulty.
Let's say the merchant tells you the manufacturer is now no longer in existence as out of business, - your complaint is still with your merchant. They would have to replace the part with similar, or credit you with the money. They also would be responsible for your time cost loss.

 

[hammers4spanner]

If it was an hour i would have just sucked it however to basically loose your morning and then rejig your working day and mr plumber can foot the bill.

Didn't feel happy about charging cust however suppliers attitude was a shoulder shrug.

 

[plumben]

I dont see anything wrong in asking the customer to fund some of the cost of your travel as you turned up the day they rang up and got it sorted pronto,

You could of said yeah ill get it sorted and took your time getting round to it and came a week or two later

 

[SimonG]

I think the phrase is consequential losses and the fact that suppliers dont cover it. Its fair enough, and why 30% goes on my materials.

I would have asked for a refund and bought other taps somewhere else. Anything substantial then its on the phone and they have to come an fix it. I.e shower, boiler

In my honest opinion, you should't be charging a customer unless they supplied it. Some customers will offer though as they appreciate its not your fault.

 

[Ray Stafford]

In terms of product, the obligation is on the seller, and so runs up the chain.

You are responsible to your customer, your merchant is responsible to you, the distributor (if applicable) is responsible to the merchant and the manufacturer is responsible to the distributor.

In terms of your time or other consequential losses, you have absolutely no legal rights whatsoever. You may be able to negotiate a goodwill settlement, but that is a completely different matter, and will depend on your relationship with the merchant or the manufacturer. There is no legal protection, and all merchants will have a "no consequential loss" clause in their ts and cs. To the best of my knowledge, no court has ever struck one of these clauses down.

Generally speaking, this is why you should both put a mark up on material, AND maintain a good relationship with your merchant. If you mark up materials, this is one of the risks that your mark up covers. However, unless you are a large contractor, if you have a run of problems, its better to have a good relationship with a merchant who may help broker a goodwill settlement from the manufacturer.

We now specifically highlight this issue at the top of our terms and conditions - along with a small handful of other clauses that cause 90% of our heartache. 🙂 We also try to be fair, and frequently lend our weight to negotiations with manufacturers if there is an obvious and persistent fault.

 

[Fallon1982]

Had a call from a cust from 4 months ago at about 9 a.m this morning that a set of taps i supplied fitted had gone faulty and not turning off. Took me 30 mins to get there another 30 messing about with them and they were knackered .Phoned up the supplier and was asked to remove them and bring them down and they will exchange for a new set .

When i was at the suppliers i asked who pays for my running around /petrol/time etc for this as its only the tap that they have supplied is faulty .They just said we are giving you a new tap at no cost which is pointless to me as its not covering a few hours of running about .

Got back to custs house explained the situation and half hearted asked her to cover some money (£40), she was a bit why should i (which i don't blame her). Was an awkward moment but for defective parts supplied by another who if any should pay the plumber for his/her lost time?

If it's not a fault with workmanship, then surely the customer should contact the manufacturer??

 

[gassafe]

Well put it like this in the last ten days i have had 2 actuators faulty ,two outside taps ,and todays .

No markup covers that

Stop shopping in pound land 😉

 

[Ch4 plumbing]

Suck it up, as said that's why you add the 20%. Don't use that manufacture again if you think it's carp but it happens sometimes and is as simple as that!?

 

[hammers4spanner]

Mind you saying all that few year ago when doing county council work i spent about 400 quid on toilet seats over a year defect period.

Turned out several office staff were a bit on the obese side was spitting feathers over that.

 

[Ch4 plumbing]

That's not fair general use that's fat Gits moving and shaking on the pans! It ain't a disco baby stop the wiggling!!

 

[Ray Stafford]

If it's not a fault with workmanship, then surely the customer should contact the manufacturer??

No contract exists between the householder and the manufacturer. The only contract that the householder has is with the person they gave their money to - in this case, the tradesman.

There are a number of circumstances where the manufacturer voluntarily puts themselves forward (for example, boiler warranties) but nevertheless, legal responsibility for sorting the problem rests with the person or organisation who took the money.

 

[REDSAW]

change your supplier, lidl are crap at replacements. dont even give you a pack of peanuts for the hastle

 

[kay-jay]

Well put it like this in the last ten days i have had 2 actuators faulty ,two outside taps ,and todays .

No markup covers that

Of course markup covers that! You apply markup to all goods supplied and even if you get a bad run like you have the end result is that you win more than ninety percent of the time. Over a year markup will make you the winner

 

[WaterTight]

Of course markup covers that! You apply markup to all goods supplied and even if you get a bad run like you have the end result is that you win more than ninety percent of the time. Over a year markup will make you the winner

Exactly. The only annoyance is phoning people to tell them you'll be late, a longer day than you had hoped, extra stress, grumbling under breath, missing lunch, whatever. But this is all in the job description. It's already handsomely compensated for in advance.

 

[Neil K]

I don't think you should have charged the customer, sometimes these things happen and that's why we charge a mark up on our materials that we supply to the customer ....for grief. Every now and then you have to suck it up unfortunately.

 

[AWheating]

i had a badly made mixer tap once, i complained to the merchant, i then complained to the brand/ name manufacturer, got no where so in the end i had to fly to china and punch Zhang Wei in the face for making such a poor product.

i wished id just put 20% mark up on the tap 🙂

 

[tomplumb83]

Had a cylinder fail on me after 5-6days last month.
Fitted hundreds of cylinders and never had a problem.

Should I be compensated for this? Caused another waterfall leak in the customers house which they weren't happy about and took me the best part of a day and a lot of trouble to sort it out.
I wont mention the manufacturer but I may do if they don't pay me for my time!
They've agreed to pay me - Whats the chances?!

 

[gassafe]

Had a cylinder fail on me after 5-6days last month.
Fitted hundreds of cylinders and never had a problem.

Should I be compensated for this? Caused another waterfall leak in the customers house which they weren't happy about and took me the best part of a day and a lot of trouble to sort it out.
I wont mention the manufacturer but I may do if they don't pay me for my time!
They've agreed to pay me - Whats the chances?!

Was it RM cylinders?

 

[tomplumb83]

Haha I said I wasnt going to tell!
No it wasn't RM. Merchants have only been using the company for afew weeks - Ive never heard of them before

 

[hammers4spanner]

Had a cylinder fail on me after 5-6days last month.
Fitted hundreds of cylinders and never had a problem.

Should I be compensated for this? Caused another waterfall leak in the customers house which they weren't happy about and took me the best part of a day and a lot of trouble to sort it out.
I wont mention the manufacturer but I may do if they don't pay me for my time!
They've agreed to pay me - Whats the chances?!

Had this on a thermal store fitted day before all good and next day it started leaking flooded flat out and one below . Manufacturer got all shirty came out when i couldn't make it and blamed me to the customer even tho prior i pointed out the actually leak on the cylinder .
Lost endless time on that

However big jobs mark up covers but small jobs making a tenner on taps it doesn't cover basic maths that is

 

[kay-jay]

However big jobs mark up covers but small jobs making a tenner on taps it doesn't cover basic maths that is

Your logic is flawed pal.
You must do well over a hundred small jobs with a tenner markup and get called back to about five of em. Tell me again how the markup doesnt cover you for call backs?

 

[hammers4spanner]

I disagree kay-jay

I do approx 3 small jobs a day so my mark up on float valves ,tap washers etc is not a lot .Taps are nearly always supplied by cust apart from odd occasion so may charge a tenner for bit of pipe so mark up over a month is prob only £150 . Deduct call back time which from my experience is about 12 hours a month (anything from an hour there sometimes travel takes extra time or on yesterdays occasion 3 hours ) you times it by hourly rate argument sake £30 then your nearly always down .

You make your real money on big jobs with the mark up i would quite often just chuck an extra 2 k on contract work because of call backs.

 

[oz-plumber]

If it's not a fault with workmanship, then surely the customer should contact the manufacturer??

She probably did...and got the usual response.

' We've never come across a problem like that with those taps, you should contact the plumber who installed them - it's obviously an installation problem'

I should add... it would not be the first time a supplier / manufacturer has gone into 'damage control' by passing the blame because the cheap product they re-branded has had some defects - that they will be liable for.

 

[AlexGas]

Had a call from a cust from 4 months ago at about 9 a.m this morning that a set of taps...

Can you tell us more about the goosed taps?

 

[Roger Welton]

I disagree kay-jay

Taps are nearly always supplied by cust

Definitely charge them for your time, if they supply the goods, then there warranty on the taps would be with whomever they brought them from.

 

[AlexGas]

Definitely charge them for your time...

... and he won’t see them again.

 

[mfgs]

I disagree kay-jay

I do approx 3 small jobs a day so my mark up on float valves ,tap washers etc is not a lot .Taps are nearly always supplied by cust apart from odd occasion so may charge a tenner for bit of pipe so mark up over a month is prob only £150 . Deduct call back time which from my experience is about 12 hours a month (anything from an hour there sometimes travel takes extra time or on yesterdays occasion 3 hours ) you times it by hourly rate argument sake £30 then your nearly always down .

You make your real money on big jobs with the mark up i would quite often just chuck an extra 2 k on contract work because of call backs.

So say throughout the year you supply 10k worth of materials, add 20% mark up as an example and you are sitting on 2k of profit. Do you really get enough call backs that cost you 2 grands worth of time throughout a year?

You are looking at it the wrong way thinking each job mark up should cover a call back which it wont. The whole year will cover them though. When something does go wrong you certainly shouldn't be asking for any money. You offer a warranty on your work so honour it. You will get more recommendations from sorting an issue or faulty part free of charge with a smile on your face than for doing the job well in the first place.

 

[hammers4spanner]

Ever worked time in motion?

Try it you'd be surprised