Some Landlords are total To**ers!

[obseen16]

hi guys, just wanted to have a little rant on here.

got a call on monday - landlord has a tenant moving into a house on thursday, it has been empty since 2008 and needs a cp12.

ok fairly simple. i went today to carry out the cp12. only to find the boiler had its cover hanging off with a note atached saying do not use water filter broken, i call the landlord he says this was an old repair and the boiler is fine now. i noticed it was a wee bit chilly in there and a bucket was under the boiler,

i begin my cp12 only to find that every single rad in the house was full of ice and all the 10mm hep tails were frozen. cold mains to the house was frozen stiff aswell.

i call the land lord and ask if he is taking the pi**.
he says oh can you just defrost it and try and get it going. reluctantly i agree. warmed up the kitchen to eh hem DEFROST the boiler, only to find (as i suspected) it has suffered multiple bursts, 2 on the plate heat exchanger, one in the main heat exchanger, one on the filling loop, one on the zed pipe, one on the flow from the heat exchanger and one on the plastic jig thing next to the PRV.

i call the land lord back to advise him of the bad news. he replies "oh can you fix it today?" i wont tell you what i wanted to say back.

why oh why would any one in the right mind A: leave an empty house full of water over winter

B: wait until the very last minute to get the cp12 and system looked over.

he even said the boiler froze and burst a part last year and he still didnt bl**dy learn to either drain down or keep it running this year.

he knew about the tenant coming way back in october. why wait till 2 days before they are due to move in.

the thing that annoys me the most is he knew the house was frozen up before he called me, yet he didnt mention anything to me until i got to the job.

GRR

Anyway rant over

p.s if any landlords read this dont leave things to the last minute then moan because things cant be fixed in time. 😡

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

yes they **** me off as well,and dont start me on the tenants..........

 

[dontknowitall]

I've not had one that bad (yet) but you sometimes wonder whether it's worth doing jobs like this. I frequently measure a job's value by the likelihood of a recommendation. I'd walk away from this one but then if I was desperate for work, it's very frustrating.

Hope it goes okay in the end and you make a nice Christmas bonus!

 

[obseen16]

no i ended up cutting my losses, just told him to call in BG or someone else cos im booked up till 7pm xmas eve, he still wants me to service some gas fires and boilers at a couple of other properties he has in january. hope they aint like this house.

 

[Puddle]

hi guys, just wanted to have a little rant on here.

got a call on monday - landlord has a tenant moving into a house on thursday, it has been empty since 2008 and needs a cp12.

ok fairly simple. i went today to carry out the cp12. only to find the boiler had its cover hanging off with a note atached saying do not use water filter broken, i call the landlord he says this was an old repair and the boiler is fine now. i noticed it was a wee bit chilly in there and a bucket was under the boiler,

i begin my cp12 only to find that every single rad in the house was full of ice and all the 10mm hep tails were frozen. cold mains to the house was frozen stiff aswell.

i call the land lord and ask if he is taking the pi**.
he says oh can you just defrost it and try and get it going. reluctantly i agree. warmed up the kitchen to eh hem DEFROST the boiler, only to find (as i suspected) it has suffered multiple bursts, 2 on the plate heat exchanger, one in the main heat exchanger, one on the filling loop, one on the zed pipe, one on the flow from the heat exchanger and one on the plastic jig thing next to the PRV.

i call the land lord back to advise him of the bad news. he replies "oh can you fix it today?" i wont tell you what i wanted to say back.

why oh why would any one in the right mind A: leave an empty house full of water over winter

B: wait until the very last minute to get the cp12 and system looked over.

he even said the boiler froze and burst a part last year and he still didnt bl**dy learn to either drain down or keep it running this year.

he knew about the tenant coming way back in october. why wait till 2 days before they are due to move in.

the thing that annoys me the most is he knew the house was frozen up before he called me, yet he didnt mention anything to me until i got to the job.

GRR

Anyway rant over

p.s if any landlords read this dont leave things to the last minute then moan because things cant be fixed in time. 😡

Sounds quite normal,what exactly did the land lord do out of the ordinary to upset you ?
🙂🙂

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

yes puddle like me as seen all the crap that landlords do

 

[Blake]

He's not a proper landlord until he tries to haggle over the bill and pleads poverty as all his assets are tied up in property and he has no cash flow. 🙂

 

[quality]

I got asked yesterday to fit a second hand ideal icos in a landlords property !

No prizes for my answer given

 

[stevetheplumber]

same as when asked to fit a new icos ?

 

[quality]

Exactly

 

[obseen16]

UPDATE:: landlord called me today. "hi J, i have bought a new boiler, can you fit it on the day after boxing day, i got the tenant to agree to move in on the 28th of december instead."

my reply erm no im away for the xmas holiday i have been so looking forward to all blo*dy year.

His Reply: "please, i have tried over 12 other engineers but no one can do it,"

my reply, "Ill call you tomorrow" (still not gonna do it, family comes before digging landlords out their own sh*t over the holidays)

 

[Puddle]

What really bugs me about this,is the l/l know since Oct that tenants were moving in !! and as always left to the last minute

No thought for anyone and is quite happy for you to spoil your holiday period,sorting out his problems while he sits at home ,munching on turkey sarnies

Thats one of my biggest grips,this l/l ,agents,customers all to often say,used to be a good reliable plumber (could be any trade),when we first started using him,now he is complacent,unrealiabe,ect,ect,heard it so often,when in fact we are still running about,providing exactly the same good service,sorting out repairs ect and their self made problems

It is in fact them that get complacent and start taking the micky more and more

I have it with my clients,they moan that I do not walk on water,I point out how I went out of my way to get sorted,they apologise and are alright for a few weeks,months and then start getting complacent again,leaving things to the last minute,giving wrong information about problems,expecting you to go miles out the way to pick up keys through lack of their orginisation



imho

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

spot on puddle,like the job i turned off(photos in gs forum) 2 days notice off letting agency,not happy i turned off and tenant delayed moving,lack of planning,thought(for my time scales)and they just thought i could do a simple lgsc despite never seeing the house before put under massive pressure to get new combi in and a pig of a install they get me down,but its work at the end of the day

 

[obseen16]

puddle you took the words straight out of my mouth.

 

[BLOD]

I haven't yet decided whose worse, the letting agents or the landlords. - Perhaps they go on the same training course !

 

[tiling spread]

im just saying
hope its not a family moving in on xmas with no heating or boiler if they have kids well i know its the festiv time and all that but its not the kids falts its a days job and it will line your pocket after all the shoping you have done
i hope the tirky isnt bitter on the way down
rant over if it was me id do if there was yung kids there BUT if its all running and it will hold out till after xmas then tell him to do one
if its that bad and such a must then its double bubble sorted

 

[obseen16]

my colleague decided he would do the work but being as it was cutting into his holiday time with his kids he wanted double money. which i think is fair enough. we quoted the landlord about £500 to fit and commission it, plus any fittings on top. he still had the cheek to moan saying it should only cost £300. i just said in a polite way that we didnt have to do the work and we were doing him a favor so he didnt loose his tenant and that he should have acted on this as soon as it was known to him that the tenant would be moving in. he called over 25 gas fitters and all of them told him to get lost. needless to say after he moaned he accepted the price.

when i told the boss how much we quoted he replied "flippin heck should have charged triple cos hes a BLANK BLANK BLANK no sympathy for the BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK hed better pay on time or ill be going round to BLANK BLANK BLANK" erm yeah.

i feel sorry for the tenants, hes the kind of ll that wouldnt bother returning your calls until you stopped paying rent.

 

[Puddle]

Think your boss is right about the price and the 'BLANKS' 😉

 

[SafeGasInstall]

would have charged 2,5 times more then you asked for ,but i am in london !!!

 

[gasmarc]

agree with above I use to do loads of work for estate agents which are usually ok as they are dealing with the nightmare landlords who I have worked for before, I try not to entertain them and dont bother haggling as some of them want the cheapest job done ,saying that I have loads of really good landlords who pay straight away. I hope you get paid ,if he rang 25 engineers that says it all ,I would want cash up front working for an idiot like that

 

[obseen16]

yeah if it was a private job id ask for the cash upfront but being as the boss is happy to pay us and then wait for the ll to pay him im not worried,

p.s LL bought a main 30kw combi, never fitted main crap before but im fairly sure i wont be fitting another one any time soon, 😉

im just glad that the land lords we have on our customer list are mostly all really nice people that take great care of their tenants and the properties, this tit is in the minority, lol

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

was it a main 30 he band b or band a IMHO band b the muts nuts band a sh**

 

[obseen16]

no its a band A, didnt think you could get band B's anymore

 

[oldplumber]

band b boilers still available as rules dont apply to mobile homes so you can still buy them from main, only a baxi by a different name with minor differences, easy to repair tho

 

[obseen16]

well fitted it yesterday. finished at 1.30am this morning cos tenants were moving in today at 9am (the cleaner gave me this piece of info) would have been finished by 10pm if the damn valves would seal, i have to say repairing them - yes i would repair them anyday. however thats the first and last main i will ever fit. 2 valves wouldnt seal at all, on closer inspection one of the valve bodies had a tiny pin hole in the side of it and the other had a warped face where the fibre washers go, not happy, spent ages sorting that one out with a file and alot of trial and error. and the damn drain valve in the boiler was weeping where it goes into the brass jig body, surely these things are tested at the factory. ah well its over and done with now. thank god 🙂

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

tbh same jig as baxi and potterton 200 installs and not one faulty you must be very unlucky,if you know your local rep or rang baxi they would have tried to resolve it

 

[obseen16]

yeah im going to call them up as we have had to make a temporary valve up until we can get hold of one and replace. used a 1/2" female bsp to 15mm compression with a ballofix as a temp solution for the cold water feed until then. i have actually had this same problem with a warped face on a baxi valve before but that was years ago when some other installer had left it dripping.

 

[Bitethebullet]

im just saying
hope its not a family moving in on xmas with no heating or boiler if they have kids well i know its the festiv time and all that but its not the kids falts its a days job and it will line your pocket after all the shoping you have done
i hope the tirky isnt bitter on the way down
rant over if it was me id do if there was yung kids there BUT if its all running and it will hold
out till after xmas then tell him to do one

if its that bad and such a must then its double bubble sorted

Kids or not, why is that the plumber's problem? The landlord is responsible for his decisions and a lack of planning on his part does not constitute an emergency on the plumber's part.

Does the plumber's children's needs, to see their father over Christmas, not count?

Anyone with kids with any minerals, upon seeing a house with no heating, would tell the landlord to do one, report the, and rescind any business and go elsewhere, there's no shortage.

It's not the job of honest working folks to compensate for and prop up, irresponsible people and take the blame for those with **** poor planning abilities, "double bubble" or not.