Plumbing Force Reviews - plumbingforce.co.uk

No hot water, undergoing chemo for cancer treatment. Live alone.

I spent £145 for next day one hour call out with Plumbing Force. He arrived and diagnosed my boiler without even opening it stating "I know these Worcester boilers better than I know my children". He decided my fluctuating, now freezing shower water was the heat exchanger. Quoted me £700 for a new part and £800 to fit it!!!

Once boiler was opened he said best I get a new £4k boiler which he could fit the next day.

He left after 20 mins, most of that time spent telling me the shocking state of my 6 year boiler. He told me if I had not had a yearly service then my 7 year Worcester Bosch warranty would be invalid.

When I said I would consider his advice and get other quotes, his final threat was I should get it done soon, as my heating would likely go next.

When I called Worcester Bosch - my boiler was warranted for ten years. And as long as you have had it serviced in the last year - your entire warranty is still valid.

I have since had a British Gas engineer visit. Who has serviced my boiler for £99!!

Worcester Bosch are now visiting in a few days to replace the parts needed under warranty.

PLUMBING FORCE massively inflates prices. He clearly had no intention of doing any work in the hour - because "they don't carry parts". He upsold and used fear to try to get a boiler installation.

He lied about how Worcester Bosch warranty works.

Do NOT believe what they tell you. Question everything and get other quotes.

DO NOT USE.

Buyer beware when using this company and make sure you separate out the fake reviews. I could put a very long story of being over-charged, delays and general bad service but the key points are:

1. The £99 call out fee does not include VAT which should have set alarm bells ringing. This is not a business to business deal, I am a consumer so just include the VAT.

2. Someone came to view the job and gave me a quote which I accepted.

3. Many delays on coming to do the fitting which were all down to "illness"

4. A different engineer came to do the fitting, said he needed to go get some other items, then came back and completed the job.

5. I then got invoiced for £288 more than the quote without being told why which I tried to query but couldn't get through to anyone.

6. Much back and forth with the very rude Aftersales Manager. His key argument was that despite the initial quote saying words like "wired in" and "fitted" labour is NOT included! How can that be?

Ended up settling for half of the additional cost back as it was taking up far too much of my time and causing me stress. Feels like they just hope you'll go away. Absolutely zero customer service. Think very carefully when using.

On Tuesday 6th February I called their office at 14:55 as my tenant had water pouring through her ceiling, onto the floor below, which took out the electrics and the fire alarm.

I explained it was obviously an emergency and as the advert states ‘you are an emergency call out, who aim’ to respond within an hour, hoped it would be dealt with promptly.

Nothing could be further than the truth! I was told no one was available until the following day between 10am to 2pm. I very reluctantly agreed and explained the engineer could have the key code, as I was unsure if any tenants would be at home.

I was told this was not possible as the times had to be noted of the engineers arrival and departure times, I explained there are cameras at the property, but was still told no there had to be an adult present. (Who leaves a child to let in trades?)

I waited until just before 2pm on Wednesday to phone the office, as I hadn’t received a call to say the engineer was on his way, as promised. I was informed he was due ‘now’ and went to check his eta, but was then told he was coming tomorrow.

On Thursday I arranged for a tenant to be in and the engineer called me to say he was on his way. I explained to him that there was leak around the toilet in addition to the possibly broken Macerator.

He was there for several hours, then called to say it was all fixed. I asked him to flush the toilet a few times just to ensure it was fixed. He reassured me had and all was fine.

I called the tenant to say she could finally return home, (she had to stay with family as had no flushing toilet) now she had a working bathroom again. She travelled for an hour and 20mins, came home and found her bathroom and toilet was very dirty, wet as was raining and he’d left the large window open, and her flannel had been used to clean up! She then flushed her dirty toilet and it came through the ceiling, taking out the electrics and fire alarm AGAIN!

I called the office at 8am on Friday and asked for a different engineer this time, but was told he was the only engineer covering this area. He duly turned up and fixed the leak around the toilet, which the company had the audacity to charge me for!!!!. Again my tenant travelled home, then called distressed as the engineer had opened the definitely unopened carton of milk from her fridge.

Apart from your exorbitant charges, I have had to have the electrician out twice, further damage to the ceiling, lost a weeks rent from my tenant, had very annoyed other tenants who were without electricity and a working fire alarm, the engineer uses somebody else’s milk, doesn’t find the hole in the pipe and possibly didn’t even need to replace the Macerator, in the 1st place, then left a dirty toilet.

The reply is as follows, I’ll cut to the chase they’re offering me £1 for the milk the engineer used, without consent.

Thank you for emailing in with your concerns.

After looking into this for you we can only apologise that you're unhappy with the outcome of our services provided.

With regards to the availability issue in your complaint we can only apologise for this as we don't guarantee appointment due to our line and that simple jobs such as a boiler service can end in a boiler repair, and this will delay the initial service significantly dependant on what is needed to complete the task at hand, and we can only apologise for these delays as they are out of our control and cannot be helped or prevented for reason such as this and to being delayed in traffic on our way to the intended destination we do not guarantee a time slot and we can only do our best to attend within the advised time window at the time of booking.

For the part of the booking where you have waited and chased the eta to be advised it will be the next day, I have spoken with the sales rep in regards of this and asked him to be more diligent with his performance to make sure this does not happen again to yourself or anyone else as this is not the service we aim to provide.

On to the crux of your complaint at the time of booking it was never advised to us there has been a substantial leak on-site and we have only been asked if we can repair Macerators to which you was advised we do not and then you proceeded to ask if we can install to which you were informed we can and then proceeded to book an appointment for the Macerator you have supplied to be installed by us on our hourly rate of the minimum of the first hour and any parts being required would be additional to this rate.

At this point nor the next day when chasing your eta was it requested that we look into the leak on-site as well.

When we have attended on Thursday the engineer has called you to advise and you have given the key code number and made the advisory to the leak on-site as well as this was done via his mobile we have no record of the call to confirm what was said or not but I have spoken with the engineer who has advised you did make this advisory and that you believed the leak was coming from the toilet. Upon carrying out our requested work of replacing the Macerator the engineer found that there was a leak on a joint of the pipework connecting to the Macerator and he has repaired this tested it 4-6 times and there were not further leaks found from this component. With this he has then completed the install and checked the installation and all tested okay with no issues of a leak arising from this.

When we reattended for the callback where you were advised if it is not related to the work, we have already carried out this would be chargeable and if it is related to the work, we have done it would be free of charge. on our arrival for the callback, it was found that there was a leak coming from the back of the toilet and our engineer has resolved this for you by replacing the Viva mini flexible pan connector, additionally to this he has stripped back the bath panel and found evidence of a leak here and with his investigation found the bath waste to be leaking and he has tightened this up for you to resolve the issue of the leak on-site.

The callback is chargeable for the reason of the bath waste was not originally worked on by us and is not covered by our 12-month guarantee as we had not previously worked on this part before this visit and as you were advised if it is unrelated to what we have done on-site it would be chargeable you are liable for this fee incurred by this visit.

Furthermore, we have spoken with the engineer about the use of the milk, and he has advised he did use this to make a cup of tea whilst he was on-site and be happy to reimburse you £1 for this.

So, to clarify. You will not receive a refund for our visits for the following reasons:

We do not compensate for delays out of our control,

We installed the macerator unit you supplied as requested and repaired a leak on the pipework connecting to this,

We then reattended and carried out a separate repair unrelated to what we have done on-site originally for you, (tightening the baths waste to prevent any further leaks).

As you accepted the rate for the original visit to take place and this task has been completed you are liable for this bill in full.

As you were made aware if the return visit was unrelated to what we have originally done on-site it would be chargeable you have been charged in accordance with this and are liable for this as well as the issue we were called back for was unrelated to the installation that took place on-site.

I apologise if you're unhappy with this decision but the most we would reimburse is £1 for the milk that was used by our engineer without your tenant's permission.

I was quoted a particular time for a job and directed to purchase the materials. They significantly overran for no reason. Misled about the way time was spent (when I was there and could confirm that the aspect of the job they claim took further time was completed hours before). They actively encourage their plumbers to take unnecessary trips offsite on your time to increase timing for the job and then direct charge you without a proper particularised invoice. Disgusting behaviour. Do not use if you want to have a straightforward job completed for under £1k!

Letter I wrote to the firm:

The experience with PlumbingForce has been horrible: firstly, my appointment was changed 3 times. Also, when the person finally arrived today morning, did the work and left - you can see when he put the fireplace back, this is what it looks like (attachments). He broke the back cover and it's not looking the same at all!

Before leaving he quickly showed me some pictures of the work he had done and was in a hurry to leave the premises. I am absolutely certain some of the pictures he showed would have been from before he opened the fireplace and put things back in place.

Neither the fitting nor the look of fireplace is the same! It looked absolutely new before he opened the fireplace and did the work, and I can't believe the person just left without informing me of this damage!

I am filing a dispute for the monies you have taken already from my card. I need the back-plate of the fireplace fixed and I plan to reach out via social media and write to your CEO and others, if this is not done promptly.

Avoid at all costs.This company are ruthless. I have reported them to Barclays bank fraud to get my money back. Literally use any other company than this one. They will screw you completely then block your number and email and whatsapp after taking your money. They won't provide a report or invoice etc they took hundreds of pounds from me to fix to valves on a boiler then as soon as i had paid because i wasn't on site never did the job literally took my money and walked then blocked me when I tried to contact them since. It's unbelievable.

This company charges over the odds for all elements of their quote. They charge £1,200 per day for labour. They charged me £1,800 for just under 8 hours work. How does that equate to 1.5 days?

They charge £500 for additional 5 years extended warranty when the boiler manufacturer already provides 7-year free warranty if boiler installation is done by one of their approved installers; and PlumbingForce engineers are approved by this supplier. So effectively, I paid £500 extra for an additional 3-year warranty.

The boiler unit with flue and additional kit costs less than £1,700 including vat. When you factor in supplier discount to PlumbingForce, its much less than that. PlumbingForce refuse to provide a copy of the original invoice from the boiler supplier for my records.

They charged me £4,080 to install my boiler when several quotes like for like with exact same qualifications, certifications and same 10-year warranty came to £2,000.

The gas engineer did not plug a leak in the filter at the end of day 1 leaving our hallway carpet wet. Had we not noticed, it would have been a disaster. He also did not ask for a vacuum to clean up the mess in the hallway. Very unprofessional.

Finally, the current operations manager is very rude. She was very rude and curt on the phone. She does not respond to emails and when she does, she deliberately, sometimes, replies in CAPS, to shout back. She has at the time of typing failed to answer all my questions. There is no point sending emails to their enquiries email . She is one of the people responding to emails received, expect nothing short of extremely poor customer service.

If you need a gas combi boiler installed with a 10-year warranty for a 3-bedroom house, it should cost you no more than £2,000. Shop around online, get a few quotes, speak to the boiler manufacturer/ supplier about the warranties available. Remember, a gas engineer hourly rate is about £60 per hour, even in London, so a day rate should not be more than £480 (£576 if they are vat registered). A boiler should not take more than 8 hours for installation by one engineer.

Do not make the mistake I made, do not pay double the amount required. Get your quotes in and Do NOT USE PlumbingForce Ltd.

Steer clear ! I contacted plumbing force on 14th July to fit a gas fire due to being let down by a local fitter. They said they could do a same day visit, their rate was £99 +vat, which worked about the same as we had been quote, presuming 2 hours would be enough time. How wrong can you be! They needed card details before they could book the job in as well. I must add here previous fire had already been removed. First visit they checked the flue was drawing and had no leaks, as new one had been fitted. They taped the back plate to the wall. Removed a piece of skirting board which shouldn't have been there and discovered that a reducer part was needed before they could fit the fire. They had full view of the gas connector and what was needed. They left saying they would order the part should be monday or tuesday. This visit cost £237. 60 the payment was taken, the paid invoice stated to fit gas fire and no further call was needed. I contacted their gas person, via text, to see if he had the part, he said he thought the office would have rung me, he said he would ring the office. I heard nothing phone calls, promises to ring back numerous times, advised to send complaint letter and given the email address. Eventually I spoke with a person who said they would book job in for 5th August she would ring me to confirm. She didn't, so I had to ring again it was confirmation that they had the part and it was booked in for the gas person to do the job on the Friday 5th august, they would arrive at 9. 00 am. I had a phone call from the gas person to say would be 11 am. They arrived later. As soon as they arrive you must sign a tablet to say they are on the premises, so charging can begin! they tested for gas leaks and turned off the gas. After a short while they discovered they needed another part, this involved a round trip of 56 minutes + time purchasing the part. I was charged for this time. On their return the job was completed, and gas service checked and signed off. I then needed to sign they had left the premises for the charging to stop. This visit was £399. 74. The total cost of having the gas fire fitted was £637. 34 steer clear of a rip off company that shouldn't be allowed to do business!!

I'd give zero stars if possible. Exorbitant fees but i did know these at outset as i was desperate. Their 'technician' was in and out 15 mins and said he'd sorted it by simply unscrewing and re-screwing the pipes. He was more concerned with getting out asap as it was xmas eve. He did not fix the issue and on coming out again said it would cost another £176 plus parts to have another go. I called someone else out who changed the valve over in 30 mins for £50. Plumbing force refuse to address their awful service. Definite 'rogue traders' so just be on your guard.

Awful experience, avoid this company at all costs! I paid £30 for a plumber to attend my house to give me a quote, he was rushed and kept telling me he needed to leave and would send my quote the same day. Instead, later that day my card was charged £426 without my authorisation.

I then spent 3 hours of my time calling Plumbing Force customer service to establish why this was taken and get my money back. Customer service was poor, and it took me 5 days to have my money refunded. After this I sent in a complaint and received an incredibly rude and unapologetic response, and I was then ignored. A nightmare and no remorse from Plumbing Force for the issue they caused.