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Hi all,
Bit heavy for a Friday night but here goes...
Around 6 months ago we acquired a customer through Checkatrade. Very large heating system, house is about 300 square metres area per floor. Ground floor is a mix of suspended floorboards (25%) and thick concrete screed (75%).
The customer was losing pressure from the heating system and there was no sign of water leaking from the existing floor standing non-condensing oil boiler. To put the timescales between appointments into perspective, the customer is a 120 mile round trip from us and we explained at the time that she could be waiting as much as 30 days between appointments due to the unpredictable nature of the work and how busy our diary was.
In the order we have attended the house to carry out work: -
1.) 01/07/2015 - Initial visit after phone call to rule out the obvious things that may be causing the leak such as boiler, leaks from upstairs etc. During this visit we discussed that if the customer had one leaking joint under the concrete screed it was likely that more would follow. The customer was about to lay expensive tiles across the whole of downstairs so my recommendation was to re-pipe the downstairs heating from drop-downs so they would have confidence they wouldn't be digging tiles up again. This recommendation was rejected on cost grounds. So we moved on..
2.) 31/07/2015 - Second visit to carry out acoustic leak detection. We checked the whole of the ground floor and the only leak we could hear was a large leak under the hot water cylinder (typical, eh?).
3.) 10/09/2015 - Third visit to remove the hot water cylinder, dig out the floor underneath (8" concrete screed!), find the leak, cut out and repair the affected heating pipework. On completion of this work we agreed to leave the system running over the weekend before re-screeding. Big gap between appointments due to my holiday and theirs running back to back.
4.) 13/09/2015 - Fourth visit where we all agreed the floor was ready for re-screeding and their were no signs of any leaks or pressure losses from the heating system over the 3 days. Floor re-screeded and hot water cylinder re-installed.
5.) 27/09/2015 - Fifth visit, invited to do some unrelated drainage work outside the property. All completed and customer happy.
6.) 15/10/2015 - Sixth visit, pressure drop on heating system again. Traced to leaking pipework on central heating system near boiler, unrelated to previous work.
7.) 28/10/2015 - Seventh visit, stopcock had developed a leak on it. Valve repaired and job done in 20 minutes.
8.) 16/11/2015 - Eighth visit, pressure drop again on heating system! Asked by customer to attend and carry out acoustic leak detection again as no signs of leaks above ground anywhere. Acoustic leak detection carried out and no leaks under screed heard. We lifted all their floorboards where required for free to visually inspect all the heating pipes under the suspended floors too. No sign of any leaks. At this point I recommended they get a specialist leak detection company in to do gas tracing on the central heating pipework as I am aware this can find small leaks which aren't heard with acoustic leak detection.
9.) Gas leak detection company find a tiny trace of gas from under the hot water cylinder. We have offered to re-attend and dig up the screed and if our repair is faulty refund the second lot of leak detection work and repair it all for free. Customer has 'lost confidence' in us apparently. To me this seems strange after getting us in and paying for 6 separate jobs before hand. My opinion is that the acoustic leak detection work was carried out professionally as the other firm didn't find a leak with acoustic leak detection either, they had to use gas tracing.
10.) We have asked them to arrange an independent inspection of our work and if it's found to be faulty we will compensate them. We have been asking for this since 7th December and there has been no communication at all since then despite sending a letter before action on 23rd December and several emails before that.
All invoices for the first 6 visits were paid, most of them late, but the money always arrived. We haven't been paid anything for invoices 7 or 8. Even though the stopcock is over a metre from anything we have worked on she is saying we have caused it to start leaking (this isn't the case, it wasn't leaking at all when we left). She also didn't make clear when calling us out for this appointment that she had no intention to pay for it.
Money for invoice 8 was with-held pending investigation by them. Not heard a thing in over a month now since them saying this, despite plenty of requests for updates.
Should I start court action to recover my money? I feel I should in this case as I've received no evidence there are any problems with our work and prices were all agreed before hand. The outstanding amount is around £600 plus costs and interest (including VAT). The customer has had us put all invoices through their limited company which is run from their home address. The company accounts show a company that has around £60k of cash in the bank. They have company vehicles on the drive but they are behind a full height metal gate and brick wall so bailiffs wouldn't be able to recover them or get in...
Would appreciate your independent opinions.
Bit heavy for a Friday night but here goes...
Around 6 months ago we acquired a customer through Checkatrade. Very large heating system, house is about 300 square metres area per floor. Ground floor is a mix of suspended floorboards (25%) and thick concrete screed (75%).
The customer was losing pressure from the heating system and there was no sign of water leaking from the existing floor standing non-condensing oil boiler. To put the timescales between appointments into perspective, the customer is a 120 mile round trip from us and we explained at the time that she could be waiting as much as 30 days between appointments due to the unpredictable nature of the work and how busy our diary was.
In the order we have attended the house to carry out work: -
1.) 01/07/2015 - Initial visit after phone call to rule out the obvious things that may be causing the leak such as boiler, leaks from upstairs etc. During this visit we discussed that if the customer had one leaking joint under the concrete screed it was likely that more would follow. The customer was about to lay expensive tiles across the whole of downstairs so my recommendation was to re-pipe the downstairs heating from drop-downs so they would have confidence they wouldn't be digging tiles up again. This recommendation was rejected on cost grounds. So we moved on..
2.) 31/07/2015 - Second visit to carry out acoustic leak detection. We checked the whole of the ground floor and the only leak we could hear was a large leak under the hot water cylinder (typical, eh?).
3.) 10/09/2015 - Third visit to remove the hot water cylinder, dig out the floor underneath (8" concrete screed!), find the leak, cut out and repair the affected heating pipework. On completion of this work we agreed to leave the system running over the weekend before re-screeding. Big gap between appointments due to my holiday and theirs running back to back.
4.) 13/09/2015 - Fourth visit where we all agreed the floor was ready for re-screeding and their were no signs of any leaks or pressure losses from the heating system over the 3 days. Floor re-screeded and hot water cylinder re-installed.
5.) 27/09/2015 - Fifth visit, invited to do some unrelated drainage work outside the property. All completed and customer happy.
6.) 15/10/2015 - Sixth visit, pressure drop on heating system again. Traced to leaking pipework on central heating system near boiler, unrelated to previous work.
7.) 28/10/2015 - Seventh visit, stopcock had developed a leak on it. Valve repaired and job done in 20 minutes.
8.) 16/11/2015 - Eighth visit, pressure drop again on heating system! Asked by customer to attend and carry out acoustic leak detection again as no signs of leaks above ground anywhere. Acoustic leak detection carried out and no leaks under screed heard. We lifted all their floorboards where required for free to visually inspect all the heating pipes under the suspended floors too. No sign of any leaks. At this point I recommended they get a specialist leak detection company in to do gas tracing on the central heating pipework as I am aware this can find small leaks which aren't heard with acoustic leak detection.
9.) Gas leak detection company find a tiny trace of gas from under the hot water cylinder. We have offered to re-attend and dig up the screed and if our repair is faulty refund the second lot of leak detection work and repair it all for free. Customer has 'lost confidence' in us apparently. To me this seems strange after getting us in and paying for 6 separate jobs before hand. My opinion is that the acoustic leak detection work was carried out professionally as the other firm didn't find a leak with acoustic leak detection either, they had to use gas tracing.
10.) We have asked them to arrange an independent inspection of our work and if it's found to be faulty we will compensate them. We have been asking for this since 7th December and there has been no communication at all since then despite sending a letter before action on 23rd December and several emails before that.
All invoices for the first 6 visits were paid, most of them late, but the money always arrived. We haven't been paid anything for invoices 7 or 8. Even though the stopcock is over a metre from anything we have worked on she is saying we have caused it to start leaking (this isn't the case, it wasn't leaking at all when we left). She also didn't make clear when calling us out for this appointment that she had no intention to pay for it.
Money for invoice 8 was with-held pending investigation by them. Not heard a thing in over a month now since them saying this, despite plenty of requests for updates.
Should I start court action to recover my money? I feel I should in this case as I've received no evidence there are any problems with our work and prices were all agreed before hand. The outstanding amount is around £600 plus costs and interest (including VAT). The customer has had us put all invoices through their limited company which is run from their home address. The company accounts show a company that has around £60k of cash in the bank. They have company vehicles on the drive but they are behind a full height metal gate and brick wall so bailiffs wouldn't be able to recover them or get in...
Would appreciate your independent opinions.
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