INSTALLER ADVICE BY RICHARD RENOUF

THE CUSTOMER IS NOT ALWAYS RIGHT’

Richard Renouf

It’s not often I get asked to inspect an installation that is more than five years old. In this instance I was sent a copy of a report which had already been completed by a Chartered Surveyor which provided a long list of ‘faults’, and at first glance the request seemed to be a waste of my time and the client’s money. But the retailer’s solicitor was persistent: ‘We don’t think this is as bad as they’re making out, and their claim is for all their money back, the cost of a complete new bathroom and the kitchen downstairs, and more besides.’

I read through the paperwork and there was a lot! I noted down all the allegations the customer made and then called them to arrange a visit. When I arrived and parked my car I noticed that the house was one of a street full of identical properties, so I played a quick game of ‘spot the difference’ before getting out of my car. Where was the soil stack and the external wastes? Were they different on other houses? It’s surprising what you can learn this way.

Once inside, I worked systematically around the bathroom, checking each fitment or feature

www.richard-renouf.com carefully. Removable panels were removed, loose screws were checked, an inspection camera enabled me to ‘see’ plumbing connections and other hidden details. Then I checked the loft above the extractor and finally I checked the kitchen below where there was alleged to be damage due to leaks during and after the installation. Only when I had completed this, and formed my own opinion about everything, did I look back at the list of items from the surveyor’s report. I did the same when I wrote up my report: my opinion first, and then my rebuttable of many of the surveyor’s comments.

Some months later I received further instructions: I was to ‘meet’ the surveyor (online due to coronavirus), discuss our mutual findings, and prepare a joint statement listing the points we agreed on and the points we disagreed on. This would, it was hoped, help the Court to focus only on the disagreed items and make its decision.

The more we talked, the smaller the list became. The cistern was correctly installed and flushed the pan effectively, but the surveyor had no idea about water volumes and just suspected it wasn’t working well because the customer had told him. I asked if he had measured the cistern to calculate the volume of water for each flush. He hadn’t. I pointed out that an issue would have revealed itself within the last five years of use and he agreed. Tick.

The toilet had been connected into the soil pipe inside the bathroom and I showed him the photographs from my inspection camera. There was no need for the installer to use a ladder outside, so the external adjustment of the soil pipe at the roofline was more likely to have been done when the new roof tiles were installed. He hadn’t noticed those. Tick.

The one short tile close to the ceiling would be hidden when the suspended ceiling trim was added to the panels so this would not be seen, so was not a fault. Tick.

The ‘faulty’ shower doors which had a tapering gap towards the bottom could be adjusted. Tick. The loose shower head bracket simply needed the loose screw tightening (which I had done to check it would hold and had not undone) was now fixed. Tick. The cabinet door which opened onto the radiator could not bang into it unless it was forced beyond the natural limit of its hinges. Tick.

There were a couple of issues we did not agree. The kitchen below was just old, the peeling foil edges were nothing to do with a leak from above and the kitchen did not need replacing. The bathroom itself needed no more than a day’s work adjusting, tweaking and refreshing the sealant, it certainly didn’t need ripping out and starting again from scratch. We recorded our differences.

Rather than being a waste of money, my report and the discussions with the surveyor meant that many of the issues were challenged and shown to be spurious. In fact the case didn’t get much further as the consumers withdrew the claim when their solicitor refused to continue handling the case.

‘The customer is always right’ is a good guide to work with, but there are occasionally times when it simply isn’t true.