Had kitchen fitted, awful job, what recourse?
Discussion
My wife and I had a kitchen fitted at the end of last year, we bought all the units from Howdens and then offered the job on my builder, we took up a quote based on a quick turnaround. I should add that as we had a poorly newborn at that point we really took our eye off the ball, should have done things very differently and shouldn't have paid the final invoice. We just rolled along as we were incredibly stressed at the time, harsh lesson learned.
The short of it is that it's an awful job, so incredibly bad I could have done it better and we have people in now to put right everything that is wrong;
Wall units
Worktops
Seemingly every plug socket
Splashback
Upstands
End panels
Tall oven unit
Dishwasher cover panel
It's an absolute sh*tshow of clusterf*ckery.
We've made mistakes, ones I would like to think we wouldn't have done without an ill newborn and the complete lack of sleep that brings, what I am wondering is what we can do to try and retrieve some of the costs we are incurring to correct it, small claims? He's offered £275 but doesn't seem to accept that it's a bad job. I expect the company will dissolve and reappear under a different guise which may limit our options. We've got pictures of the extent of it so if he does pop up on any other sites we can add them in under reviews, we don't want anyone else to make the mistake of employing him.
The short of it is that it's an awful job, so incredibly bad I could have done it better and we have people in now to put right everything that is wrong;
Wall units
Worktops
Seemingly every plug socket
Splashback
Upstands
End panels
Tall oven unit
Dishwasher cover panel
It's an absolute sh*tshow of clusterf*ckery.
We've made mistakes, ones I would like to think we wouldn't have done without an ill newborn and the complete lack of sleep that brings, what I am wondering is what we can do to try and retrieve some of the costs we are incurring to correct it, small claims? He's offered £275 but doesn't seem to accept that it's a bad job. I expect the company will dissolve and reappear under a different guise which may limit our options. We've got pictures of the extent of it so if he does pop up on any other sites we can add them in under reviews, we don't want anyone else to make the mistake of employing him.
Yeah, we would have had a lot more power to influence things had we not paid, just not thinking straight at the time. We've offered opportunity to correct but been fobbed off repeatedly, I feel comfortable that we have covered that but we have made things difficult.
The wiring done for the sockets is definitely dangerous so I could report to HSE I think.
The wiring done for the sockets is definitely dangerous so I could report to HSE I think.
We only got the keys to the house 4 weeks before the baby was due and it took two solid weeks of graft to get it loosely liveable, the vendors had initially said they would be able to complete by end of August so we would have had more time to get things sorted, instead they stretched it out to end of September. I suppose that's their choice and we were stuck with it, we just ended up in a difficult situation that left us with this problem.
The fitters we have in at the moment are happy to document the issues as is the electrician coming in to do the sockets, my wife is getting pictures of all the parts we aren't happy with as we go along (some of it only becomes clear as things are taken off). I'll try to upload some pictures this evening when I'm on the laptop, it will be fairly clear it's not just being fussy, it's a bad job.
Other things coming to light, the floor units and worktops were not level, wiring behind splashbacks exposed, poorly stuck to the wall with adhesive.
It will probably cost about £1k to put right, probably a bit more, plus the replacement parts from Howdens, total around £1500-1800 I would expect. That's with a very hefty discount from Howdens.
Other things coming to light, the floor units and worktops were not level, wiring behind splashbacks exposed, poorly stuck to the wall with adhesive.
It will probably cost about £1k to put right, probably a bit more, plus the replacement parts from Howdens, total around £1500-1800 I would expect. That's with a very hefty discount from Howdens.
herewego said:
Did you give the original fitter the opportunity to put things right?
We've given multiple opportunities, he also said he would get someone else to do it, nothing materialised. Going to document everything, get it in a word doc and detail with pictures everything that has had to be corrected, send it over and give one last opportunity to acknowledge fault and reimburse.
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