New radiators falling off - what would you do?

[MrChips]

So we had new radiators fitted throughout the house around 10 weeks ago. Company has very good checkatrade reviews etc along with lots of recommendations on local fb groups.
The guy that came to do the work seemed young but said he'd been qualified for 4yrs.

Without going into a very long post.. the work took them much longer than they'd estimated, they also caused a leak which damaged the ceiling. Summary is that i paid over £1150 of what was originally a £700 estimate, and they claimed to be £1310 final bill. I paid by bank transfer rather than credit card.

We fell out over multiple inaccuracies in the final bills at the end of the process, with email exchanges getting very heated. Safe to say i don't want to deal with them at all ever again.

Wind forward to my current dilemma... i've had now 3 radiators fall off or brackets pull away from the wall. These are all new brackets. The guy that fitted them has made an absolute hash of it, even those fitted to an outside wall. As an example, on an outside wall, the fixings have come out, and i've found were a mix of:
- metal self tapping plugs
- screws going through into the blockwork but not into any rawl plug at all, just screwed into the thermal block
- small rawl plugs about half the length of those provided by the radiator supplier

I've also now found where they've fitted any brackets on a stud wall, whilst they've used good hollow wall anchors... they've not been fitted properly by using the correct tool to set the anchor, hence they've already started to fail.

So.. i'm competent at DIY... do I

- Suck it up, take off each each of the 11 radiators individually, and sort out the brackets properly myself, rehang and refill each once i've done it. If so, is there any likely impact on any additives and inhibitors that need to be in the system?

- Find another plumbing company to come and fix the issues and then issue a small claims against the original company?

- Any other options? Would I be able to claim on my home insurance legal cover? or claim against the original company's insurance?

Some pics:

[MrChips]

Decision made and i'm gonna chalk this one up to experience rather than face the hassle of getting back any of the labour costs that i've paid them. Part of this is that they're just up their own arse when it came to the bill so it won't be an easy ride, and whatever money i got back wouldn't likely cover the cost of someone else doing the job.

I already have loads of corefix plugs to use for any that are on outside walls, and i've ordered some of those Geefix fittings to use for the stud walls, alongside a few Gripit ones that i already have.

I'm assuming i'll need to add some inhibitor if i end up re-doing most of the rads?


One last photo to show the utter incompetence

Edited by MrChips on Monday 16th December 20:37

[MrChips]

Promised Land said:

I'm finding some of the replies amazing too, but the original quote/ estimate call it what you like was £700, OP paid Over £1150, firm claimed final bill was £1350. What did he pay then?

I'm struggling to work that bit out, he had a quote but paid far more even though the work was sub standard and unacceptable as the pics show, the last one with a big square cut out of the plasterboard being one of them.

Why pay up when you're not happy with the work? Then complain afterwards? I don't understand, complain before you hand over your money not after.

Because when they left, the radiators hadn't fallen off so it was pretty difficult to see that the fixings they'd used were unsuitable

The last pic where the bracket isn't even fitted to anything was something i'd missed when checking as it's hard to see unless you lie on the ground and look up. The plasterboard cut out was discussed and agreed with me as they had some issues with accessing the plastic poly pipe.

Edited by MrChips on Monday 16th December 21:33

[MrChips]

miroku1 said:

Unless it’s a tiny radiator I would cut out a horizontal section of board between the studs and insert some timber refit the removed section of plasterboard then fit the radiator , only way .

I’d agree for a small rad that’s between studs, however our stud walls are metal framed rather than wood so added complexity I think.

We only have one large rad that is on a stud wall so I’m gonna get another pair of bracket to fit so there’ll be 6 brackets to spread the load and then fit with decent fitting and I’m confident it’ll be fine. I’m sure even the 4 brackets would’ve been ok if they had fitted the hollow wall anchors properly!

And I agree with the poster above, a part of the issue is the brackets themselves. To work better they should be joined as a pair (upper and lower) to the exact size of the rad that sits on them so the load is perfectly distributed. Trying to get the distance between them to be perfect is nigh on impossible.

Edited by MrChips on Monday 16th December 22:08