https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/oct/21/cracked-tiles-wonky-gutters-leaning-walls-why-are-britains-new-houses-so-rubbish

Another cowboy. I’ll just leave this here: https://www.facebook.com/CustomersOfSoSResponse/

Be warned

I have an upcoming post on these cowboys, avoid Richard and he bargain basement electricians.

If you have any complains, please see https://www.napit.org.uk/member/16460/jps-renewable-energy-limited.aspx

Here’s a quick update I wanted to share. It’s pretty common knowledge tradesmen prefer cash, often touting a a small discount to you – Don’t!

By paying in cash you have waved any rights or recourse should you encounter a cowboy, and you are likely collaborating in tax evasion which the HMRC can and will make an example of you – at your cost. Everyone moans at the NHS, Police, pot holes etc etc – they are all paid via these taxes..

You are not saving a penny by paying these tradesmen “off the books” – that is their normal rate – you’re now paying for their kids to go through school, bins to be collected, and roads to be tarmacked!

Report these parasites and get a reward – https://www.gov.uk/report-vat-fraud

An entire trade are stealing from YOU and our society. Never pay cash!

For those of you who watch Netflix, there’s an interesting series which covers the various tactics tradesmen take to get your money – How safe is your house

The rogue traders are posting leaflets to homes advertising services to clear, repair, and replace guttering and also offering to carry out roofing and damp proofing works.

The leaflets claim that they are working in the road over the next few days, this is a common tactic used by persistent door step criminals to persuade people to have work carried out quickly as consumers think they must get the work done before the traders move on.

Residents have reported work carried out by these traders is of poor quality, shoddy and they are charged massively inflated prices, with some victims being charged thousands of pounds.

If you received a leaflet advertising work like this please report it to Bexley Trading Standards at;- Julie.Powell@bexley.gov.uk – or directly to us.
(Dana Wiffen, Chairman, Neighbourhood Watch Office)

Following on some excellent work by my electrician, it was time to redecorate the hall, landing, stairs and bedrooms. Most competent tradesmen would square this away in a month – allowing for drying time. Sadly A1-Star took 9 months and finally stopped responding to my messages – but not before they took almost £5,500.

If you’ve read my blog you’re probably asking yourself, seriously? Again? you’re either the world most unlucky, or stupidest person going. – maybe… Let’s see.

Decorstruction

The Year of Optimism – 2016

Way back when I had a simple idea; I’d like the hall & landing to be re-plastered and decorated. My theory was, let’s start with the boxroom and see where we go. If those play out well, I’d like to continue on to the bedrooms.

Tradesmen after tradesmen. Dubious suggestions, or insane lead-times. After a while the now defunct A1 Star Decorating and Construction.

Tye Harber of Sladegreen and his builders mate Jay Eastwood arrived. They took a look at the boxroom, hall and landing.

I made the massive error of commenting on the quality of doors on their Facebook profile. Tye [Tyrone] Harber was eager to provide a quote – and I was ignorant enough to accept it.

Eclipsed by A1-Star

Shut the door when you leave

Jay & Tye decided it would a be good idea to start by fitting the doors first – before the plasterwork. As it turns out this is a terrible idea – untreated wood draws in plaster dust, and any paint work – but who cares to a cowboy.

Oddly enough the door hanging went fairly well – doors looked pretty good. Sadly as any decent tradesmen would do, they didn’t bother to dot the T’s or cross the I’s. The keeps and frames were rushed – damaging the frames and generally leaving a piss poor job.

Call me Mr Wickes 

Let’s fast forward. A1-Star started with the box room. A very common 3x4m space usually reserved for your dusty treadmill, or the first born.

It probably wont surprise you to learn these idiots didn’t bother turning up with the right tools – or in-fact any tools – except themselves. After listening to this moron curse for a few hours I suggested he borrow my steamer (error) – no thanks or otherwise as he snapped it away from me.

Later that day he walked out. Leaving my steamer covered in detritus and a damaged pressure valve – fantastic. I’m absolutely furious.

…To be continued…

In short/tl;dr

1. Jay Eastwood (Blackheath)
2. Tye Harber  (Erith)
3. Bill Harber (Erith)

Avoid at all costs.

 

As it turns out Companies House has given Mike’s Plumbing and heating services limited a compulsory strike off. Not good for Cowboys.

Update 21/03/2018

It would turn out Mr Michael Anthony McNamara – born Mar 1976 aka Mikey appears to have left me a little gift. Following a recent annual service the front control panel metal hinges have been torn away, along with remnants of sand and cement in the main system!

Why? I can only speculate, it would have taken quite a bit of force to break the metal brackets which makes me believe it was malicious – colour me shocked. The sand and cemet found in the system was clear laziness from the knee-jerk Gas-Safe response. I’ll leave it to the reader to determine who was the cause.

A quick check at Companies House shows our boy Michael was out of luck in 2016! A long time before I even spoke to him. I’ll go on a wild guess and assume he is still operational wearing his very best snake skin boots

Original post

As a British man I do love a little bit of self deprecating irony, so you can imagine
what I thought when I read Mikey’s Plumbing and Heating website (which as the time of writing is still online)

Mikey’s Plumbing (aka Michael Anthony Mcnamara) clearly appreciates irony . His company is now dissolved, and their gas safe (233352) numbers revoked

This particular chap demonstrates you shouldn’t always believe everything you read. He was recommended by LoveMoney, a moderately large consumer news and review website.

Before I go any further. I seriously dissuade anyone to use CheckATrade or RatedPeople. All the issues I’ve had have consistently been related to these two intermediaries.  

When I first moved into my property the GCH system was rather ancient. In the 1990’s Baxi units were the voguel. If you are not familiar with that era, most boilers consisted of a gas fired conventional boiler and an electric cylinder.  The Baxi did an excellent job over those years, however by today’s standards it was quite inefficient and desperately needed a change.

Following months of searches and quotes. Michael Anthony Mcnamara of Mikey’s Plumbing and Heating Services Limited reassured me he could update my boiler with a quality Worcester.

 

I asked them to remove all redundant piping once the old equipment had been removed. Sadly Michael Anthony Mcnamara, like most of the Cowboys I’ve delt with were very reassuring (this is becoming a protip… avoid any emotion). So ahead I went.

Mike and his band of merry men worked surprisingly quickly. They’d pretty much replaced the entire system in about 3-4 hours. Oh except they’d forgotten to install the Thermostatic valves I’d paid for  (we’ll come back to this). Funnily enough friends of mine have now told me this was clearly rushed.

Before Mike’s departure he was good enough to give me a run in on the system. Initially it was all looking good. Unfortunately for him, I decided to hedge my bets by booking a (free) Gas Safe engineer to arrive around the time he’d finished….

The Gas Safe engineer immediately condemned the boiler! It violated both Gas Safe and planning. 

I called Mike and he was literally furious I’d arranged for a Gas Safe engineer to review his work. He came up with all kinds of reasons why his cowboy work was entirely acceptable. Unfortunately for him he had to fix his incompetence or lose his license.

This is pretty bad right? Nope. It can get worse.

I was in the final stages of planning a stag do which was leaving the following day. Guess what I woke up to?

 

Oh yes. The pipe I’d asked him to cut out, he’d left in some weird loop. What did I get? Water pouring through my ceiling an hour before I leave for the airport.

 

Those pipes I asked Mike to remove. Yeah, they breached with the new pressure. Just a few hours before I left.

So how did this nightmare end? Once again my friend came out and cut out the leaking pipework, and sealed everything appropriately. This left me with a rather large decorating bill.

However, just like the other cowboys. It would appear his antics caught up with him. Allegedly he, and the rest of his crew lost Gas Safe and his company is now dissolved.

I suppose I wont get my two boiler services now? Probably for the best, I doubt they sell pipe-cleaners these days.

What’s even more amusing (if you aren’t me). They failed so badly at the job, rushed it so much they couldn’t even be bothered to bleed the radiators and install the thermostatic vales the right way around. I discovered this a few months after in the winter. Thankful I’m not an idiot and it was a simple fix.

tl;dr Record everything tradesmen do. Get everything in writing. Check and report them to their associated alliances and accreditations

Here’s a few key pieces of public information you should be ware of:

Michael McNamara, 38 Louise White House Hazellville Road London N19 3LU United Kingdom

It seems in this day and age it doesn’t really matter how much due-diligence you carry-out with tradesmen, rogue builders somehow manage to pop-up like a weed.

Since moving to Bexley these people have slithered out of the woodwork to ply their dubious trade.

Let’s start with Frank Dunthy of unregistered All-Weather Roofing Erith (originally registered at 56 whitehall lane, Erith, Kent, DA8 2DN)

When I arrived in Bexley my house was dragging along a garage which had a leaking asbestos roof. I thought I’d try out RatedPeople (26/11/2014) . In theory genuine feedback from previous buyers coupled with responsive tradesmen should be great – no, not at all.

Frank was one of the first people who responded to my advert on RatedPeople.

I Inviting Frank to my home, he seemed a fair tradesmen looking to build his profile. He had a few references from the local area and provided a reasonable quote – I was eager to go ahead and get shot of my leaking roof.

I decided to give Frank a quick call to reassure myself that his quote was genuine, and he would do a good job. Here’s his invoice:

One evening I decided to do a bit more research on All-Weather-Roofing – nothing, nada. This company didn’t exist. I decided to give Frank a call, he’d be reasonable so far – maybe he can explain. He once again assured me that he was straight up and would do a good job. To his merit, him and his team got to work within the week.

Let’s fast forward a while, Frank is making excellent progress and asked for payment to cover his material costs. Fair enough I thought. I’ll pay him the initial cut. I wasn’t too concerned as I’d offered him the opportunity to carry out further works worth three much more than this gig. Turns out this was a major fail on my part.

A few days past and his team were carrying out works on my neighbours properly (ED: which I should add has been redone). Okay fair enough, I’ll wait a little longer – until….

Fantastic, water streaming through the area where they used a cheap flash band. Oh and that was against a rendered wall – good work. Great, the leak is now worse than it was before. Let’s give Frank a call.

…A few days later he arrives and come to “fix” his mistake. Rather than using lead or setting the roof into the rendering he threw some concrete on it. Fantastic, let’s have a look at his handy-work

Yes that’s right concrete. Let’s have a look inside

Yes, that’s a light fixture hanging by it’s cord surrounded by asbestos dust. It’s a damn shame I can’t find the pictures of all the asbestos he left. At this point Frank disappeared.

I spend a day and a half, by hand clearing and washing down all the Asbestos.

It was only when I left him “bad feedback” did he decided give me a me. I received multiple calls how I was “ruining his business”, I doubt he needs my help.

He was reported to Environmental Health, Bexley Council & Trading Standards.

[Update]

Despite Frank’s ten year guarantee, his concrete fixed failed leaking over some rather expensive equipment (thankfully it was fine).

A good friend of mine was able to rectify this bodge job in a few hours. This is how it should look

[Update 2]
Last name corrected in title.

It’s possible Frank is now trading as Weatherproof Roofing Services (Erith). I cannot confirm this yet. Please perform your own due diligence.

[Update 3]

Allegedly Frank is once again trading under a new firm, Southeast roofing

Who’d have thought there’s be a third week of nightmares on Bexley Watchdog. Green Planet Plumbing and Heating is under the spotlight tonight (abbreviated)

Looking for tradesmen, I’d much rather get a local engineer in than leave it to one of the high street names.

I originally brought in Green Planet and Heating. Based just around the corner from me, I asked them to quote for a major GCH upgrade worth around four grand. Initially I was quite impressed, Brian Meacock, the director spotted several far less intrusive route for my upgrade than his competitors. However, that introduction soon went south.

…Let’s fast forward…

…9 months rolls around since moving in. I receive my first water bill – it is literally multiples over my previous property – great. After moving into my new house, they’d failed to mention a rather substantial leak.

<insert Thames Water and various other investigations [we’ll pick this up later]>

Worried, as you can imagine I called Brian Meacock back. After a short time he confirmed the problem must be between the water main and the kitchen stop-cock, and quoted accordingly.

Fantastic I thought. Green Planet Plumbing and Heating know what they are doing so I agreed for them to carry out the job. Works started well, a new main was re-routed to kitchen. Took about a day, thank god that’s sorted…

Two weeks later, I took a measurement.

I’m wasting more water than before this all started.  I called Brian Meacock and he arrives quickly, he confirms despite his fix the leak must be between the stop cock and the main water meter. I call out Thames Water who arrived many weeks later, and tell me – no it must be inside.

I call Green Planet, but Brian Meacock was on holiday so I call Unitec. After a short quote, Scott [director] of Unitec shows up and diagnoses the problem – the lead pipe I asked Green Planet to replace during their fix has failed.  (if you’re not aware, lead was used for pipe work decades back, it’s has lasted through the years because it isn’t disturbed – unfortunately when it is touched or manhandled that seal is broken).

Turns out Green Planet Plumbing and Heating didn’t bother to repair roughly a foot of lead. After their works that tiny bit of lead was disturbed and breached almost immediately. That breach threw a heavy spray of water under my hall and living room damaging wall paper, floor boards and electrics.

Turns out Green Planet made three major errors.

1. “Confirmed” the leak was between the outdoor stockcock and the water meter
2. They had routed passed the outdoor stop cock and had not communicated that to Brian Meacock
3. Failing to accept any wrong-doing (See email)

I dropped Brian Meacock of Green Planet a simple email asking him to cover the cost of the remedial works (£100).  And this is how he responded

I suggest you avoid Green Planet Plumbing and Heating.

 

[Update]

After significant effort, Brian finally gave me the ~£100 I asked for leaving me with a salesmen apology, and significant damage to my hardwood, wall paper and skirting.

I’ve had several plumbers quote for more recent jobs, each and every one has quoted on how poor Green Planet’s work was.

With this that in mind, avoid – or if you’re brave, pay after the fact.