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Hi all.
Just taught Id ask everyones opinion about an experience I had this afternoon. A guy rang me about the famous whirlpool askol wash pump, said his was gone and could I get and fit a new one. He had taken out the old one. Sound no bother.Got to the job and his mrs was there. First thing I noticed was that it was intergrated aghhhh, and badly integrated at that. The usual, tiled up to the cabnets and no further. The machine was up on 4 pieces of wood and there was plumbing for underfloor heating or something running under it. Anyway he had it pulled out a little but it needed to come out more for repair and testing. Long story short got the job done put it back. Got it back onto the wood blocks, extended the feet as much as possible but it was still shy an inch. Im not liking this job anymore and tell her the predicament. She asks can I put something under the blocks to raise it. I asked if she had any more wood and we found bits and pieces but not enough. I didnt like messing to much with this because of the plumbing running underneath the machine. In the end I told her she would have to get hubby to use a bit of elbow grease when he got home. In fairness, I was 40 minutes fixing the machine and had spent an hour obling her by trying to use rubish to rise the machine. She then told me that someone else had the machine out before and put it back no problem. I told her that may be but I have nothing to rise it with. That was it, I had effected a quality repair, issued her with a written guarantee of my work and still both parties parted company sourly. Felt like a bit of a tit walking out the door. Anyone got any taughts on this.
PaddyRe: Integrated son of a b****
What i do is this if it looks hard to get out i just walk away form it advise them get it ,went to neff d/w once it wedge it ,they have scrap the machine , 😆
Re: Integrated son of a b****
The thing is that like you say you can spend time effecting the repair and even more of your time trying to make good some one else’s bodge up !
On our terms of business we cover the subject to our advantage, which is that we are not kitchen fitters, we will try our best to refit intergrated appliances as they were, we shall not be liable for any form of carpentry work, any form of structural modifications i,e blocks of packing wood and the like, removing pipework/wiring or replacing the same that is not within the appliances specification, Removal of floor tiles or reftting them.
When we go to an intergrated appliance a quick survey will show if any of the above might apply and if they do then we simply advise the client to effect the removal of the appliance whereby we can repair it and they can then make good the re-installation.
I once went to one that on removing the kickstrip I found a water pipe across the front of the m/c needless to say I made my excuses and left
Richard Scanlon Sr
Re: Integrated son of a b****
The predicament you have is a customer is more concerned about how her kitchen looks with regard to built in, lining up of the doors etc same as it was to her satisfaction than she does about the repair in a lot of cases.
She obviously looks at life black and white and knows in her own mind how something should go back the same way as it was,Its a very tough one to be in if you really having difficulty in achieving this.
Makes you feel a little under the weather because your more than likely to have lost a future customer too. 😕Re: Integrated son of a b****
same as squadman,they have to take it out,we repair, they put it back 8) as for testing.. allways carry extension water and drain hose.
Re: Integrated son of a b****
We charge by hourly rate so I’ll factor in an extra £20 or £40 on the price if re-installation looks difficult.
Re: Integrated son of a b****
Had a real bummer a couple of weeks back. I got called in to repair a ceramic hob fitted in a marble worktop. First thing I noticed was that there was no clamps on the underside 😯 and that the hob had been sealed in with silicon.
My first assesment was the correct one although customer was a bit miffed, I advised her to get the kitchen people back to get it out as I was not willing to take the responsibilty. Told to give me a ring when it had been removed.
Got the phone call a week later advising me not to call back 😯
turned out the kitchen fitter managed to smash the ceramic top and the whole unit would have to be replaced :rotl: bet the new one won’t be siliconed in 😉Re: Integrated son of a b****
I would say that as Service Engineers that we should NEVER feel pressured into a situation where we have to be compromised. I managed 9/10 to reinstall a built in appliance without any material challenges, that said I am not about to become a whipping boy for some careless kitchen fitters errors who has left a with a large chunk of the customers money and then the customer expects some hapless Domestic Appliance Engineer to arrive and have to spend hours working around the cock ups left !
I never feel obligated to do something that I do not wish to do, and trying to lift dishwashers over surface mounted gas and water pipes, cables plastered into walls, quarry tiles preventing the appliance being removed, fill and drain hoses run behind units with no access to the stopcocks is not our responsibility as service engineers, we all want to be helpful and earn a living at this but you have to know when to draw a line !
Re: Integrated son of a b****
Graham Smy ex of Anglo Iberian gave me some very sound advice many years ago regarding any appliance installation which was, if you can’t or it doesn’t look as if you can get it out and be able to work on it inside ten minutes, walk away.
There’s a lot of things to consider in this even if you forget the time that you’d waste which, when you’re doing 8-10 calls a day you just don’t have time to mess around with appliances I consider to be “not accessible for service”.
There’s also the fact that if you take the job on you’ve formed a legally binding contract. If you then attempt to remove and cause damage then you’re responsible, end of story. I was advised that no disclaimer you could imagine would mitigate that responsibility, also many years ago. All a disclaimer does is prove you warned that the job was a b1tch and there was a possibility of damage, but it doesn’t get you off the hook.
Then there’s the damned plastic feet on fridges, freezers and dishwashers that snap when you look at them the wrong way. There’s a few installs to Wimpey homes that have cunning 2×2’s well positioned fitted by yours truly as the damn things snapped on me. Any port in a storm to get the job done at times. Doesn’t make me a cowboy but, no completion, no payment weighs heavy. 😉
The trouble is that a lot of the installers, especially on new builds, are under tremendous pressure to complete on the first pass so I can forgive some stuff like that. It doesn’t make it any harder really and, in some ways it helps as at least the feet were busted when you arrive later and you can’t break what’s already busted.
The ones that get me are the ones on bricks, yes I have seen appliances looking like the wheels have been stolen.
Pipework obscuring access or removal.
Ones where you have to take out units or other appliances to get access.
Tiling up to the plinth so you can’t even get the plinth off.
Screws through the cabinet to hold them in, yes, I have seen it. One dishwasher fitted by a site agent I got as “leaking”, totally correct fault report and that’ll happen when you screw through the tub of a dishwasher to hold it in the unit. He didn’t bother with some wood below, just got a labourer to hold it up while he screwed it in apparently.
Wooden flooring that, if you breath on it, it’ll mark. If they ask if you want dustsheets you just know it’s trouble!
Appliances with no floor beneath them! Seriously, work it out.
Hoses that disappear into concrete, saw another one of those on an install of an AW23 last night.
And a host of other things that aren’t “right”.
The trouble is, define “right”.
We do our best but you can’t work miracles and I have spent much more than ten minutes getting some of the damn things out. But, there are limits and it’s knowing when to give up or not to start at all that’s the trick.
More importantly though, it’s how you deal with and inform the customer why you are doing what you’re doing or why you can’t do what they require done. Done correctly you’ll usually find a builder or kitchen company getting a rocket where they really don’t want one inserted. That truly is the art of it IMO.
K.
Re: Integrated son of a b****
dont you just love customers ! 😈
“She then told me that someone else had the machine out before and put it back no problem.” a cheeky reply may have been the other enginer was probably much better at his job that i, addressing whats the covert message behind the statement.
id say the most important part for sure is the repair was completed ok, most sensible people know that were not kitchen fitters as well, i think showing the customer a good fair attempt and a little sweat proves care and consern has been made. an hour far exceeds this for sure.
theres just no pleasing some people.or whats behind this one “How long have you been doing this job?” normally comes with a very starring customer watching every movement you make, take more that 2 seconds to find the spanner in the toolbox, normally gets, “are you having trouble there?” .
in answer to how long i say ” first day out on job!” and would you believe your my first customer, watch their face :rolling:
Nightmare job!!
Went to a integrated piece or s${e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}t the other week a wm zanussi it had been glued into the carcass and 4 pieces of wood holding up cross threaded feet.
managed to get the machine out a bit 2″ when we realized the machine was holding up the granite worktop!! which started to lift at one end.
we pushed it back and ran away before it snapped lol
cust was not impressed as usual and coulnd understand why we wouldn’t tryI always tell people I charge more for integrated appliances.
What agnoys me is when they say they will take it out to avoid the extra charge. When I get there I inevitably see the machine pulled out six inches, just long enough to stretch the hoses and they think thats the hard work done!.Re: Integrated son of a b****
Twice had d/w’s that were built in then ceramic tiled up to so no getting them out. One decided to have the tiles up and i then fixed it the other one the owner went in the garage and got a crow bar and lifted the whole jewson lot up,I —- myself but nothing broke. 😯
How long have you being doing this ? whaaatt I reply John Cleese style,few minutes silence followed by “can I get you a cup of tea?”.
There used to be a traing video we were shown at Lux which was made by a John Cleese company,John Cleese was ranting about as the engineer showing how not to behave in a customers house 😀
Trick is to spot the big problems early ,make your exscuses and leave 😉Re: Integrated son of a b****
After working on built in appliances virtually all the time for 15 years there is nothing I havent witnessed as a so called ‘installation’ by professional fitters 😉
I can tell just by walking into the kitchen if its a decent instal or not, look at the joins in the worktops (not mitred and metal joining strips !) and the cornices, loads of silicone everywhere means trouble, dont do anything without opening the under sink cupboard and checking the plumbing, look at the floor as laminate will probably been put in after units as well as tiles, but first and formost ask before you even book the call to go who supplied and FITTED the kitchen, that question has saved me a fortune in the past 😆
The best one is my Hubby is builder he knows how to fit a kitchen, doh !!
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