My wife and I live with her Dad. Our toilet has been leaking from the cistern into the bowl. My father in law tried to fix it by replacing a washer, but it was not successful. He then called a plumber to come over and fix it. When the plumber came over I told them the problem and that we had already tried to fix it by replacing a washer. He spent half an hour at the house, declared that he had fixed it and left. He virtually ran out the door before I could ask him what he actually did. The leak initially seemed to have stopped, but came back after a day. When my father in law got the invoice it turned out that all he had done was replace the washer. I have no problem with him changing the washer. Maybe he assumed that it might not have been done correctly the first time around. However, it doesn't seem satisfactory to me that this was all he did, especially considering we were charged $159 for it and a few minutes of "labour" that we had to pay were for him going out to his truck to get his radio to play some music (fine if you do this, but take it off the time spent on the job considering how exorbitant labour rates are).
My father in law called them and has already agreed for them to come over again in a couple of days time, which I think was a mistake. Here's what I think we should do. I think we should call them back and ask for them to come back over, but under three conditions. Firstly, we get a more experienced plumber. Secondly, we don't have to pay the call out fee. (I don't think we should have to pay this again if they didn't fix the problem the first time around.) Thirdly, if it's not fixed this time then we don't have to pay anything beyond the initial $159 fee.
I suspect they will decline this offer, which I don't think is any loss to us. If we have to pay the full fees then we may as well just get a different plumber who might actually fix it. What do you think? Thanks.
