I bought a Paini bath and shower tap for a clawfoot tub from Save More Plumbing and Lighting in Vancouver. When my plumber first tried to install the tap, he discovered that the threads on the wall attachment wouldn't thread into a standard fitting and looked different - with a series of cuts into the thread. He spent an hour trying to solve this problem for me including taking them back to Save More. He stopped work for the day leaving the pipes to the tub capped off at the wall. Save More told me they would get a replacement part, which they did, and I went and picked it up the following week. The part was different from the one supplied with the tap but worked with the other fittings. My plumber came back a week later and spent a long time trying to install the tap. The problem this time was that it leaked from behind the hot water tap and the tap wouldn't shut off properly. Once again, he gave up and capped off the taps again. I went back to SaveMore the following day intending to ask for a replacement tap. When I got there, the general manager was there and informed me that the first problem had not been a malformed thread but was because it was a European system which used different fittings. No-one had said this before - they simply replaced it with a different fitting. When I showed the manager the part of the tap that was leaking, he said it just needed tightening, which he attempted to do. When he had finished, it still looked quite different from the one side - it was still bent and I thought liable to leak. Different Save More employees that I spoke with on this visit told me that they thought the plumber had damaged the tap during installation and that's why it didn't work. SaveMore said they could not replace the part without first sending it off to the company to determine what had caused the malfunction. As this would have left me without a bath or shower for a number of weeks, I didn't agreed to have them do that. Eventually I was able to persuade to return the money for the tap, which they did with very bad grace. The original tap was a very good price at $300, however it cost me at least another $300 in plumber's time and I was without a bath or a shower in my house for two weeks while we tried to deal with the various problems. I went to a nearby plumbing store, bought a similar tap set for twice the price, which my plumber was able to fit in less than 90 minutes and which worked perfectly. If I had bought this tap in the first place I would have come out even financially and saved myself a lot of aggravation.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $300.00