A warning to others...

[Alan de Enfield]

1 minute ago, Richard10002 said:

and I would suggest that if anyone gets a quote off Rose boats, treats it as meaningless until they have made sure that Rose look at the job before quoting, and itemise the job with the quote, and are instructed not to spend more than a certain amount without reference to the customer.

If someone said to me, there is a water supply pipe running alongside which you can T into, and there is a waste trap below the sink that you can T into then I would take them at their word.

 

Yes - once it was identified that it was a much bigger job than estimated I would have called them to discuss, but accusing Rose of being rip-off merchants is going too far.

[Alan de Enfield]

3 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Not very fair - presumably the yard had looked at the boat before they made their estimate

 

I disagree -  Its more than 'fair' - If the OP is now giving the truth of the matter and 'the estimate was given as a result of discussions in the office" then the estimate was based on incorrect information.

 

 

14 minutes ago, enandess said:

The original £90 estimate was given by what we said in the office.

 

[cereal tiller]

18 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

So the truth emerges.

 

You are blackening the name of a reputable company because you provided them with incorrect information on which to base their estimate.

 

I would suggest that you delete your original post, or at the very least make a public apology

Plus one.

[enandess]

I don't think I was blackening the reputation of anyone. The reason I posted in the 'new to boating' section rather than the 'maintenance' section was to highlight our experience as newbies in not getting what we expected due to not knowing what questions to ask. I do think I would point the finger at a lack of communication - as others have pointed out, to go from an estimate of £90 to a bill of over £500 without discussion seems to me a little short sighted. 

 

And to add... I haven't accused anyone of being a 'rip off merchant' - in fact in the earlier comments I made I did make this point. Perhaps you could point out where I have accused any boatyard of ripping me off. 

Edited September 17, 2018 by enandess

[mrsmelly]

1 minute ago, cereal tiller said:

Plus one.

I tend to agree. It's a bit like phoning a piano removal company and accepting a quote to deliver a piano having told them which room you want it delivering to but not telling them at first you lived on the eightieth floor of the flats and there is no lift fitted.

2 minutes ago, enandess said:

I don't think I was blackening the reputation of anyone. The reason I posted in the 'new to boating' section rather than the 'maintenance' section was to highlight our experience as newbies in not getting what we expected due to not knowing what questions to ask. I do think I would point the finger at a lack of communication - as others have pointed out, to go from an estimate of £90 to a bill of over £500 without discussion seems to me a little short sighted. 

A break down in communication for sure. Trouble is everything boat is different and nowt can realy be quoted without a personal visit.

[bizzard]

A quote is not the same as an estimate.  Even if estimated, a huge cost differential like that, should have meant contact the owner first before starting work or stop work immediately and inform the owner of the extra costs.

[Arthur Marshall]

6 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

I disagree -  Its more than 'fair' - If the OP is now giving the truth of the matter and 'the estimate was given as a result of discussions in the office" then the estimate was based on incorrect information.

 

Fair enough then, but still, you would expect to be informed if a bill was going to be five times higher than the estimate.  It doesn't strike me that the OP is complaining about the actual size of the bill, rather that it came as a hell of a shock.  As bills for work on boats tend to.

My resteeling from Stoke Boats cost nearly three grand more than their quote, and the taking out and putting back of my flexible coupling was quoted at £150 and ended up as £900 - but in both cases they kept me informed and there were good and valid reasons for both.

I still grumbled to myself though, and I still got told by blokes from other yards that they'd have done both jobs considerably cheaper.  Wouldn't have been true in practice though.

[enandess]

4 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

A break down in communication for sure. Trouble is everything boat is different and nowt can realy be quoted without a personal visit.

So you would have thought an established boatyard would realise this and have added a caveat to their estimate that they will be in touch once they have had a look at what is actually involved. 

[Glynn]

They should have contacted you explaining that it's going to cost substantially more, end of.

[Nut]

even if info given the yard said yes m8 that's 90 quid

no way would you turn up to do the job then phone the yard and say hold on this is a 500 quid job then crack on with it then present the bill

tbh I would like to hear the yards version

[Arthur Marshall]

1 minute ago, Nut said:

even if info given the yard said yes m8 that's 90 quid

no way would you turn up to do the job then phone the yard and say hold on this is a 500 quid job then crack on with it then present the bill

tbh I would like to hear the yards version

That's the way every yard that's ever done any work on my boat has done.  I've only ever taken a quote with a huge pinch of salt and basically ignored it. That's why it's called an estimate - yards tend to assume you want the job done whatever the cost.

And the bloke actually doing the job probably had no idea what had been quoted, anyway - if a yard employee he'd be on a wage, if a subbie, he'd just put in his bill afterwards.

[dogless]

A bitter pill to swallow, I feel your pain.

Any reasonable person would assume that the contractor, realising they have under quoted by such a huge amount, would contact you before continuing.

They are the professionals, and it's the least one would expect.

But sometimes in life we have to grit our teeth and move on.

Thanks for the salutary warning, which is obviously all your original post was about.

Ignore the critics on here, life's too short

Rog

[bizzard]

And plumbing these days ain't as hard as what it used to be either, what with the plastic piping, fittings and stuff, which is very likely all stocked in the boatyards chandlery anyway.  Once they'd drilled the holes in the hull, which doesn't take long with the right gear, they would have been moreorless committed to completing the job.

Edited September 17, 2018 by bizzard

[Jerra]

48 minutes ago, Richard10002 said:

 the job done was way more than the job requested 

You requested the machine fitted, they fitted it how is that way beyond what you requested?

[Neil2]

On the bare facts of this, and until/unless Rose Narrowboats contribute a different account, it's outrageous behaviour.  Doesn't matter what they were told by the OP, if you are a professional you make your own assessment of the ease/difficulty of the job.  

[MtB]

I'm at a loss to see why any cupboard dismantling was necessary or a skin fitting required. I'd have used a hole saw to cut three holes through the side or base of the cabinet then tee into the two pipes feeding the tap for the water supplies, then connected the waste hose into the blanked off connection available on the trap.  All freely accessible from the photo in post 12.

 

Whole job would take me about three hours, taking my time over it. Even adding an hour for drilling the skin fitting hole that's still only four hours. My guess is the fitter needed something from B&Q and took three hours for the trip to get it which gets us up to seven hours at £45 an hour. Maybe £70 materials. I'm still only up to £385.00.

 

Something does not add up here. My gut feeling is the installer was feeing his way and didn't really know how to go about it, and the OP got charged for both head scratching time to figure out how to actually do it, AND the excess time it took to do it the awkward and expensive way.

[AndrewIC]

1 hour ago, Arthur Marshall said:

First law of boat maintenance is that it'll take at least twice as long as you expect, cost probably double the estimate even if you do it all yourself, and you'll have to take something else to bits to get at the bit you want to fix. And then it won't fit when you try to put it back.  It's mostly because everything is linked to everything else and it's all trying to squash as much as you can into a very small space, and it's also why trying to fit out a boat while you're actually living on it is virtually impossible - it can be done, but the boat tends to be surrounded by a blue fug of swearing for a couple of years.

And you will invariably find yourself hanging upside down with your head in a cupboard, with a fitting in one hand, a spanner in the other, and a torch in the other, cursing whoever built it that way. Happy days!

[Steve_C]

2 hours ago, enandess said:

Although we have renovated houses we are not boat experts but approaching it from our house experience we thought it was a case of feeding off the supply to the kitchen taps and using the existing sink waste for the machine waste. I will try to add a photo to explain. When we picked the boat up they explained that the kitchen cupboard had to be dismantled to access the pipes and a new skin fitting added which is why it took longer. 

This or similar fitted too the spare connection on the right hand side of the waste concoction https://www.screwfix.com/p/floplast-hose-connector/48625

 

One of these (2 if hot fill also) cut into the risers too the taps or remove couplings and replace with washmac tap if room https://www.screwfix.com/p/jg-speedfit-15apt2p-appliance-tee-15-x-15-x/27471

 

Drill 3 holes (or one big un) for flexi hoses through cabinet sides and is that not job done.

 

Did they have too make room for the W/M, run cable for plug etc. I just can not see a problem if the W/M is going into an existing space next to the sink unit.

 

Someone else had the same idea above as i was typing, slowly.

Edited September 17, 2018 by Steve_C

[bizzard]

And possibly making and drinking endless cups of tea whilst doing his, ponderig and thinking, using the boats facilities, like gas, milk, sugar and tea bags to make it.   Count yer tea bags OP,  I'm talking as someone who is guilty of this crime. .

Edited September 17, 2018 by bizzard

[MoominPapa]

2 hours ago, enandess said:

Although we have renovated houses we are not boat experts but approaching it from our house experience we thought it was a case of feeding off the supply to the kitchen taps and using the existing sink waste for the machine waste. I will try to add a photo to explain. When we picked the boat up they explained that the kitchen cupboard had to be dismantled to access the pipes and a new skin fitting added which is why it took longer. 

 

The hole in a skin fitting is often quite small. The result of trying to share the waste plumbing for a sink with a pumped source like a washing machine is normally that the washing machine water backflows into the sink. Adding a dedicated skin fitting was the right think to do.

 

MP.

 

[enandess]

Thanks for everyones comments... as I have mentioned in other replies we have chalked this up to experience. However glad to see the comments from some people with a lot more experience than I have confirming my thoughts about the job. 

[Neil2]

I had a similar experience to this a few years ago when I asked a boatyard - again an entirely reputable outfit - to estimate for some work to the engine exhaust.  There was a fair amount of cutting and welding involved and I thought the estimate was a bit conservative, but when the invoice arrived for fully twice the amount of the estimate I refused to pay.  It was a slightly different situation in that the work that was done was exactly what we had agreed, what was different was the amount of time estimated to do the job. My argument was if you give an estimate the final figure should be reasonably close to it otherwise what is the point of getting an estimate?  Also, at some point it would have been clear that the work was going to take longer so why was I not at least informed of this.  In the end we agreed to split the difference ie I paid 75% of the final bill which is about what I was expecting anyway.

 

I do think sometimes boatyards (attached to marinas in particular) assume that all boat owners are stinking rich unless you send out a very strong message to the contrary.  

[casper ghost]

I wonder how agreeable boatyards would be if you insisted on a written quote upfront before they started any works. Would they actually do this, or just talk their way out of it..

Casp'

[Mike Hurley]

2 sides to every story.

[mrsmelly]

5 minutes ago, Mike Hurley said:

2 sides to every story.

Very true indeed.