Kings Kitchens and Bathrooms, Inverurie www.kingskitchens-bathrooms.co.uk

Bathroom revamp - thanks for work done, very pleased with everything.

We decided to replace our bath and upgrade our taps recently. Wanting to support local business we approached Kings. Selecting the fixtures was easy however after being told that the hourly rate was £38 plus vat per hour we were charged £700 for 7 hours work. When I queried this I was told this was a standard charge and that any additional work would have been £38 ph. The bath panel was badly fitted and had to be corrected. When our estimate was for £700 labour I assumed it was for 2 days labour. Although I am happy with the work done I feel very ripped off and wouldn't use Kings again. We were hoping to replace kitchen and en suite in the near future but will be going elsewhere.

Kings Kitchens and Bathrooms, Inverurie – A Word of Caution

After entering into a contract for a bathroom makeover earlier this year, when proprietor himself arrived to do the job himself, I thought that my bathroom makeover would be exemplary. I was so wrong! A week later when he had finished, I discovered that the installation was so bad that I refused to have him back in the house and insisted that a SNIPEF registered plumber be called in to rectify the many, many faults. These included the failure to fit service valves,clips, pipe supports or pipe insulation, a sink that wasn’t screwed to the wall, a sink pedestal that was completely free-standing without any fixings whatsoever, out of alignment pipework for a towel warmer, a bath that took forever to empty and made loud clunking noises in the sink when it was being emptied, insulating tape used instead of clips to secure pipework, a flush-to the-wall toilet system which was not ‘flush’ because the fitter installed it knowing that the wall was out of plumb, a failure to follow manufacturer’s instructions when installing a pump, so much so that the entire pump installation had to be dismantled and re-installed by another plumber, and a contravention of the Scottish Water Byelaws 2004, namely:

• the installation of pipework which was not adequately supported or clipped

• the installation of pipework which was not adequately insulated to protect against heat or frost;

• the failure to fit isolating or servicing valves to pipe work where necessary.

I got a letter from Kings stating that as per my request, my snagging list had been passed to another plumber and I checked to see that they were SNIPEF registered. They were. The new plumber did a great job of correcting many, but not all of the faults and the situation now is that Kings bill has been settled but there is still a fair bit of work outstanding. They haven’t appeared back in seven months.

There were, and are, other problems which are not listed above but all have been captured on camera and it is fair to say that everyone who has seen the photographs has been shocked at the poor workmanship. I did ask Mr King directly, if he was a fully qualified plumber and he replied that he was. Why then, would a fully trained and qualified plumber almost completely botch a bathroom makeover, ‘forget’ to fit service valves, clips and pipe supports in contravention of Scottish Water Byelaws and be unaware that the same Byelaws require that pipework must be adequately insulated to protect against heat or frost? I don’t know why Kings, for the sake of cost cutting, expediency or whatever, decided not to carry out the work in my home in a workmanlike manner or with due care and attention. I hope and trust that my age didn’t have anything to do with his decision. What I do know is that, as a result of my experience, I could never recommend Kings Kitchens and Bathrooms? Choosing them in the first place was the worst decision I have ever made.

Quote (Kings website) - “We've developed an esteemed reputation throughout Aberdeenshire for our quality service and attention to detail”.