Roy Butler - Aberdeen

Avoid ‘Roy Butler plumbing and heating’ like you would avoid the Plague. We contracted ‘Roy Butler plumbing and heating’ to re-fit our central heating system into a combi-boiler system. He quoted to carry out all pipework, removal of old tanks, boiler installation and system flushing and estimated the job would take around 3 days, possibly 4. The price was around the going rate for independent installers. The first two days were non-eventful as he spent it flushing out the existing system. We did however quickly realise he was never going to get to our house earlier than 10:30 and on most days left before 4:00. On day three he installed the new boiler. To get the pipework in he drilled holes through the kitchen worktop without consulting us. He installed the boiler brackets squint so the boiler sits at an angle. He didn’t use a heat mat when doing the soldering so left black scorch marks all over the walls. He didn’t run 30mm pipe from the gas supply line to the boiler as the manual suggests he should, instead he used a 15mm to 30mm adapter just under the floor board where he thought no one would see! That night we had a leak from one of his joints which left cold water spraying all over the kitchen at around 11:00pm whilst we were in bed, it was coincidental we found it and turned it off before it flooded the downstairs of our house. We called Roy Butler and his only advice was to turn off the cold water supply so we now had no running water until he appeared the following day sometime after 10:00. His pipework was all run in a random manner criss-crossing each other between cupboards, through cupboards, under cupboards – there was no evidence of ‘Roy Butler plumbing and heating’ taking any pride in his work and it generally looked sloppy. (photographs are available so you can make your own mind up) On the fourth day he started to plaster up holes he had made, this made an enormous mess. He spent his lunchbreak telling us he wasn’t a joiner so couldn’t cover up some of the pipes that were run above the worktops but he does seem to think he is a plumber, plasterer and electrician although he shouldn’t be practising any of these. Every so often a lump of plaster falls away from his hole repairs. I also don’t think he meets current IEE regulations for completing electrical installations as he is anything but a competent person. On the fifth day he arrived around 1:00pm because he said he took on another job and as usual left around 4:00pm. He never came back after the fifth day still leaving the old cold water storage tank in the attic to be removed by myself despite him quoting to do this. Around a month after the installation the boiler broke down due to an electrical fault on the board. Four boards were replaced and all ended with the same fate before the boiler company agreed to replace the complete boiler. When they removed the old boiler we found that ‘Roy Butler plumbing and heating’ had never blocked the flue hole for the old boiler, so there was a big hole and vent blowing air onto the combustion chamber. I’ve since always been suspicious this cold air blowing on the hot boiler caused condensation to form and accumulate causing the electrics to short out. It’s now been a year since the installation and we are still waiting on ‘Roy Butler plumbing and heating’ to supply Corgi with details of the installation to provide us with a certificate confirming he carried out the gas work safely on our property. We’ve been dealing with the corgi complaints department for around 8 months now and as they haven’t been able to do much to help us I decided making everyone else aware of his dangerous and sloppy work might help other people falling victim to him. ...