Addicted Leak

Poor execution

On the 10th December I had burst water pipe and was losing a lot of water. I urgently needed a plumber and the only one I could source on short notice was Addicted Leak. Marnus arrived on the same day and we agreed that he would lay a complete new line from just after the meter to the entire house. Because of root and concrete paving, we also agreed to lay the piping above ground where the problem (root and concrete) areas were. Work was set to commence the next day and would involve what I would estimate to be upward of 60m+ of PEX piping which was quoted at just under R9000. Unfortunately, although the quality of the workmanship was good, well measured and well connected I can’t say I’m impressed with anything else. First off, somebody at some point decided to defecate in my garden and cover it with a brick, I’m obviously not in a position to prove it was any of the team but given that a member of the team had a short while before asked to use my toilet (I declined, I have policy of not permitting strangers in the house – but do advise that they visit the nearby petrol station), that after that request nobody left the property (as in I never opened the security gate to let anyone in or out to go to the petrol station), that the day before Marnus and I had inspected that very area when planning the pipe route and there was nothing there, that whoever had done it had tried to cover it up by taking a brick from the back of the garden and placing over the feces and that his entire team were in the garden up till that point and had not seen anyone else come in or out of the garden. An apology and moving the feces would have sufficed but denials all round. Next, on post completion inspection I found a hole in the house wall, Marnus said that while connecting the new pipe to a fixture they noticed a leak in the wall so decided to fix it “at no extra charge”, while I can dispute that there was even a leak before they started work, a contractor should never start opening up walls without consulting the home owner first, now I’m left with a 15 to 20cm hole in my wall I need to fix. There was also a spot where they needed to dig up a bit of brick paving to get under the gate, which was fine but they never bothered to put the paving back, just left the bricks lying to the side. Finally, I said to Marnus that I was a bit concerned by the poor water pressure, Marnus said it was probably the municipality which I found odd since in the 7 years I’ve lived here, I’ve never had poor municipal pressure. Roll forward 3 days and the pressure is still lousy, my sprinkler system won’t even pop up. A quick inspection (and google on plumbing guidelines for pressure management) tells me that the old feeder line to the house was 22mm while the connection to the fixtures was 15mm, this is done to ensure better pressure. The fitting Marnus and team installed was 15mm across the board which is why there is now poor pressure. Marnus is a good plumber, I find it hard to believe he would not have known this and that he wouldn’t have noticed that the old feeder line, which he terminated, was 22mm and even more disappointed that he fobbed the blame off on the municipality. I will now have to fork out more cash to get the feeder line upgraded to 22mm. Also, today when I tried to put my underground pop up system on (not connected to the work Marnus did) the electrical cable powering the solenoids was damaged and there was a hole in the pipe where the team had joined the main water line. So at some point somebody had hit it with a shovel and not bothered to inform us.