Can we rely on tradesmen services? No..

[bojan]

I simply have to share this saga with someone..
It all begun last Saturday with smoke alarm in my (weatherboard) house, while I was at home.. It turned out my daughter’s room was full of smoke.
I immediately switch off the main power and called fire brigade. It took them 7-8 minutes to arrive.. amazing! However the smoke ventilated away in the next couple of minutes and we all spent next hour looking for possible cause of this scare, nothing significant was found, but the consensus was the culprit was probably the evaporative cooling unit.
Next Monday I called the service to have a look at it.. Next day he went up on the roof, spent there 15 minutes, came back down and said all is OK. He even gave me the certificate... after collecting $180.
For the whole next week I was checking the wiring in the house and found nothing as a possible cause for fire alarm.

It was not very hot those days so we did not use cooling, but on Saturday morning, we did.. when fan stopped working almost instantly.
Today I decided to climb up and have a look at the cooling unit myself (I do not feel very safe any more on places like this, after all I am a mature man, right ?).
All seemed to be fine, but on closer inspection I noticed that the housing with driver circuits for the fan motor was suspiciously tightly closed.. so I opened it and, imagine, I found the starting capacitor turned into shapeless mass of burned plastic and paper.
I bet he did not even bother to open that box.. but I was actually happy because I found what was the cause of smoke alarm a week before.
And now, what to do with the service company?
I think I will give them a call and demand the repair for the money I already paid for worthless “OK” certificate..

[mick pinner]

that's a terrible blanket headline. one bad tradie and a statement like that, l'm a tradesman in the panel industry and am sick and tired of people making assumptions about me because of bad repairs they may have had in the past, there's bad tradies in every industry but a bloody lot of good ones.

[lesbehrens (Les)]

hi. its good u found the fault. my question is does your ceiling have insulation? that can warm up the circuits. if it was an electrician up there he would of only looked for burnt cables from over heating . well thats what i would of looked for first but i would have to know what was being used that day. if i knew it was the cooling appliances on that caused the fault i would of done a test on the too. but thats me being an apprentice electrician. what did the certificate say the person did checks on.? there are lazy and dodgy tradesmen out there.

[bojan]

He was certified serviceman for this kind of cooler. On the paper he wrote "OK, no signs of burning found".
And we told them we had a fire scare two days earlier.
The smoke came into the house through the ventilation.. so this capacitor was the cause. Everything else was OK.
As far as "terrible blanket headline", I stick with it.
With all due respect to good tradesmen out there (including you Mick), there are plenty of those who are not good and should not be in the business. If you want, I can give you more similar stories first hand...
If something like that happened to you couple of times over the year, how would you feel? And, please note, this was not a game.. Fire brigade was involved...

[TrevorW]

Bojan yes get him to come back and fix it free of charge of take it to the ACCC

I had a guy come out checked the air-con spent 20 minutes sprayed the pads which I could of done (ended up replacing them myself anyway) and walked away $95 dollars richer for 20 minutes work, that's more than a Doctor charges.

[Shep]

I hear your frustrations! Mine thankfully haven't been dangerous ones...at an old unit I had someone out to check out the split system air con when it was a bit noisy, well....the young dude that showed up pulled it all apart gave it a 'service' and then didn't put it all back together properly, it clunked worse than before and had to get another person out to put the screws in!!! ...And am in the middle of taking a car back to the panel beaters for a third time after they did lazy work, they even left the fuel cap area FULL of paper and masking tape which got wet and then stuck, i tried to fill it up with fuel and was struggling with the dam thing for a good 5 minutes before I finally got it open and boy was I pissed to find that as the cause!

It was a good idea what Trevor suggested to get them and threaten with reporting to the ACCC. That's such a dangerous oversight on their part!

[Lumen Miner (Mitchell)]

I'm with Mick on that one. I know more good tradies than bad ones. You didn't happen to go for the cheapest inspection price did you? I never go the bottom quote, only the second cheapest.

I think you may be a bit premature on blanketing the whole industry, for all you know at this point of time is that the cap burnt out. How and when the cap burnt out is anyones guess. You may find it was something else causing the smoke, which could not be detected by him, shorted out later and burnt the cap out secondarily.

I would imagine you are right and he did not inspect it properly, atleast get his side of the story first.

[bojan]

Originally Posted by Lumen Miner

I'm with Mick on that one. I know more good tradies than bad ones. You didn't happen to go for the cheapest inspection price did you? I never go the bottom quote, only the second cheapest.

It was a certified service, the only one available and the bill was $180 for 15 minutes of useless job.

I do not have to defend myself here, mate.. I am not a tradie, but I am in profession as el engineer, and I have pretty good idea of el motors and what they do.. .

Originally Posted by Lumen Miner

I think you may be a bit premature on blanketing the whole industry, for all you know at this point of time is that the cap burnt out. How and when the cap burnt out is anyones guess. You may find it was something else causing the smoke, which could not be detected by him, shorted out later and burnt the cap out secondarily.

All circumstantial evidence points to this cap as a cause for the smoke (the fan did not work more that couple of minutes after smoke scare and his inspection. .. And I am sure I will hear exactly that kind of excuse from him tomorrow

My point is this:
I did not go up the roof in the first place because I am not young any more and I thought it was better to leave that to an expert.. regardless of I could have repaired this if the problem was on ground.
But, how about people who know nothing about electricity? Or incapable of climbing to the roof?

[Inmykombi (Geoff)]

Please dont tar all us tradies with the same brush. Thats a bit unfair.

I am a repair tech for domestic applainces and commercial disinfectors for Nursing Homes and Hospitals.

I work darn hard to keep my customers happy and ALWAYS do my best to find faults, especially dangerous ones. There are those of us who dont give up until we find the cause of the problem....

Those of us who love what we do and do a good job should get more recognition for the jobs we do that save injury or fires, instead of the one trady who doesnt and gives us all a bad name.

There is no doubt that I have sen some very shoddy work in the electrical industry that I am involved in, but I can assure you that I do my darndest to do the right thing and look after customers.

So my answer to this is.

YES, you can trust a fair dinkum Tradie.

[Inmykombi (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by TrevorW

Bojan yes get him to come back and fix it free of charge of take it to the ACCC

I had a guy come out checked the air-con spent 20 minutes sprayed the pads which I could of done (ended up replacing them myself anyway) and walked away $95 dollars richer for 20 minutes work, that's more than a Doctor charges.

Service calls are necessary to cover our costs.
You compared service calls to doctors fees.

But what you didnt mention was that you have to go to the doctor....we tradies have to come to you with our stocked vans, all our tools and test gear.
We have to have loads of Insurance policies to walk in your door as well.
So please dont get my goat up about tradies charging what doctors do. Its unfair. We have to make a living too, and it aint easy, believe me.

I would love to charge a service call fee or people who dont stay at home for for their call as well, thats rude in my book. Especially when I give a 3 hr time span for my calling.

[kinetic (Steve)]

Originally Posted by Inmykombie

There is no doubt that I have sen some very shoddy work in the electrical industry that I am involved in, but I can assure you that I do my darndest to do the right thing and look after customers.

So my answer to this is.

YES, you can trust a fair dinkum Tradie.

ditto...

I'm glad the cause was found anyway Bojan! A happy ending.
I'm also glad the cause of the smoke wasn't the PCB I sent ya

Steve

[duncan]

Hi Bojan,

Get in touch with the company or whoever and "Money Back or Internet Splash" That should get 'em going.

Glad you found the problem though.

[TrevorW]

Sorry Geoff all those overheads you refer too can be written off against profit and loss as part of the expense of running a business, just drive pass some of the richer suburbs and see how many trade vans are parked in the drive-ways on weekends. Surprisingly the only 2 storey house is out street is owned by an electrician

Also don't forget the expenses Dr's have in setting up a practice.

No I don't tar all tradies with the same brush but you wouldn't be doing it if you were'nt making a quid out of it but I begrudge blatant rip offs at my expense thats why I tend to do everything myself where I legally can

[bojan]

Originally Posted by kinetic

ditto...

I'm glad the cause was found anyway Bojan! A happy ending.
I'm also glad the cause of the smoke wasn't the PCB I sent ya

Steve

No mate it was not your board
Funny thing I was actually soldering components on it just when allarm sounded

Yes, It is OK now..
And brushing wide the industry, I did not mean to offend anybody on this forum

[Lumen Miner (Mitchell)]

Originally Posted by bojan

It was a certified service, the only one available and the bill was $180 for 15 minutes of useless job.

I do not have to defend myself here, mate.. I am not a tradie, but I am in profession as el engineer, and I have pretty good idea of el motors and what they do.. .

All circumstantial evidence points to this cap as a cause for the smoke (the fan did not work more that couple of minutes after smoke scare and his inspection. .. And I am sure I will hear exactly that kind of excuse from him tomorrow

My point is this:
I did not go up the roof in the first place because I am not young any more and I thought it was better to leave that to an expert.. regardless of I could have repaired this if the problem was on ground.
But, how about people who know nothing about electricity? Or incapable of climbing to the roof?

Sorry, I should have put more in my last post, as on re-reading it came across a bit gruff. Sorry I was in a rush to get back to work.

Do understand I agree with you 100% in this particular case. I can tell you if the circumstances happened to me, I would be 10x more agro than yourself. I was mearly trying to point out maybe there were other circumstances and the guy did check the circuit, seems odd he wouldn't if it was easily accessed.

I'd love to hear what he has to say for himself.
I'm glad no one was injured.

[Benno18 (Ben)]

Hey Bojan
Im so sorry to hear this story. Its people like this that give the hard working and genuine tradies a bad wrap. and now your going to think twice about calling upon someone.

Just wondering if the person that came out to do the service was actually a sparky? quallified i mean, chances are if he was just from the airconditioning company he isnt and didnt know what the hell he was doing apart from looking at the water side of things.

Having worked with a few air con companies we have always told them if the fan dosnt go call us, because chances are its electrical. And please believe me when i say i am in now way defending this guy or the company, what has gone on here is disgusting and you should demand your money back and for them to fix your system for free. Also if you get the chance go in to the company. The tradie would have had to put a report in to file it, just incase something like this happens, take the capacitor with you aswell as evidence. GIVE THEM HELL!!!!!

Again whats happened is not a joke and should never happen. (not on my watch anyway mate)

Good luck
Benno

[kruscica]

Bojan,

as the electrician has given you a Certificate of Electrical Safety, he is obligated to come and make the place safe. Since he charged you for a service (outlined in the Certificate), he has to fix the fault you identified.

I would also point out the existence of the Office of the Chief Electrical Inspector (now known as or replaced with Energy Safe Victoria), with which all Safety Certificates must be lodged on the day that you receive your copy (technically the day the job was completed).

You might want to make mention of him and the job to them. And even if you don't want to involve them, mentioning the Office might be especially useful if the electrician refuses to come back or demands further payment :-)

I think a starting point (who could tell you what you can do or who to talk to) would be ESV Legal Operations on 03 9203 9700.

There is also the Ombudsman.

Cheers

Phil

[bojan]

Well, it seems there will be more happy endings here (apart from me finding the cause of smoke scare, which was a relief in itself - the house was not in any danger :-) ).
I gave them a call this morning and they promised to sort it out this week (at no additional cost).
The guy who was there last week was not sparkie but plumber.. so here you go..

[Lumen Miner (Mitchell)]

Originally Posted by bojan

Well, it seems there will be more happy endings here (apart from me finding the cause of smoke scare, which was a relief in itself - the house was not in any danger :-) ).
I gave them a call this morning and they promised to sort it out this week (at no additional cost).
The guy who was there last week was not sparkie but plumber.. so here you go..

WOW!! They sent a plumber to find an electrical fault, blow me down, wonders never cease. What on earth were they thinking?
I knew there had to be something else going on there. A plumber, geez...

[Benno18 (Ben)]

thats unfortunatly what alot of these people are, either plumbers or fridgies. The guy that i used to do the evaporative units for was a handy man b4 he started his aircon business. He hired a sparky to do the electrical and a plumber to do the water for the evaps and a fridgie to do the pipe work for the splits and ducted units. All this guy did was the ducting around the roof and put the units in place. I think thats what you got bojan, a bloke to look at the unit for real obvious signs of water damage to the electrical parts. eg electrical blow outs.

But it would have had to have been a pretty big blow out for it to show. Like i said before if the fan dosnt move in these units call a sparky. Thats what this guy should have done.
Well im glad everything is sorted Bojan. And i told a few of the guys at work and they could not believe there ears.