Gas leak, dangerous electrics & Dreadful customer service.
There is a lot more to this story however I have ran out of allowed text. But here we are a year later out of pocket and no fire on our wall.
We were looking to replace our front room gas fire and decided to go quite modern with an integral wall mounted gas fire. Whilst starting our search back in June 2018 for a suitable company to fit this we came across Stonebridge Fireplaces of Daleside Road, Nottingham and from the initial reviews at the time they didn’t sound bad, so we decided to visit the showroom. We didn’t actually find anything in the showroom that we liked and decided to trawl the internet to find a suitable gas fire and made the decision of the ‘Flavel Windsor Contemporary Plus’ gas fire. We contacted Stonebridge again to get a quote to fit the fire that we had found and they said they would check the fire specifications and get back to us. We received confirmation that it would be suitable and arranged a date for an engineer to also do a survey of the property to make sure that the fit could be done, the only issue that they found on the survey was that the flue ducting in the attic would need to be straight and go through the front elevation of the roof rather than angled to the centre of the roof as it currently was. We agreed the quote in the July 2018, they ordered the fire and we waited for a couple of months before they could do the work.
On Thursday 13th September 2018; the day of the fit is when the job started to go wrong, the attending engineer came and after taking the old gas fire out, took one look up the flue and said that he couldn’t fit the new gas fire due to the size of the precast flue. Surely this should have been picked up in the initial survey? But no! Then the next blow; and nor could he fit the old one back in - partly because he had damaged it in the removal. So, on the day of the fit we were left with a gaping sooty hole where our gas fire used to be.
After the engineer had left we contacted Stonebridge Fireplaces and were then advised that our only option now was to have an electric fire. We were devastated by this news as our old gas fire, although past its former glory had kept the house extremely warm, it was quiet and the bills were low – none of which an electric fire would do or be.
A couple of days after the engineer had left we started to notice a strong smell of gas at the side property and had to call the Cadent Gas emergency line. The attending emergency gas engineer found the issue to be that the Stonebridge engineer had left the bleed screw out next to the gas meter in the meter box; the gas had been filling the box and then escaping through the gaps. He advised this could have caused a fatal incident had it come into contact with any source of ignition. When we phoned Stonebridge to advise of this, there was an apology from Peter, who is the front end customer service, but not anything from the managers or directors when he passed this information on.
Once the news had sunk in about our fire options and we had accepted that there was no other alternative, we started the search for a suitable wall mounted electric fire - this took quite a while to find, but eventually decided on the modern looking Celsi Touchflame (a bad decision as I’ll explain later). We discussed with Stonebridge how to have it fitted, which would mean recessing the wall with a shape similar to the fire, but larger and this was agreed by the Stonebridge fitter to be suitable. A new quote was raised and agreed. We received a SMS text from Peter on 18.09.2018 saying that a new date of 1st October 2018 for fitting was arranged, which again saw us waiting another month without a fire.
On the day of the fit the wall was recessed with the rectangular shape of the fire and electricity cables were installed into the recess, which would power the fire and some LED lights that were to be fitted around a mounting board. As a sub-note; it was later found during other remedial works that Stonebridge Fireplaces during this fit had fitted an old damaged, previously used extension cable rubber socket with round cable port, which they had fitted to the end of the grey 25mm mains cable for the LEDs. This poorly fitting broken extension socket had exposed electrical contacts which could have caused serious injury or death for the person reaching into the darkened hole to unplug the LED lights. Upon finding this it was immediately changed for a new surface mounted back box and socket by me as a matter of safety.
But back to the fit, the aperture was boarded and plastered. The plastering was quite bad with lots of filling and sanding required, a lot of the angles were wrong and took days to rectify and was all done by me. Once all the sanding had been done and on the 3rd October 2018 I contacted Matt (a different plasterer – who had done my kitchen) to obtain a quote on how much it would cost to re-skim the wall before phoning Stonebridge to see how they wanted to procced? Did they want to send another plasterer or for me to arrange my plasterer to re-topcoat the entire wall costing £150? After discussions with Jon (one of the directors) it was decided that I would get my plasterer to do the work and it was agreed that Stonebridge would subtract the £150 from the final invoice.
On Monday 12th November 2018, Stonebridge then came to fit the fire unit and we thought that the ordeal was over, but that was just the start of the next issues. The first time that we turned the heater on it began to overheat very quickly and cut out. At the time it was thought to be due to the builders specifications of the fire not being followed by Stonebridge as regards distances from surfaces which does state that there should be 40cm below the fire, where as we had been left with 10cm to the ledge below. This ledge soon started to crack under the heat and the fire casing itself became very hot to touch, the unit then overheated and cut out. We immediately contacted Stonebridge to make them aware of the issues and were told by Peter in the sales room that he would pass the message onto Jon (one of the attending fitters and also a director). There were quite a few phone calls regarding this with Stonebridge denying responsibility for the issues and we had to correct Peter regarding building regulations and what is classed as combustibles. Once they had checked the facts that we had pointed out a mutual decision was made to remove the ledge and cut the recess straight down to the floor.
At this point enter the next obstruction, BFM – The ‘British Fire Manufacturer’ and supplier of the Celsi Touchflame electric fire. Before they would make a decision on who would be responsible for the cost of the replacement fire they wanted a new unit tested on a stand, a stand that they did not have in stock and would have to put on back order. So, here we are again no fire and waiting due to a dispute between Stonebridge and BFM over who is going to pay for the replacement fire. We waited and waited and after a couple of weeks started to complain to Stonebridge, saying that we should not have to wait whilst they were in dispute with BFM, they should just fit a new fire and argue about who would be accountable for the cost with BFM later. We advised that they could do whatever tests on a stand that BFM wanted them to do at their own showroom, but all they did was keep saying that they would chase it up with BFM as to when the stand would be arriving. We then started to contact BFM directly to chase the fire stand and to also point out the same about accountability. Mid December we received news that the stand had arrived and a date of was arranged for Jon to come to the property, test the defective fire to prove accountability and also test the replacement fire on the stand before fitting it.
Back to the recessing the wall down to the floor, again we waited until this work could be done and again it needed to be boarded and plastered. The following morning we came downstairs to find large cracks had appeared around the wall where they had ended the plasterboards, and upon investigation the plaster across the entire top half of the wall above was now found to be loose, sounding hollow when you tapped the wall with your fingers. I made Jon aware of this 13th December 2018 by WhatsApp messenger and sent photos. The only way this could have happened was that it had been disturbed by the vibrations of the jack-hammer used on two occasions to channel the wall below. Stonebridge agreed to re-plaster the top half of the wall, but I was left to remove the loose plaster myself. When the builder came back on the 20th December to plaster the wall I requested that he use a pre-coat of PVA first to seal the wall as it was now bare render and very dry. I then left to get to work for a 10-6 shift, when I spoke to my wife she told me that the builder did not follow this request and PVA the wall as he thought it wasn’t necessary. He then had a lot of issues with the render sucking the water out of the plaster too fast and cracking like a muddy field on a hot day. The wall was left extremely uneven and full of cracks, which took me 6 hrs to block sand to get it level and smooth, then further layers of filler which also required sanding until they had all gone.
August 7, 2019
Unprompted review
