copper or plastic

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Location
Durham
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United Kingdom
I got a quote from heating engineer saying that se was going to replace old copper heating network by new copper tubes. I came home and found out that he was replacing copper by plastic. He wrote copper in the quote. Now he says that it was a mistake and he actually meant plastic. I would never replace coper tubes by plastic but how would I know that he was going to use plastic if the quote said it was copper? He refused to use copper and took away old tubes saying that he recycled them. What can I do in this situation?
 
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Tell him you wont pay for the work your doing until you replace it with copper pipe as per quote
 
Sounds really dodgy to me. If you have a written quote of copper that's what you should get! If you don't then that should be reflected in the price. He'll have got maybe £100's for your old copper and it'll have taken him less than half the time to fit plastic.

Copper is superior in my opinion.
 
Do you have a written agreement that states he is going to replace old copper network with new copper pipes?

Edit: sorry didnt read it correctly....see that you do have a written quote.....as the guys have said he should be doing waht he has quoted you.....also he will probaly get a fair bit for the copper pipe and plastic takes half the time and a fraction of the effort to fit and should be reflected in your price..

How did you find him, was he recommeded or did you just pick a name and ring him?
 
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Nothing wrong with plastic but if he said in the quote that copper would be used, then he should be using copper... I't a bit like winning the job by telling you that he would fit a Vaillant and actually fits an Ideal.

As for the weighing in of the copper, I always state that all waste will be removed, giving the customer the chance to say if he wants the waste or not.. Either I get rid of it all or they get rid of it all.. but the customer has the option..
 
Thanks very much to everybody for posting. He sent the quote by e-mail, so I have written copy of it. I found his advert in a local paper. They also have a website that looks fine to me.
 
Plastic is better these days, it got a bad rep as the earlier stuff wasn't barriered and caused sludge/blockage problems later in life. Copper just has a more solid quality to it, looks neater etc... In my opinion!

Can you post the link to his website? For curiosity's sake ;)
 
It is Durham Heating. I suppose I agreed, in a way, that old materials would be removed by him, although we have not really discuss it but he could assume it but I did not expect them to be removed so quickly! I feel really cheated. We replace radiators and the boiler, so I thought that heating network could be renovated too as one big job. He advised to change heating network but to what extent this job was actually necessary? The last thing that I expected was replacing copper tubes by plastic. He refuses to put copper tubing.
 
In my opinion plastic is superior to copper for quite a few reasons, however, if his "quote" said copper then he should be fitting copper, also unless it's been agreed otherwise it's usual for the installer to take "all" the rubbish and scrap away, I take it he has a "Waste Carriers Licence" check with the Enviroment Agency.

If It says copper on the quote you want copper, end of.
 
Very simple he is taking the pish anyone who would normally fit plastic would not type copper by mistake.
plastic is for diyers refuse to pay till its done right and to the quote and if he gets arsey tell him you may claim for additional time off work to supervise him
 
dam rite he should have fitted copper if he had quoted for copper

nowt wrong with plastic but it dont half look shonky, my rules is copper where the punter can see it plastic where they cannot

:)
 
Thanks for your comments. The heating engineer says that the old copper tubes would not work with the new boiler so he had to replace them with plastic. However, that replacement was optional and we decided to go for it to make sure that everything would work perfectly. Is it true that the new boiler requires new plastic tubes?
 

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