Anonymous
I really do hope you are reading this before you are trying to navigate B&Qs shambolic complaints structure because you have been fooled into thinking they are able to fit that bathroom they have sold you and you are trapped by a finance agreement that started taking payment before the bathroom was even started... And if you are at the point of being enticed by their 0% finance deals, it would cost you less to get a loan and pay the interest as their fitting costs are extortionate and around double what you would pay a independent bathroom fitter. The fitters they use are not employed by B&Q and B&Q do not oversee the work whatsoever. If you have an issue with a contractor, in my experience, the issue is most likely going to be directed back at you so make sure have some fight in you. To set the scene: Bathroom was due to start beginning of January 2023 but I had a call the day it was due to start to say the fitter had been signed off due to injury. Next fitter kept delaying, hardly ever turned up, was rude, terrible job. B&Q Regional Manager agreed in March 2023 whole job needed redoing - this took until November 2023 to start. My concerns with this contractor were not taken seriously and I was told to let him finish. Only taken seriously when water started coming through the ceiling in the room below the bathroom and I emailed the CEO 70 times in one day. I will try and summarise 18 months of hell and the 600 pages of evidence I submitted to the Ombudsman. - Bath and taps not fitted properly (second attempt at this) so water was unknowingly running behind the bath until floor and ceiling reached saturation point and leaked into room below. - Discovered stud wall they built was not secured and was held in place by silicone which is not meant to be loadbearing (they had tried to secure a piece of wood with a screw not thick enough to go through said piece of wood...). If someone fell into the wall it would've moved. B&Q not fussed by the safety implications of this. - Only toilet in the house left leaking and unusable, hot and cold taps plumbed in the wrong way, shower plumbed in too low to comfortably shower under... - No protection used when filling and sanding walls (these were walls of new plasterboard that had been skimmed, but badly) so the bathroom, hallway, carpets, kitchen, including inside the cupboards of my small two bedroom home were filled with a thick layer of plaster and paint dust. - Thousands of pounds added to the bill, when contractors changed, over due to the first one apparently having taken incorrect measurements. - No heat proof mats used when welding so left floor scorched. - First contractor had a plasterer in before the old bathroom was removed and stopped replying to my messages when asked about this as the bath, toilet and sink were all moving locations. - Unable to live in my home as a direct result of their incompetence for over 6 months. - Only one bathroom in the house and no safe washing facilities in the house from January 2024 to April 2024. - Contractors lost my front door key. Twice. On another occasion left the door key under a pot on the doorstep (obviously without my permission). - Hundreds of hours spent chasing emails, sitting in store waiting for someone to speak to me, trying to get through on the phone, trying to reorganise meetings that they cancelled last minute. - Management staff are unable to deal with complaints in a constructive way. Combative and evasive attitudes. - Received emails meant for other people; one included all the details of someone else's kitchen that had been ruined. - Someone else's bathroom and kitchen were dumped out he front of my house. - Carpet stained by water from a plaster bucked, wooden floor scratched, light fitting broken. All of these were visible in photographs but were denied which was mind boggling. - Tiles not laid flat to the wall, discoloured/chipped tiles laid, tiles not cut the right size so gaps left, grout and silicone left smeared over tiles, white grout applied using dirty cloth so brown, holes in grout, spacers left sticking out of grout. - Multiple layers of wet paint applied over dirty walls so it then bubbled up. - Silicone looked like it had been done by a child. - Paint, filler, plaster left on the door and window frames. - Ceramic of new toilet chipped, new skirting board scuffed, drawer fronts of vanity unit damaged. - Recesses not built square. The list goes on. And on. And on. It has taken me over a year to get my money back to be able to get someone else to redo it. B&Q need to completely overhaul how they recruit and monitor contractors. They also need to be transparent with the complaints structure and staff need to be familiar with this and able to relay to customers what is within their remit. To finish on a good note, they did hang a mirrored cabinet and it didn't fall off the wall.
3 weeks ago
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