Huttie Group Reviews 16

Over 4 weeks for a simple 1 hour fix. The office staff were absolutely terrible. Never rang back or sent an email when promised. Had to call multiple times to chase them up at every step.
Engineers were good, but completely let down by an incompetent office team.
Avoid at all costs

Huttie has been our plumber for some years and until recently has proven most reliable.
So when we noticed that water was running through pipes even at night when everything was switched off, I contacted their office with the confidence that the matter would be speedily investigated and resolved.
It was not.

It took seventeen days and repeated pleas to the office for help in order to get the initial problem addressed; replacement of valves on the water tank. Unfortunately an unsupervised and inexperienced plumber did the work, the valves were not properly fitted and the trainee made no checks to ensure that this was the only problem. That evening we had to switch off the mains water because it was welling up through the kitchen floor. We also switched off the heating as we were not sure where the problem was. The next day I managed to speak to a young man in the office who was very helpful and made sure that the plumber who had changed the valves was booked in to investigate. He attended but was overwhelmed by the task. He spent hours trying to dig up a patch of floor of about 80cms square.. broke a screw driver in the process, was deeply discouraged, went off to try and find a more suitable digging tool. And then once he had located a hole, he really struggled with fixing it. At one point he was considering calling it a day and leaving us with no water over the weekend but fortunately I managed to convince him that this would not be the right thing to do. He eventually managed to attach the new section of pipe needed to fix the leak and left around 6pm, having been with us all day. If he had had mentoring or another plumber had attended with the correct tools and experience, this would have been resolved in a couple of hours. Eleven days later there was another leak from the water tank. The original confident and capable plumber attended and very swiftly diagnosed that the problem was with the original fitting of the valves and also swiftly tightened them.

So we had a long delay followed by four visits and a total of around 12 hours on-site, where one call-out, plus one speedily arranged follow-up of probably at most say six hours would have done the job; the valves needed replacing, the pipe work investigating, a small section of floor dug up in a timely manner and the pipe fixing with confidence. Because the leak was neglected for so long the kitchen flooring is now in a poor state of repair.

I attempted to raise all of these issues with James Huttie the CEO, simply to ask him to provide better supervision to some of the office staff, better mentoring for trainee plumbers and to review the invoice the office had sent which billed us for the hours which were due to lack of oversight of the young plumber. I had no satisfactory answer at all; the CEO singularly failed to provide any review of what had happened and provided no revision of the bill. I do not like owing money so after literally months of trying and failing to get a decent resolution of the matter we paid the full amount, which was extortionate.

The whole experience was extremely stressful and also distressing because of our previously good experiences with the firm. The recent rapid expansion of the business and the lack of willingness on the part of the CEO to manage what is happening means that the service is currently dramatically hit and miss, lacking in managerial oversight .

I have given two stars; one for the decent office staff member and another for the decent experienced plumber. In future we will be using a different firm.

Sincerely,

Karen Rodgers

**************

Terrible company, ongoing made up invoices I had to have changed , tried to charge me for sending plumber back that didn't put boiler back together properly charges when told no charge
Then fraudulently took payment out of my bank account no authorisation or speaking with me , not even a 1 star

Huttie were fantastic when doing our bathroom. Every person we interacted with was warm, friendly, reliable and knowledgeable. Any issues that came up during the work were quickly resolved with skill. They sourced all we needed and extra! We really noticed how they were prepared to go the extra mile to make the job as quality as possible. Would completely recommend them and would use them again.

I used Huttie to redo my bathroom. They were fantastic throughout. Tim who was managing the project did a great job of getting everything organized and kept everything running smoothly. The tradespeople did a fantastic job, even with my house with old crumbling walls and out of date plumbing. They made sure to do an incredibly professional job to the highest standard, and even though the job turned out to be a bit more complex than we thought, they saw it through till the end and delivered a brilliant result. I always felt completely confident in all the staff I worked with and knew I was in safe hands.

Thanks so much to the team at Huttie!

My experience of Huttie over the past 12 months has been excellent.

What's not to like? The telephone system which seems to me clumsy. As for everything else very helpful people. They are charming and enjoyable to meet. They have responded very quickly to any problems. Top marks from me!

Have been using Huttie for well over a decade. Not the cheapest but always flexible and reliable with excellent customer service and consistent quality

Central heating boiler stopped Thursday night. All fixed for a reasonable price Friday lunchtime. Responsive clever people.

Very professional, responsive and carried out the works required well. I would use Huttie again.

Always there for emergency pipe leaks. Used Huttie a few times and have received fast assistance and great fixes. They do charge high but you expect that from a professional plumber. I am just grateful for a fast, reliable fix. Chaps that have visited here have been so helpful, friendly and exceptional plumbers. Highly recommended Huttie. Disappointed and surprised to see bad reviews on here, but I guess most people only leave reviews when they've had bad experiences. More need to leave reviews when they've received great service. Give Huttie a go, they've been fab every time.

The company is just interested in swindling money without fulfilling the jobs. They charge the hefty call-out charge in addition to the service charge, so careful about it. The problem wasn't solved but visit after visit collected money. lost over 500 GBP, not a single issue has been resolved.

I was awarded a green homes grant from the government and contacted this company to carry out the work, at first they were constantly ringing or emailing but then it went silent for weeks, I tried several times to contact them, sending them a email saying how displeased I was, eventually they got in touch and a man came round to survey the house and work out where and how solar thermal panels would be fitted.
The only reason this review has 2 stars is because the man that came round was extremely pleasant and friendly and very knowledgeable about the work that needed to be carried out, after he went it became a waiting game again and eventually someone from Huttie emailed me and said it wasn’t worth me having solar panels, I mean like what the…I contacted the gov green homes grant and they were as surprised as me that they would say that, I sent a email back basically saying I had a 100% grant so I wanted the work doing, they eventually responded and set a date, they contacted me again and changed the date, this happened 3 times, the last date they gave me was for 18th oct which they cancelled a few days before and my gov voucher expired on 30th oct so they basically strung me along up to the point where my voucher would expire and I couldn’t even use anyone else, I’ve never felt so let down by a company and I recommend people avoid this unreliable incompetent company

Huttie group I choose to put solar thermal after multiple delays finally where going to install on 11 October cancelled the Job I lost time and money and they did not keep us on loop worst company to deal with I called the owner James no answer or apology

Very disappointed! I was quoted for a job then hutties added a callout charge at the point of invoice. This callout charge was not disclosed at the beginning and “apparently” for a first inspection of the job that the engineer came out for but carried no equipment for and couldn’t do anything to fix at the time. We then waited 2 weeks on hutties coming back to fix the problem. They then left our toilet with a massive leak because the engineer didn’t put the correct seal on the base (again wrong equipment). The engineer then came back a third time and fixed it correctly. I cannot recommend hutties as the quality of the engineers you get is not consistent and you get charged for the fact that they don’t carry the right parts.

I recently arranged for them to visit my 91 year old mother to check on her boiler/thermostat controls and ensure they were correctly set. The call out fee included 30 mins labour which I reasonably thought adequate to complete this basic task. The guy spent 2.5 hour at the premises and charged my mother £200 cash for the experience. My subsequent enquiry was answered by the telephonist with ... “it’s a complicated system” - yeah right, economy 7 in a block of flats!! My formal lodging of a complaint with the company has gone without any response at all!! Ripping off elderly people ... AVOID