unhappy customer

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craigd

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I finished a job last week, 1 large living room' hallway stairs and landing, he paid me straight away but i got a call saying the painter cant paint on it coz its so bad.
i went over tonight and there was about 4 small trowel marks that were admittedly obvious and masses of pencel marks round the slightest marks, some of witch i really couldn't see anything at all, some were perhaps a water splash from the next wall witch could be wiped off by hand, i explained to the customer that even the texture of the roller would cover them, he said they were brushing every wall and each wall had to be polished like glass before it could be painted.
Please tell me straight if im wrong but this sounds crazy, ive be plastering for a while, and i've painted my own work so i know it comes up prefect with just a couple of of polishes.
The painter had got this guys son-in-law filling and sanding in the livingroom and im not joking there was more filler than plastered wall, i might as well have not bothered at all, a complete waist of this guys time, the painter had lined another room that didn't need it as well.
So i spent 45 minutes sanding and filling everything i could see including some of the invisable makes circled in pencel then told the customer that i thought it was fine and the painter dosnt have a clue and left.

What do i do if he calls me up again?

hes paid but can he try a small claims if be that unhappy? his bill came to £1150

i dont want to go back i could here his wife bad-mouthing me in the kitchen saying i should pay her son-in-law, and theres nothing wrong with it im sure.

be straight if you think im wrong?
 
If the painter can find holes to fill then your in the wrong buddy. If the wall was perfectly smooth there would be nowhere to put the filler.
 
See that's why you should change your number regular,
don't get this problem then :RpS_thumbsup:
 
Get a plaggy trowel and polish the fecker like glass so you can see your face in it.. That's what he wants int it? :RpS_thumbup:
 
yeah ok, we're talking pin size holls, normally would fill with paint but maybe i'll just have to start wetting it and polishing like crazy.
 
If they think youre in the wrong and you think you're right. Tell them to give it a mist coat first then look at it again together.
 
Any minor filling should be done after a mist coat as Steve has said, plus any decorator that says walls should be polished knows nothing about his own trade let alone ours.
Personally if I'd gone back and someone had already started filling before I'd had a chance to get there the I'd have just walked back out the door. But even when doing site work I check over the work for things I may have inadvertently missed before passing it over to the next trade, saving such situations as this.
 
Yeah by filling and sanding before you turned up they've stopped you from rectifying your work, if it needed doing. So like andy said id have walked.
 
They'd filled most of the livingroom compleatly, I couldn't even see any plaster on 1 wall! I've never had some one complain before I'm really anoyed but fair enough, I'll have to take a bit more time checking at the end.
 
You shouldn't really need to check at the end as you should be checking as you trowel. And in most cases there should be no hollows or misses after the first trowel. The rest should just be flattening and smoothing
 
I explain to customers before most jobs that plaster shouldn't be polished to a mirrored finish. I explained why and say I can do It if you want but dont come calling when your paint won't adhere.

Too many people use the term glass plasterer
 
LOL you will be getting a call saying its too polished and the paint is sitting on top and crazing. Sounds like the son in law has not got any work so the let him fill and sand and the painter doesnt want to pay him tell them to **** off if there was a problem the should of rang you before any filling was done you could of met the painter and went through it with him, bit late now so i wouldnt worry and i certainly wouldnt be giving them any money back.
 
I won't be giving them any money back coz I walked round with the customer at the end of the job and asked him if he was happy and he said yes, its only since this painter has been talking to him.he never asked for his money back, There's a painter I know who recomends me a lot and he's happy following my work, till now everyones been happy with me , so I don't feel like I'm robbing them.
 
You should point out the bit on the back of the bag, where it says trowel to a matt finish, shiney isnt a sign of a quality finish,
 
the lads a perfectionist had this happen to me once done a little bit of plastering round a door n it was fine and he starting blasting filler over left rite and centre went back to see how the job was going as the building was getting converted and a couldnt beleive what he had done he had actually made it worse leaving big lips between the filler and plaster looked a state but you cant please pple like that mate
 
That don't sound like a perfectionist to me.. sounds like someone with OCD who THINKS hes a perfectionist, Id call him a ****.
 
yeah ok, we're talking pin size holls, normally would fill with paint but maybe i'll just have to start wetting it and polishing like crazy.
Put it down to experience mate ,you will always meet a customer like this ,but not to often ,the painter is the one that has made a mountain out of a mole hill . After saying all that ,on a forum we all stick together,but no one has seen the plastering apart from you ,the customer and the painter. Move on tomorrow is another day :RpS_wink:
 
He ain't a engineer is he?
every engineer I've worked for know more about anything than any fuckwit on the earth
"I work to a trillionth of a MM not half a inch son"
Knobs
 
He ain't a engineer is he?
every engineer I've worked for know more about anything than any fuckwit on the earth
"I work to a trillionth of a MM not half a inch son"
Knobs

I use to work to a thou of an inch,now tho I work spot on :RpS_thumbsup:
 
Had one like this once, wouldn't pay up till we fixed our 'crap work' - one small fat mark that rubbed off and a small scab under a socket which filled in two minutes. The other mark they rabbited on about they couldn't even find. This was on a staircase wall that we had to finish scraping off woodchip they couldn't reach.
 
Customer put eleven(11 for you lot up north!) coats of paint on all the walls.
Wasnt my work by the way, that normally requires wood chip.


Wheres Minh gone?:RpS_unsure:
 
Twenty nine posts and not a single mention of a doorstep, you lot are slipping, and they're not.
 
I had a similar thing happen years back!

It was a 300 year old farmhouse & when I went to get my money the decorator was busy circling, filling & mumbling away.
The owner said he had been at it for 3 days & slagging me off .....

.... He also said he was going through a divorce & this house is warmer than his bedsit.
And as he wrote my cheque out said "he can take 'till easter but the c**t won't get more money" :RpS_thumbsup:
 
It's always difficult when a customer asks for a glass finish as we all know the paint won't stick. If he's not 100% happy then a return visit is necessary but don't leave until they say they are now 100% happy. If there are defects in your work it is your job to put it right, not pay it back !.
 
It happens to us all at some point , the thing is to not let it knock your confidence or doubt tout ability.

Experience is what you get when you dont get what you want !!!
 
I wouldnt let it bother you ive got aa bloke who called me at 11 at night to tell me his walls had blistered 1st i thought why couldnt u tell me this in the morning,but if that wasnt bad enough when i turned up the nxt day i asked his wife where???? she said behind the toilet and to top it all it was a tiny splash of plaster tw#t and then he phoned me today to skim his living room f##k that
 
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