A quick post containing photographic evidence of the state that Dyno-Rod left my house after a failed attempt to unblock my drains. I wouldn’t have put them in public view, except for the fact that Dyno-Rod’s customer services e-mail has a size limit that means I can’t e-mail them. Yes, that’s human waste on the rug.
Gareth Halfacree
"Work hard, have fun, enjoy."
My Book
"I'm constantly reading tech manuals. This book is above and beyond ANY tech manual I have ever read! It is readable, understandable and a fine companion for the Pi."
"I have been using computer manuals for 40 years and this is one of the best I have ever read."
"All I was looking for is combined in this fantastic book."
"I bought this book on my Kindle and it has transformed my understanding of the Pi."
"A brilliant book to help you out with your Pi."
"This book is a must have and works very well on my Kindle - thank you so much for writing it."
I have lodged 4 complaints over the last month via the Dyno rod website concerning their visit to my house where they failed to cure a blocked drain. Despite auto replies telling me how important I am to them!
Has anyone got any idea how to get a response?
Pingback: Tweets that mention Dyno-Rod Complaint | Gareth Halfacree -- Topsy.com
These people are a complete disgrace. They came to us to deal with a drain blocked by tree roots, couldn’t deal with re-connecting the drain from outside and proceeded to hack into the stack pipe in downstairs toilet leaving mess and effluent all over the walls and carpet apparently never having heard of putting protective covering down, absolutely disgusting. Entire room needed refurbishing.
Called out Dyno Rod to look at a blocked drain in Oxford, the guy was rude and arrogant and when I told him he promised me he was not trying to be rude. Spent 20 minutes filling his truck with water from my tap to clear my drain, then told me I had a collapsed sewer and went off with almost £100.
They wanted £150 to do a cctv survey and report for my insurer.
I called out another company to do the cctv survey, they unblocked the drain and did a cctv check to make sure everything was ok. The problem was grease and Dyno Rod in Oxford are not only rude but they are also incompetent.
I contacted Dyno Rod via my Scottish Gas cover. After almost 2 weeks of trying to get a quote by chasing the engineer directly – they told me that it would cost over £1000 to replace a shower valve. The engineer said that this was due to the huge mark up that Dyno Rod charge on parts (£250 in this instance). They said they could talk off £400 of the price if I did it cash in hand. I’d not recommend anyone use this company and if you have it as part of your Scottish cover remove it as it barely covers for anything in any case. When I called to query the £250 mark up with Dyno Rod directly I spoke to quite a rude and defensive man. My experience with this company has been dismal.
Who would you recommend if not Dynorod – we have blocked drain
Had Dynarod come out as part of my Britsih Gas Homecare cover. Needless to say, I will remove that part of the cover, because if I ever did have a real emergency, the last people I would want to rely on our DynaRod.
Main problems are the engineers do not show up when supposed to; no-one notifies you when engineers aren’t coming; their call centre has poor record keeping of visits and ultimately, the work they do is substandard.
Dynorod were sent by my insurance company e-sure after undercutting another quote to replace a collapsed section of drain which ran directly under my back wall, the other company had quoted aopprox £4000 to knock down/rebuild wall as in their opinion it would be badly weakened during the drain repairs however Dynorod came out and quoted £3600 saying that the wall would not be affected, the work was done by Dynorod (in about four hours) and approx 2-3 days later we had strong winds and the wall started to wobble like a mexican wave it is now so unsafe that my 4yr old daughter and my dog are not allowed into our yard also my motorbike has been relocated as the wall is ten foot high and two courses thick, a real killer if it comes down and it backs straight onto a public footpath, after numerous phonecalls to the manager of Dynorod who by the way was the person who inspected the wall before the job i still have a very dangerous wall he has now turned abusive and refuses to even speak to me and is instead contacting my insurance company behind my back trying to convince them that the problem is due to wear and tear, no disclaimer was signed before the work but this does not appear to matter to Dynorod, to make matters worse E-sure are siding with Dynorod.
I worked for a dyno franchise (most are franchises), I would love to know which office Lorraine spoke to.
In my opinion some of the engineers are superb, some are dire, some are given a couple of weeks training and expected to know everything. The method of passing jobs to engineers can be appalling, with long delays and then giving a long list over a large area.
Some of the customers I had to visit have been furious, one lady in tears, at the way they had been spoken to by my so called managers. All in all I am so glad to be out of it, I’m not scared of hard work but having to work 33 hours out of 36, after working all week plus overtime and two evenings on call is enough for anyone with an iota of common sense.
As I say, some of the lads and lasses are superb at the job, it is a pity that they will be branded the same as other ignorant, uncaring and rude workers and indeed managers.
@Peter Ritchie
Posted February 25, 2011 at 3:00 PM
Who would you recommend if not Dynorod – we have blocked drain
We live in Manchester and used The Manchester Drain Company 0161 403 0312. Cant remember what the cost was, it was nowhere near £100. That was 8 months ago and still the drain is running clear. But I guess as their business name suggests they only cover Manchester, we live in Altrincham.
Dyno rod plumber came to inspect why my shower was not working properly. He suggested that the cartridge needs changing. He said it was no more than 1 hour job. So i agreed and bought the cartridge. The plumber came took 2 hours but could not open the valve to change the cartridge. H
We called Dyno Rod out from Irvine in North Ayrshire on Sunday 6th November but they wanted double time so they came out today Monday. We had a slow draining loo in our restaurant and thought we had a serious blockage in the system.
Out they came, walked around with rods in hand, asked us to run water in loos and sinks, announced it was all clear in the drains outside and told us they don’t clear toilet pans and that we had to have the pan taken out first! So walked off waiting for us to get a plumber to remove the pan! Did NOT even attempt to plunge it or anything!
In disbelief, my daughter then went in with a plunger an hour ago, and after 40 mins graft, cleared the blockage herself and all is running OK.
If they think we are going to pay them £80 for their so-called 15yrs experience against a housewife’s hard graft”, they have another think coming.
I have had dyno rod out to my property 4 times now and still they have not cleared my drain. I have spoke to a lady at the Enfield branch (not helpful at all) and stated that their engineer told me that it was a two man job. I thgen called to make another appointment for the next day. I then get a call the next day saying that they aren’t coming as they did not have a two man team available, and she knew nothing of needing a two man job. After speaking to her again she was not willing to help in any way of form. Now been three days without sink, bath, shower, basin as the waste is blocked. I pay £30 something pound a month for my homecare agreement and find myself having to go to get a decent drain blckage company to sort out the problem.
I WOULD NEVER RECOMMEND ANYONE TO USE DYNO ROD.
I have had a leak from my bath for well over a year, it has rotted my floor boards, caused a massive crack in my kitchen ceiling, leaked onto my electric cooker which is now starting to seize up, leaked down onto electric sockets endless times causing damage to my toaster, kettle, microwave and other random items.
I have lost count of the number of times I have called dyno-rod out to repair this leak as they are the contractors with my British Gas Homecare agreement and still nothing has been sorted.
I personally think dyno rod would do well to sack all their engineers and employ monkeys as it would be a lot cheaper and have no effect on their customer service levels, it may even result in a decrease in complaints.
Not only is the Dyno Rod company horrible at fixing things (it took them 6 weeks to order the wrong part), their technician actually attacked me when I told him I wasn’t happy with the service! I ended up calling the police! When I contacted the company to complain, they said the police advised them not to talk to me and then hung up on me. I asked the police about this and they said they did no such thing. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!!!!!!!!
Judging by those pictures- my first concern would be, why are they push fit joints, any decent plumber/drainage engineer knows that internal joints should be solvent weld.
But what i am led to believe is- that it is not a part of the modern apprentiship anymore to teach drainage installation, and i’m fairly certain that these quick 6 week train-to be a competent plumber, don’t either.
Most drainage companies are family run. Dynorod is probably no different, the people who answer the call are most likely in that role because they’re daddy’s girl or related in some way to the boss. in other words they dont care about any problems that come through because regardless they most likely wont get fired. and its always beneficial to them if you keep having to call them out, it means more money for them dont it.
DynoRod are worse than useless. We had a leaking toilet and it took 5 visits over 1 week for a Dynorod plumber with the capacity to fix the problem to turn up. Complaining is a waste of time. Their phones are manned by half wits.
Anyway, as I have British Gas Homecare I had no option (under the contract) to use them again, Could they be any worse? Yes!
This time it was for a leaking tap (that needed replacing). Plumber from Dynorod turned up and part repaired the leak. He than stated the tap was a separate job that would need further booking. This was done and a time/date arranged. Have then been? No. Called the half wits at the call center and once I’d managed to explain the situation in the most simple of terms, they agreed to send the plumber out today. Did the plumber turn up? No. Called call center again and the half wits state there is/was no record of the request! Now arranged a local plumber to attend.
Make your own mid up if you are going to use these buffoons to do any pluming in your home (If they ever turn up, that is).
I’ve worked for Dyno rod franchise sj environmental services based in Cardiff they are a complete joke they want to rip customers off and they don’t care bout nothing apart from there selfs I wouldn’t reccomend this franchise to no one hopefully Steve burt wil lose the sa and cf postcode
I worked for dyno-rod glasgow from jan 2007 to july 2011. I must disagree with the comments about the staff. The work force work hard are polite and clear up behind them we went through training both on drain clearing and plumbing,customer care and respect of customer property. Also i note that some of you state that some engineers required a second man, this can happen ie: working below floors or up on roofs,or working on ladders this is for both you and the engineers saftey.Unfortunatley like all public sector employes dealing with the public, tempers can be lost on both sides and unfortunatley some engineers show little respect for the customer , in my time with dyno-rod in these cases i found that our supervisor and manager dealt with these problems most effectivley and to customer satisfaction. I can only hope that other managers can take action like this in the future. Its not the company that is bad its just every now and then you will always find one in every company.
I worked for one of this company,s franchise on a sub contractor basis a few years back . Half my time was spent trouble shooting, or repairing their own so called plumbers work .Their own work force struggled to carry out the simplest off plumbing repairs and if they didn,t like a job it was passed to me .I carried out over 500 repairs for them over a four month period with only one recall. Their telephone staff and management would never answer my calls and some of them lacked manners and decorum. When I complained to the management about my calls not getting answered it fell on deaf ears . On the day my father passed away I was contacted by management to tell me my services were no longer required . I can’t speak about any other franchises , but the one I had dealings with was a total joke .
Called peterborough Dyno rod because stack pipe blocked and asked them to rod it. ‘Engineer’ thought he knew better and used plunger in full lavatory pan with such force he ‘blew’ connection then tried to blame my new bathroom plumbing. I told him to leave and called in plumbers whooriginally put in my bathroom and they cleared it , replaced loo and cleaned up . I have bills for nearly a £!000 for cleaning my brand new carpet, repainting ceilings and walls ,
replacing broken sink plug + plumbing. Dyno Rod initially said they would pay and were very polite. I sent copies of the bills a month ago . Guess what Silence.
DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY
We called dynorod for a drain blockage and had an appointment for Monday. As they could not provide a specific time, it was a “all day” appointment. For this reason I had to take a day off from work. The person I spoke to specifically said he would try to make sure the appointment would be in the morning, but couldn’t promise. Fair enough. They sent no confirmation e-mail whatsoever. At 3pm on Monday I called and the person I spoke to said the engineer had come at 11:10, knocked, found nobody and left a “sorry we missed you” card. I had been the whole day in the property. they offered an appointment for the day after and I asked them to come on Wednesday morning. I asked for a confirmation e-mail which – fianlly – arrived.
my partner had to take the morning off. When they arrived they came with the “not going to do this” attitude: they looked at the overflowing inlet and said the manhole wasn’t there, so they could do nothing. When my partner asked where he could find it they didn’t bother lookign around and simply said they could not help.
I called to ask for an explanation and was told I would be called back asap. Asap was over an hour later. The person I talked to said my partner had been abusive and had trapped the engineer in. My partner simply closed (not locked) the door as we have a dog and we don’t want her to go out. He also said my partner had slammed the door on their feet and I honestly don’t believe it. He suggested we seeked help elsewhere. I asked for a mail for filing a complain and he gave me his personal e-mail. I see any complain just binned straight away.
What I am most shocked about is that they are the company british gas refers to for drain blockages. This will definitely affect my choice of british gas as my energy as well as maintenange agreement provider, as such level of service is simply not acceptable.
I am a dyno rod engineer and cannot believe what i have read, all of our franchises employees have many years experiance and have to be courtious and as helpfull as posible to all of our customers. Complaints are taken extremley serious and customers are called within 48 hours for a satisfaction survey. We work very hard to keep our scores up and if we drop on marks the franchise owner is repremanded and may lose his franchise. If you called our team i can guarantee you will be impressed. Sorry about spelling etc , i proudly work for dyno rod and love the job i have been doing for the last ninteen years.
I called out Dyno-Rod to survey my drains using cctv as part of a legal case against my neighbour for blocking our shared sewer with concrete! The footage showed clearly where the blockage was and with whom the responsibility lay (neighbour) however just before my court case an employee from Dyno-Rod whom I’d never met or seen before, stated that my drains were defective and leaking sewerage into my garden. It was also claimed that Dyno-Rod had been to my property several times between 2005-2012. These statements were blatant lies and were proved so in my court case, which I won! The worrying thing is that an employee deliberately lied to assist my neighbour and was backed up by his manager at the Belfast Company which serves all of Northern Ireland. Dyno-Rod has lost all credibility with me and I wouldn’t have them on my property under any circumstances. it’s to the detriment of the public when a company gets the monopoly of a market. In my case it proved to be very stressful and very worrying that a liar’s account of events was believed until proven false. Dyno-Rod has no credibility in my opinion and I wouldn’t trust them to do any work for me ever!
in response to tim.
I was the engineer that met you on site. if I recall the conversation properly you told me that your “handyman” had tried plunging the toilet . at no point did I say “we don’t clear pans” I asked you to have the pan removed so I could run a electro mechanical snake through the line to clear the blockage properly (had the pan not been silicone sealed to the floor I would have removed it myself). and finally I never made any request for payment from yourselves. I have been a engineer with dyno rod for 24 years now (which I am very proud of).
in that time you could count the number of compaints I have had with one hand .so I feel I must be doing something right.
just goes to show you cant please everyone.
very sorry I had to comment on this folks but feel that the comment made was not the full story.
Had a shower fitted in September 12, and there was a problem with the water flow, due to the height of the tank. The fitter called twice, and said it was an air lock, I called the manufacturer of the shower who told me I need to have as head swittch fitted.
Now December, I am no nearer getting this fitted, I ring and, told I will be called back, and it never happens. In short, don’t even consider using them. The whole outfit are a waste of time.
words fail me in describing how badly we have been ripped off by this company… over charging… dragging out time… overstating use of chemicals etc… and therefore the cost.
DynoRod came out to fix a broken outside water pipe – fixed it OK, now we have no water from our taps. Made me create a new call reporting the ‘fault’ which I did. They sent out a drain unblocker instead of a plumber. Now they say it will be another 48 hours before they can send a plumber.
Needless to say I do not recommend them and I’ll be cancelling that insurance policy.