What can you do if you have someone do work at your house and after the event (and he's been paid), you discover that some of the work has been done wrong.

I've contacted him and he makes excuses saying it's not his fault and he's not prepared to do anything about it.

They're not big enough mistakes to warrant me ringing building control or anything like that, but they're enough of a problem that has caused us to have to pay to replace a few things he's installed. He won't refund us any money to compensate for what we've replaced, which although isn't a huge amount (£100 ish) but we paid him £5,500 to do the work (bathroom revamp).
We thought he was so genuine when he was giving us the whole garb saying "I look after my customers even after the job's finished as I'm a small business and I can't afford to have negative reviews".
Not sure if I should simply move on and put it down to experience or keep hassling him? It's really annoying when you put your trust in someone and they f**k up

Ok, as no one else replied... I would not let the matter rest. He would make things better as he would not have a choice.

I would hound him to complete the work to your satisfaction.If he refuses- I would tell the World who he is as a warning to others.

Hope you resolve the situation.

Yes I would be with Rude on this, but would warn him of your intention to name and shame him. Tell him the Internet is a powerful tool. Good luck.

Agree with other posters, don't let him away with it. May only(?) be £100ish but he needs to be shown that he cannot just get away with it. Another lesson is only pay the final amount when you have had a proper chance to check the work. Not always easy I know but even a couple of days helps.

Thomas Higgins letter costs £2.50 normally does the job.
Procedure: you work out how much it will cost to rectify work .
Send contractor a letter in the form of an invoice advising him that he owes you XX and give him 7 days to respond otherwise you will instruct a solictor.
After 8 days contact Thomas Higgins.

* Please Do not Name and Shame on the Forums.
If anyone wants to know the contractor then Private message the topic starter.

My Advise would be to photograph all the faults.
Log Conversations / Telephone calls.

Lots of photos, receipts and a small claim made against him.

To play the "Devil's Advocate"

You say after the work is done, then you have paid.

Surely you inspected the work and workmanship before handing over the final payment.

If you did not give him a snag sheet, or list of faults then I suppose the matter is closed as you have accepted closing the contract.

On the other hand, since it a dispute over a little amount it would be a lot easier for him to settle or a least pay 50% or more as a good faith offer rather than having an unhappy customer.

He forgot to do it, you missed it on inspection, ask for 50%, then case closed everyone happy

Nomad

The things he did are not first world problems, more irritating than anything really. One of the examples is, the bath panel didn't fit properly and so he had to trim some off the bottom, after which it still didn't fit properly. It was almost wedged in, so much so that it creaked and squeaked when you so much as walked passed the bath. Anyway, we realized that he'd cut it when we had someone come to put flooring down (he didn't do the floor which was agreed before the job began) There is no way that the panel will fit once the floor is down. We rang him and he admitted that the panel was not correct and he agreed to pay for a new one. We ordered it, and once it arrived we sent him the bill. He then responded that he's had second thoughts, and it wasn't his fault after all, but instead it was our floor that was not level! (Our word against his that he said he'd buy a new one)
The next thing was, having had the bath and washbasin swapped from one side of the bathroom to the other, he plumbed the bath taps from the original washbasin source and then plumbed the washbasin with the old bath tap source. We have since learned that this means the cold water that originally fed the bath (now feeding washbasin) is not drinkable as it comes from the header tank. If we had a combi it wouldn't be an issue, but we don't. He said when told of this "I've never heard of that before, I do it like that all the time".
Anyway, if we were to get him to change the water supply, it would mean we'd have to get him to remove the tiles and cause even more disruption and to be honest, I no longer trust him to do the job right.
I know that word of mouth is the best way to kick him where it hurts so that hopefully he gets no more jobs, but it's unlikely that he will give our name as a reference to anyone now.

Anyway, thanks for all your answers... it just pisses me off a lot that you expect people to do a good job when they come into your house, and then leave you with more headaches once they've left

Yes, we inspected the work as best we could before we paid him. The bath panel came to light about a week later when we were to have the flooring laid.
Then, we only found out about the tap water source after mentioning it briefly to a plumber who was chatting with hubby while doing a job for our next door neighbour and my husband just happened to say the pressure was not as good as we'd hoped in the bath since we had it done. So plumber man came to have a quick look and that's when it was discovered.

Not quite sure I get the water bit? Surely the cold water supply for both bath and wash basin came from the mains? The header tank only refills the hot water cylinder or should do?

You are potentially drinking/using contaminated water which should only be for heating otherwise!

Maybe trading standards can help? Small claims if not and when you win, get the sheriffs on to him if he doesn't pay.

This guy obviously doesn't have a clue and should be named and shamed before he causes serious illness or death, although I understand why he shouldn't be named on here.

Simple diagram showing inlet pipes for hot and cold water etc.
The inlet pipe supplies the bath and sink, so no need to swop pipes.

I'm not too well up on the workings of water supply and stuff like that. All we were told by the real plumber was that it shouldn't have been plumbed that way. It's ok for the bath water to come from the tank (both hot and cold) but the cold to the washbasin should come from the mains so you can drink it. It's not illegal apparently, my husband did ring building standards and they confirmed that although it's not really advisable, it's not against the law. The problem MAY arise if the water has been left standing for any length of time, such as being away on holiday. I suppose in that instance we will just have to run it for some time to refill the tank with fresh.
As I said, it's been a complete mess since we started and I wish we'd just left it the way it was

Sounds like he is not very competent but is within the law.
See here
http://dwi.defra.gov.uk/consumers/advice-leaflets/tanks.pdf

As for blaming an uneven floor for the panel not to fit, quite inexplicable for a tradesman(?).

If you turn the cock stop off where it comes into the house, you can then check your bathroom taps. If the cold water in the bathroom stops running almost straight away you have safe water direct from the mains.

I can sympathize . I too am sick of people who call themselves tradesmen , either not turning up, or turning up and making a hash of things.
I agree with the others above , and I reckon if you mention your bad experience to a milkman ,window cleaner, a hairdresser. a friendly taxi driver and the local publican, you'll go a fair way to getting the message around that he's rubbish!

How did you get on?

We did that when it was discovered that the water was not coming from the mains. We turned it off at the mains, and the cold water into the washbasin kept on running. It's coming from the header tank.

As I said, we had the bath and washbasin swapped over from one side of the bathroom to the other. If we had kept it the same way, it wouldn't have been an issue. He didn't source the water to the wb correctly.

It's a very interesting read that, Salmon. Thanks for finding it