Poor workmanship and customer service

<p>At the start of 2016, I commissioned Grand Impressions to upgrade my en-suite shower. There were two principal objectives:</p> <p><br />1) Rectify the visible dampness on the outside of the shower wall.</p> <p>2) Replace the sliding shower door with a new hinged glass door.</p> <p>During the upgrade, Grand Impressions took the decision to lower the shower floor by a few centimetres. They fitted damp-proofing and re-tiled the shower to a height of approximately 0.5 metres. </p> <p><br />Cosmetically, the upgrade seemed acceptable. However, a problem was immediately apparent when using the shower: the run-off had been incorrectly calculated leading to pooling on the shower floor and flooding of the en-suite.</p> <p>Grand Impressions were notified of this problem. Suspecting a blockage, they attempted to use a plunger to clear the suspected blockage. They also added caustic soda to the shower drain. Neither of these approaches remedied the situation.</p> <p><br />Grand Impressions then claimed it was a blockage in the external pipe. In response, we contacted another plumber who immediately identified the root cause of the problem: insufficient run-off angle of the shower drain pipe.</p> <p>We conveyed this diagnosis to Grand Impressions who were now becoming increasingly difficult to contact - they no longer responded to phone calls and rarely responded to emails.</p> <p>By this time, the dampness on the outside of the shower wall was reappearing. </p> <p>After almost 12 months of trying to reason with Grand Impressions, I asked my son to contact them. They responded to his first email, claiming to "never walked away from a issue". However, on asking them to commit to correcting the problems, they stopped responding to my son's communications.</p> <p>I am an elderly widow of almost 80 years. This entire episode has been extremely stressful and has shaken my trust in human nature in general, and the proprietor of Grand Impressions, a Mr Martin Minnaar in particular.</p>