*********** and dishonest service

At the end of 2017 JJ Lourens Plumbers replaced my geyser as an insurance claim with Outsurance. I have had problems ever since.

I called on numerous occasions to say there was a problem as the water was taking very, very long to run hot in the shower – and in the middle of a drought! - which it should not have done, as the geyser is almost directly above the bathroom. When I turned off the water to shampoo my hair, by the time I turned it on again it was again freezing cold!

Every time someone came to have a look, I said I thought the geyser had been hooked up to the wrong pipe – the cold water pipe - but nobody listened. The first guy said it must be the thermostat - on a brand new geyser? - and that was duly replaced. This did not solve the problem. The next time someone came I again said I thought it had been attached to the wrong pipe, but was told there was nothing wrong at all and he just turned up the thermostat! Now, though the water took extremely long to run hot, when it did get hot, it was scalding hot and if I opened the cold tap very slightly, it was cold again!

Any time I needed hot water in the kitchen sink, or bathroom basins, because it took so long to run hot and so as not to waste water, I would boil a kettle to use.

I have not used my outside tap, as I have been using water from my rainwater tank. The tank ran dry a couple of weeks ago, so I had to use the outside tap again for the first time in years. It made a terrible noise when opened to more than a trickle, so I called someone to look at it. He needed to service the tap, so I switched off the water mains. While he was busy, hot water came gushing out of it! It was so hot, he couldn’t put his fingers in it! This water obviously came straight from the geyser!

When I contacted JJ Lourens plumbers, I was told to put in another claim with my insurance. Besides the fact that I have since changed insurers, no insurance company is going to pay for this! The person they sent to do the job was *********** and had no idea what he was doing. They refuse to do anything about this, or even admit that they are at fault!