We had a bathroom fitted with wickes in July 2021. Ever since we’ve had non stop issues with the toilet blocking. We had an independent plumber come out a few times to unblock it however in November we called them back out again however this time it did not work and instead the pressure of plunger burst the pipe causing water to pour through ceiling into our brand new kitchen (fitted in 2022). 
The plumber put his camera down into the pipe to view the problem and find out why it wouldn’t unblock. The problem was waste had built up at the end of the pipe over the year as the waste pipe had zero gradient so waste did not run down the pipe after flushing. He could tell us this was the problem within two minutes of looking at the pipe.

We’ve contacted wickes to resolve the issue the same day on 4th November 2022. We were told they’d contact the installation customer care team and get back to us. We got a one sentence forwarded reply. ‘Nothing we can do’.

After chasing this for a while to understand how they could make this decision without actually speaking to us directly, we got a forwarded reply stating as they did not fit the waste pipe it was not their problem. 

Three reasons why this is very much wickes problem:

1. We never had an issue with the pipe prior to our new bathroom being installed. Our new toilet sits lower than our previous one therefore this change in pipe gradient even if small should have been known to ‘expert’ installers (especially given a plumber noticed it in 2 mins and the installers were here for 2 weeks)

2. Wickes states on their website ‘wickes approved installers are on hand to ensure all the technical aspects of your project are fully considered and discussed’ ALL and FULLY. This INCLUDES the waste pipe which no they did not install but yes they make changes to and connected one of their products to as part of installation. They state themselves they have the expertise which should allow them point out if by fitting the toilet it would cause issues later due to lack of gradient in pipe. No reasonable consumer would know this to point it out to an installer. If we did we’d all be installing bathrooms ourselves. 

3. The Consumer Rights Act applies to services, including bathroom installation. It says a trader must perform the service with reasonable care and skill. With bathroom installation consumers rely on traders (e.g. wickes) and their installers skill and expertise to advise that the installation will work as expected. Fitting a product you supplied knowing full well it won’t function as expected long term because you’ve failed to provide crucial advice about the fitting is mis-selling plain and simple, whether the problem is with the product you supplied or what you connected it to. 

We rang customer services in December to challenge the lack of satisfactory response. They asked us to email them videos the plumber had taken from inside the pipe and they’d look into and get back to us (we spoke to Dalton). 1 month later no response.

After month of waiting we rang to make a complaint and said the words ‘I would like to make a complaint’. No complaint logged. Promised a response by the Friday 20th January, no response. 

Good news is 3 months has passed on Monday and I get to contact the ombudsmen instead, hopefully they actually care about people, because wickes don’t.