Bette Bath Slip-up!
In Nov 2010, we received a call from Garry McDonald, a plumber in Edinburgh, Scotland.
He was working on a property in the village of Gullane . Gullane is situated just down the coast from Edinburgh and is a well-known golfing area.
The property was near completion and it would then be a luxury short-let for people wishing to come to Gullane on golfing breaks.
Two baths had been ordered from Bette in Germany, one in the shape of a letter “p”, the other a “q”. Bette Baths can be supplied with a non slip or anti slip surface on part of the base of the bath. The baths should have been specified as being non-slip, but this was overlooked on the order.
When the baths arrived at Gullane, it was realized they were not non-slip. And as it was going to be a rental property, there was no way these baths could be fitted due to health and safety requirements.
Garry went back to Bette to see about getting two more baths sent, but non-slip this time. Unfortunately it would take at least 3 weeks to get the baths made and sent over to him – much too long!
Next he tried Bath resurfacing companies, bath repair companies etc around him who could apply a non-slip surface to the Bette baths he had. He didn’t have any luck there at all. No one in Scotland or England seemed to be able to do the job for him.
Eventually he called us. We said we could help and could do the work in our workshop at which point Garry breathed a huge sigh of relief. Our workshop is in South East England. Ideal for London-based company’s or individuals based in the South East. A bit of a trip for Garry though. We did have a courier company who could bring the baths down to our workshop so we set about organizing this for Garry.
But due to how close the house was to completion the courier company couldn’t get the baths down and back quickly enough for Garry to ensure he completed on time for his client.
In the end Garry himself drove the baths down in his van!
He drove down, stayed in a hotel close by and delivered the baths to the workshop in the morning. Then he drove to Gatwick, parked the van up and flew back to Scotland.
We were quite impressed at the lengths Garry was willing to go to to get the job done and done correctly for his client.
The work was done on the baths, taking the non-slip coating up the side of the bath by an inch, as specified by Garry.
Once the baths were finished, Garry flew down, got his van and picked up the baths and drove back to Gullane with them.
He still didn’t know at this point whether the Architect on the job would accept the baths or not, and the architect may have demanded that the baths would only be acceptable with a finish applied by the manufacturer. So then Garry would have went to quite a lot of expense and it might still have been a complete waste of time and effort and money.
After a couple of weeks we gave Garry a call to see how things had gone.
It turned out the architect had been more than happy with the non-slip finish. The architect thought the baths looked even better the originals Bette supplied would have looked! The baths had been installed! The Job was completed by Garry and the house got its first guests!
You can visit Garry at www.gpmcdonaldplumbingandheating.co.uk.
