M.J. Harris Domestic Repairs Avis 

This service provider demands an eye-watering £210 per hour along with a £42 call-out charge, which feels incredibly overpriced considering typical UK plumber rates range from £40 to £60 per hour. When I first contacted them for an urgent issue, I was assured same-day service, but they ended up arriving the following day, misrepresenting their schedule. On top of that, there was an excessive charge for parts, like a toilet pan connector priced at £34.95, easily available at Screwfix for just £9.99. I strongly advise steering clear of this company!

This company charges a massive £210 per hour + a £42 call out fee. This is totally extortionate given that the average hourly rate for a plumber in the UK is between £40 and £60!
When I initially phoned them, as it was urgent work they said they would be with me that day. They did not actually turn up until the next day. So they basically lied to me about their availability.
To cap it all off they overcharged me for parts. £34.95 for a toilet pan connector which you can get from screwfix for £9.99
PLEASE AVOID THIS COMPANY!!

I contacted your company at 8:33am on Thursday morning to request assistance with a broken toilet. We believed the entire system needed replacing, which was too big a job for us to handle ourselves. I explained that we had guests arriving for my son’s 18th birthday this weekend and asked specifically whether the job could be completed in time. I was assured that you could meet this timeline and that an engineer would call 30 minutes before arrival.

At 9:00am, I received a call asking to confirm my number and address because incorrect details had been passed to scheduling. I confirmed everything and was told it was sorted.

At 15:21, I was informed that the engineer would not be attending that day but would come the following morning. This was frustrating, but I accepted the new plan.

At 10:56 the next day, I received a call saying “your husband rang us,” and that the engineer would arrive after 12pm. I am not married, and my partner has been home with me all day. Again, it turned out you had the wrong details attached to the wrong customer. I was told you couldn’t confirm anything about my appointment.

A few minutes later, I received another call to apologise and was told that an engineer would arrive after 1pm.

Then at 15:10, I received yet another call saying no engineer would be coming today.

At this point, I was understandably frustrated. I was assured that you could help within my timeframe, but instead, I received conflicting information, multiple administrative errors, and ultimately no support. I am now left with no time to resolve this urgent issue before guests arrive.

We called this lot to help with a couple of small tap repairs. When the plumber announced it was £200 an hour, I nearly asked if that came with a gold-plated washer. We decided to stick to the absolute basics before the bill needed financing.

They advertise as local plumbers, but apparently “local” now means based in Bristol, with their registered office in Cardiff (Sophia House, 28 Cathedral Road, CF11 9LJ). That’s quite a commute for a dripping tap.

There’s also a 5% “pensioner discount,” which feels more like bait to draw older customers into what turns out to be a very expensive trap. They don’t take cash or cheques either — only card payments by phone, perhaps to make sure your money’s gone before you recover from the shock.

All in all, a stressful and overpriced experience for what should have been a simple job. Next time I’ll call someone genuinely local — and preferably under £200 an hour.

Excellent service, phoned yesterday late afternoon and came mid morning today.
Liam fixed the problems swiftly, turns out there were 2 separate drain blockages.
Very respectfully and polite tradesman.
Price as expected for his expert work.

***AVOID...SCAMS THE ELDERLY!!***
Came to unblock my 80 year old mums toilet. Took him one plunge with plunger and was there 15 minutes. Charged her £240!! Disgusting!!

I had a blocked drain and the young man was great. Arrived promptly and sorted it out. Thank you so much, great service.

We arranged for an engineer to visit us on 19 September to give our central heating/hot water boiler its annual service. We waited in all day but nobody turned up, despite promises on the phone that somebody would. Visit then re-arranged for 22, and again no one turned up. Visit rearranged for 26 with the same result. Today for the fourth time we were promised a visit but it was again cancelled. In the past M J Harris has proved reliable, but this year has been a disaster, wasting a huge amount of time and many useless phone calls. I will not use them again.

Provided an invoice for £147 to my 82 year old Mum and took £189 from her bank card. A lot of tradesman always looking to take advantage.

Never again.

I was given a quote of £1250 for a "full days work", to rectify a problem with waste building up regularly in the corner of our sewer trap. As this figure was similar to one given a couple of years ago by another company for a different drainage job, I reluctantly accepted that this was a kind of going-rate, and therefore it would be a very expensive job.

Today, on seeing the layout of the work, one of the workman seemed to think it could possibly be done in half a day / lunchtime, and explained their intended solution, which wouldn`t involve digging back to the downpipe. I was a bit more enthusiastic, thinking that I hopefully should have a half-day rate.

They arrived at 8.15am, and started not long after.

The work was done by 9.45am, and hour and a half. I was thinking that i`d have my fingers burnt if I had to pay for a half day, which would have been £625, but I did agree for the job to go ahead.

It wasn`t £625, but £950!!! That`s approx £633 for an hour, or if you like £10.55 per minute. Admittedly there was some cementing and five plastic connecting joints, and the work seems to have solved the problem.

Now hopefully the work done by the men will solve the problem long term, and so far so good. They were polite, tidied up, etc, and the star rating doesn`t reflect their workmanship. But the final figure given by their office was ridiculous.

The small print on the M.J.Harris Ts & Cs doesn`t show they agree to a half day rate if a full day isn`t required, but surely 90 mins work billed at £950 is pure greed.

I always pay my bills, and I did, but I was seriously caught out. I asked to have the Invoice emailed, but he said I couldn`t. I asked to pay by BACS, but no it had to be by card, there and then.

The Receipt did not have the address of the property where the work was carried out, the name of the person signing off the work, nor even a job reference number.

A request for reimbursement of the overpayment has been ignored.

Make up your own mind. Carefully.

The plumber sent out by the company said the problem with the hot water system was a faulty pump in the boiler and would call with a quote the next day. On viewing the reviews and ascertaining that the company was in administration I rang and cancelled any further work. A local plumber came out and said the pump was working perfectly and found the problem to be a tap letting air into the system. I was therefore saved a bill of approximately £300 to fix a problem that didn't exist

Came to fix a leaking pipe charging extortionate £450 for an OAP for 2 hours work, no invoice breakdown provided despite asking for one twice. Did they apply OAP discount as advertised?...doubtful. Caused significant damage to ceiling and flooring and broke the boiler for a 90 year old gentleman leaving him without hot water and heating. It required us contacting company to alert to boiler problem. The guy who did the work made a terrible hash of hole in ceiling. I think I could have done better! They did come back to fix bolier but I question the safety of this as have no trust or faith in this company. So now feel the need to arrange for a boiler engineer to come to check along with repairs to the ceiling - all adding to original extortionate pricing. Apparently they work from home, no office..is this legal? I note on other negative comments that they went into liquidation on 4th July therefore, how are they still operating? Also note other comments of extortionate pricing, including another older adult which is shameful behaviour. They promised to send me the invoice today after we again complained, again not received. Will be contacting Oftec to report. Found them in local trades magazine, trying to contact them to have them removed from it. Avoid at all cost.

The cost. £420 labour, he was here for 1.5 hours! Assumed when quoted the price that is would be a longer job.

If you have booked these people to carry out work please be advised that they have gone into administration on 4th July (although they seem to be continuing to trade under another variation of the same name). We chose them because they were very helpful before (see earlier review). Don’t think that having paid the assessment / call out fee and the agreement to undertake the work will mean you are safe you are not. My daughter booked these people on 23rd June and they went into liquidation on 4th July - can’t imagine they didn’t see that coming!!
In addition no one notified her of this and she only found out when they didn’t turn up. She called them and they informed her that they had no record of all the previous bookings (? Why) but that they were fully booked and would not be able to help until later in the week- this would be for another assessment of the work only with an additional fee. So it would seem that they have plenty of business but no commitment to their previous bookings. In preparation she has removed the old kitchen and exposed the existing pipe work as advised by the plumber who came to assess, she also has an electrician and plasterer booked ( luckily not through M J Harris) and taken holiday to be available while the work was carried out. Excellent consideration for your existing customers M J Harris!

National company pretending to be local. Prices quoted are about 3 x average. Rude. Avoid.

This is a national company pretending to be a local service. Whilst I do not doubt their engineers' abilities their charges are extortionate. I was quoted £420 +VAT for a straightforward boiler service (normally £90). Beware folks

Phoned at 8am for a simple leak repair. Promised someone would be with us before the end of the day. We called to check at 5pm and they were now unable to make it. If you can't do the job just say so.

They didn’t turn up on the day they said they were coming. Late that afternoon I got a call saying they would come the next day. I asked if they could provide a time and she said she would call me back. She didn’t. The following day I get a call from the engineer saying he would be with me that afternoon, to which I politely declined. The office then called me back and asked me why I declined and so I explained the aforementioned and the gentleman on the other end of the phone proceeded to become very abusive using foul language and then hung up.

We had water spilling out from under our block paved driveway this morning, by 11 oclock I'd had a call saying they would be there within 30 minutes. By midday the blocked drain was resolved. Everyone I interacted with was really friendly. Recommendations given but no hard sales. Just really easy to deal with.

Had blocked and leaking waste pipe. Charged £42 call out fee and £210 to flush pipe. Did not fix problem. Told would need plumber to come and assess and this would be another £42 call out fee. Very sharp practices and very rude man on phone.