ComplaintsforCOHO Concrete Pumping Ltd

• Initial Complaint

  01/12/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I made arrangements with Coho Concrete Pumping for them to provide a boom pump to pump 30 yards of concrete on Saturday November 26 2022 at my jobsite on Saturna Island. They sent a boom pump truck via ferry to the site, but the pump did not work. Meanwhile, we had 3 trucks onsite, with 30 yards of concrete slowly curing in the trucks. Coho failed to provide the service they had promised to provide, and most of the concrete went to waste. It is solely Coho's fault that the concrete went to waste; a very expensive mistake. I told the owner of the company that Coho would have to pay for the wasted concrete, but he refused. They have not contacted me further other than to try to invoice me for the pump services they did not provide!

  Business response

  19/12/2022

  The customer is doing a construction project on Saturna Islands, a very remote location as far as providing construction services go. Ordinarily during a construction project, if mechanical equipment fails for any reason; it could be something as common as battery going flat, a flat tire, or even a broken felt belt; the solution for that would be to either send a mechanic to fix the issue, or send replacement equipment to finish the job, or both.  This is what we would have done in this case were it possible.
  
  Saturna Island is so remote from Victoria due infrequent, and long ferry commute times that is not possible to respond to any equipment issue in a reason time frame. This is the risk of such a location; we call this site/or location risk, Location risk is born by the customer; that’s why its significantly more costly to build on an a remote island.
  
  We less than $200 for the service that we were supposed to provide on that day; for that we have the risk that if we have a problem that requires our trucks to get towed back to Victoria for any reason, we stand to lose a lot of money. We =cannot accept, and have never accepted the responsibility that a job on such a remote location should fail we are on the hook to pay for concrete provided by some other company, for which we don’t even have a say on cost, quantity, etc….. The concrete supplier, just us, also takes on some risk for accepting a job on a remote location.
  
  On the day that this happened, we offered to send another concrete pump, but it would have arrived at site so late, that everyone would have been stranded over night, due to the return ferry schedule.
  We think its unreasonable, for anyone to expect the concrete pump company to guarantee that a pour on a remote location of this kind will go without a problem, and that if a problem should arise that not only do we not get paid for our tie, fuel, and travel cost, but that we also pay for concrete provided by some other company. Our remedy for mechanical failure is limited to timely fixing the mechanical issue, or providing replacement equipment, if the location allows.  ..

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