well, here's what happened...I picked them because of the reviews I found online, and I have had issues with plumbers showing up to inspect the work and then not coming back.
On the plus side, they showed up when they said they would and did the work. On the minus, well, read on...
They charge a $69 "inspection" fee, which they told me about on the phone, but the guy took about 6 minutes to "inspect" so that's about $600/hour. Then they give you a "simple" pricing option. I chose the middle-of-the-road option which was supposedly warrantied for 90 days. It cost me $142 to have a slow drain cleaned and he took maybe 20 minutes to do that. At the end of it, with other repair work he did, I paid almost $400 and he wasn't even in my house for 2 hours.
Then, about 3 weeks later, my sink started running slowly again, so I phoned them and they came out. At least this time they didn't charge me the "inspection" fee. But instead, he concludes that - oh no! this isn't the same clog, even though it's the same sink and same drain, and all the other drains in the house are working, just like the last time. no no no...it's a DIFFERENT clog and it's going to cost me $112 to fix this one Not, "oops, I guess I didn't push the clog far enough through for the almost $400/hour you spent a few weeks ago" nope. this is a totally different clog...($400/hour based on $142 flat rate and about 20 minutes of his time)
So a warranty with them appears to be totally meaningless.
Anyway, it's the only interaction I've had with them, and based on this, it's the only interaction I ever will have with them.
Update:
You can see the company response below. They did get in touch and they did stand behind their warranty and mailed me back my cheque for the second visit. That was quite a surprise, because "service" is generally a 4-letter word in this town.
And, yes, they did tell me about the $69 fee ahead of time. I said so in the comments above. That still doesn't change the fact that, for me, it worked out to about $600/hour. Maybe it takes them a lot longer than 6 minutes on other jobs. I don't know what their goal is with this, but in my opinion, it would work much better as a minimum charge, so if you decide not to do the work, they get paid for their time to do the inspection and make recommendations, but if you go ahead and spend hundreds of dollars, you're not spending hundreds + $69.
Anyway, if you're a potential customer reading this, from my experience I can say they take customer service seriously.
In more detail, here's what happened:
- I got a clog. I tried snaking it and was unsuccessful.
- I tried unthreading the plastic pipe from the stack to get a better feed with the snake, It was an old cast-iron fitting and I managed to crack the plastic piece, so I called for a plumber.
- the plumber removed the plastic and put a new fitting on but couldn't get it to seal on the cast iron, so he had to replace the cast iron fitting with plastic.
- I was charged the inspection fee, plus a flat rate for the drain clean (which I opted for instead of the hourly amount), plus a flat charge per fitting on the pieces they replaced. It added up to the numbers I mention above, just below $400.
Anyway, readers can decide if they want to pay more to have a company that seems to be concerned about customer service, or pay less for someone who may show up and then disappear, which has happened to me before.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $500.00
- Company Response
First and foremost, we would like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to be a service provider for you! We are very sorry to hear that you are not happy with the service we provided and appreciate any and all feedback from our clients. We also would like to apologize for any mis-understanding you had in regards to the "inspection fee". The "inspection fee" that you mention is actually a service fee that we have and is collected on all plumbing calls, it is also always mentioned to our clients on the initial phone call to ensure that they aren't surprised with an extra charge while the service technician is on site and by mentioning this before we come out to the call, it gives the client the opportunity to decline our service (if they don't agree with the service charge) before the call gets booked. When we are onsite, we always assess the plumbing concern before any work is done and provide options. There were lower priced options that were available but we cannot dictate what the client will choose. When the option is chosen by the client, the final investment is authorized by our client before any work is started, this also provides the opportunity for our clients to decline our service at that time if they feel the investment isn't in their budget. We can't predict how long any given task will take but we can re-assure our clients that once the investment is chosen, they are safeguarded against it changing in the event that the technician takes longer than expected. We have looked at the most recent invoice and feel that the charge for coming back was an oversight on the technicians behalf and you will not be charged for that visit. The option you chose does have a 91 day warranty for the drain blockage and a 1 year warranty for the plumbing repair so we will make sure that we stand behind it! Our manager will also be calling you to explain the oversight and offer our apologies for this. We hope that you can accept this apology from us and that we can be of service to you again in the future. Your business is truly appreciated!