Tornado Plumbing & Drains

As you read Tornado’s response, do you honestly think we wanted half a leak fixed that was damaging our home. Tornado was responsible for troubleshooting all sources of leakage, not just the one they found. The second leak was obvious, they just chose not to put the effort in to find it. Once we found in on our own, they wanted to charge for a full second visit. This is unfair business practice. Shame on Tornado. Half honest and half a job!

We agreed to pay $200.00 for Tornado to come troubleshoot a bath tub leak that was dripping onto the drywall ceiling below. The deal was that if we agreed to move forward with the repair, then the troubleshooting cost would be waived (which it was). Our assumption throughout the entire process was that the troubleshooting would include all sources of leakage (otherwise their would be no point in bringing in a professional).

The technician found a leak in the drain elbow and concluded that this was the source. I was skeptical because the drip was so small compared to the volume of water that was dripping onto the ceiling. We agreed to pay $250 +tax for the repair (which we did on the same day assuming that the technician correctly identified all sources). The technician offered to replace the other plastic pipes at a higher cost, but because he did not prove that they were leaking, we elected to not replace them for no reason.

The next day the leak came back (in high volume). This time we did the troubleshooting ourselves and discovered that there was no seal/gasket installed at the tub's overfill. We found the second leak by filling the tub and having someone splash water around. With the splashes, we noticed some water getting into the overflow. I am not a plumber, but we found the second problem/leak in about 5 minutes (picture attached).

This meant that there were actually 2 sources of leakage. The technician only identified 1 source.

The technician did ask if we had recently overfilled the tub. We answered no because the tub has never been overfilled. The technician did not ask if we think water may have been inadvertently splashed into the overflow. Our opinion is that the technician was responsible for checking the overflow himself (which he chose not to). The overflow is part of the same simple circuit.

Anyhow, we reported the problem back to Tornado fully expecting them to offer to come back at a fair price. They informed us that it would be another $200 +tax to send a technician to fix the second leak (that should have been found the first time as part of the troubleshooting).

We believe this to be unfair as it would have cost substantially less to do the repair the same day without a second visit.

Our tenants, who were also present during the entire troubleshooting process, also felt that the troubleshooting was inadequate and suggested that we ask for our money back.

Neither us nor our tenants can understand why Tornado feel the job was completed properly when the complete circuit was not properly inspected. The complete circuit really on comprised of a few feet of pipe.

We chose Tornado because it seemed to have good reviews. We could have paid less. Now I regret not paying less because it probably would have got fixed properly the first time. Our second choice was a Holmes endorsed plumber. I am not sure why we didn't use them, because we had a great experience using them a few years ago.

I don't think it is unreasonable to expect a plumber to check for all potential sources of leakage (because there always could be more than 1 source). Having Tornado basically tell us that we would have to pay for another service call to fix the second leak is unfair and not reasonable business practice. We were willing to pay more, but certainly not for a full visit. We are not the one that missed the second leak.

Anyhow, buyer beware. Even highly recommended companies have bad days.

I know Tornado will respond with all kinds of excuses, just like the aggressive ones that I received by text, but at the end of the day, they were responsible for finding all the sources of leakage in the simple circuit (even if there were multiple sources). I know Tornado feels that they were only obligated to find 1 leak, but we are really not sure how they consider this proper and/or complete troubleshooting.

Tornado, please remember that we agreed to pay for proper troubleshooting, you were the ones that waived the charge if we went with the repair. The question Tornado needs to answer is, who in the world would hire a professional to fix half a leakage problem.