Had these guys recommended to us to come unclog a kitchen drain. He asked to come early but still…read morearrived an hour late, started ripping apart the drain without a bucket to catch the water and then laying the nasty dirty pipes on our 6' long woven kitchen mat, rather than a blanket, a paper towel or even the tile floor. The snake did not work and actually got stuck for awhile but that's because the pipes were very bad & could not be unclogged as it was legitimately bad 70 yr old galvanized pipes completely corroded and blocked.
So, after multiple methods & tries, I agreed that we needed to replace about 10' of old galvanized pipe with PVC and the basic older PVC drain components under the sink. Understandably, they could not come back until the following day since the scope of work had changed. The actual plumber (very nice guy, decent work, but VERY MESSY) scheduled his return for 8:30 the next day, and estimated 4 hrs of work for $1,100 + materials, tbd.
As we were left without a kitchen sink, since he got us in for the next morning & was recommended by a friend and fellow plumber, I agreed to the high labor estimate, knowing it there was a chance that it could take more than 4 hrs and signed for the labor, while my wife spent 2 hrs that night cleaning our kitchen mat from drain grease.
Next morning, I had to go to work so my wife took the day off. Midmorning, I'm getting texts from her asking for his number as no one had shown up and I had not heard anything. Again, over an hour late, but shows up and gets the job done in about 2.5 hrs. As he's leaving, he asks for almost $1,500. She says, ok, please just give me the break-down for the materials. He has to call the office, puts my wife on the phone with the brother who refuses to provide an itemized list of material costs. Plumber leaves, wife pays the agreed upon labor charge of $1,100 for 4 hrs that took 2.5, no questions asked. Wife says she will pay materials, even marked up materials, if she is given a breakdown (again, this was 10' of 2-1/2" PVC and a few fittings).
Mind you, I'm an Executive Construction Project Manager for nearly 20 yrs. I receive an email with a list of random items, no prices, including boxes of rags, latex gloves, boxes of glue, etc. I tell wife to get a real breakdown before settling after already paying the inflated labor cost.
My wife then receives a barrage of texts threatening escalation unless "agreed upon" material costs are not paid...but no materials were agreed upon and they refused to provide material details.
I get out of work and start receiving the same texts...for hundreds of dollars of materials that they refuse to itemize. On top of that, the mess left was insane and I later found he left a 6" piece of old nasty piping in the wall that I had opened up for them, stinking up the bsmt, dripping old grease down the walls.
Never again...talk about choosing their battles
Talk about choosing your battles...and knowing when to stop arguing with customers.
