Summary:
An inexperienced technician, followed by an…read moreaggressive technician, followed by an owner who ordered the wrong part and refused to fix the error until it was too late. I still have the original problem, plus a new leak and I'm $1,300 out of pocket. Not recommended.
Detail:
I hired 4 G's to replace the anode rod in our water heater to deal with a persistent sulfur smell.
The first technician didn't have the expertise to install a powered anode, which is the purpose built solution for this problem, and instead asked me to order a conventional rod from a supplier myself. We ordered it together on the phone. When the part arrived, 4Gs sent a different technician, who seemed more competent but was incredibly angry and aggressive from the moment he arrived (swearing, throwing parts around, ragefully hitting his tools, storming around etc). He later explained he was trying to leave town for a long weekend and hadn't expected to be sent to my job but the kid who was supposed to do it hadn't shown up for work. I understand his frustration but it was unprofessional to be so visibly angry in front of a paying customer.
Making matters worse, we discovered the supplier had shipped the wrong anode that was ordered with the first technician, so we called the supplier together to resolve it. During the call, the 4Gs technician decided he didn't trust the supplier to get it right and insisted 4 G's order the part directly. I agreed on one condition: the rod had to be zinc or zinc-aluminum, because that is the entire point of the exercise. He told me his boss had "100%" ordered the correct part. Given how many errors there had already been, I spoke with the owner myself, explained exactly what was needed, and texted him afterwards to confirm. He never replied to the text, but the technician assured me it had been handled. The same technician later returned and installed the rod.
A week on, the smell was still there and a leak had appeared. I called the office to confirm what had actually been installed: no answer. I called the technician: no answer. I texted him: no answer. Every call, voicemail and text over the next two weeks went ignored. So I held payment until someone would speak to me.
The invoice didn't arrive for another three months. 34 days after it finally reached me, they got in touch, and I explained I was happy to pay but needed to confirm the right part was in the tank. By their own documentation, it was a 100% aluminum rod. Not what the job required, and more importantly, not what I explicitly asked for.
Rather than offer to put it right, the owner produced one claim after another that none of this was their fault, against invoices, emails and texts that say otherwise. He had even recalled my zinc request himself on the phone when he called about his check. After many rounds of emails he did eventually agree to send someone out, by which point another contractor had already offered to sort it out for me, having heard the story and agreed it was unacceptable.
The work was billed in full and paid in full ($1300) because in a dispute like this I'd rather take the high road and keep uncompromised grounds to leave an honest and objective review warning others about how companies like this operate.
