I contacted Ali at drainhelp.com because I had gotten an estimate from another plumber who said they were going to charge $700 to fix a problem with my kitchen sink, and my husband and son and friends all thought that was very high. Ali said he didn't think there was a problem that should cost that much, even after I told him, that the first plumber said he would have to go under the house because the fixings were wrong.
Ali then did the work without giving an estimate. By the time he was done, he gave me a bill for $1985.00. He told me that $1200.00 was for the problem with the drain. The rest was for fixing a copper pipe that he discovered was leaking.
When I asked Ali to separate out the cost, I noted that he charged $500.00 more than the first plumber was going to charge. His claim was that the extra charge was for hydro-jetting the line. He said any other plumber would charge $700.00 just for the hydro-jet. There are several problems with this claim. #1. The first plumber was also going to hydro-jet, and the cost for that was included in his estimate. #2. Ali rebuilt the plumbing where the clog was, and took the clog away. Once the clog was taken away, there was no need for hydro-jet. I was told this by Dennis, the plumber that Ali hired to come in and fix the copper pipe.
I asked Dennis what he got paid to fix the copper pipe. He said he was paid $265. If $1200 was the amount that I paid for the drain, $785 is what I paid for the copper pipe. Even Dennis was appalled. The guy who did it got $265.00 and he who did nothing got $520.00. Dennis told me that Ali was doing this to a lot of people and he told me a lot of people are mad at him.
When Ali's other worker cut a hole to gain access to the pipes under the house, he didn't start from the ground up to avoid cutting away too much siding. The point was to cut away siding to get UNDER the house, where there was no actual wall. From a standing position, he reached out with an angle grinder and began cutting away siding from 42" above the ground. He cut off much more siding than he needed to, leaving a huge hole for my husband to fix. The neighbors all got a good laugh at that. They all said that had to be one stupid plumber. His worker also cut into the cement driveway with his angle grinder.
Ali told me that there was a lot of water under the house. He called Superdry. He said that they would get it all dried out underneath, and he said there would be no more leaks when he left, so that we could be assured everything would stay dry.
When my husband was fixing the siding and creating a hatch for access to the plumbing, he noticed water dripping. He first thought it was a leak from the pipes that Ali put in. He then saw that that there was a pipe that was entirely open and not attached to anything leading to a drain. In other words, not leaking, but water running freely from it. This pipe was directly in front of where the plumbers were working. My husband first thought that there was also a leak from the kitchen pipes that Ali had worked on, so we called Ali and asked him to fix it. Ali determined that water was only coming from the wide open pipe, so he did nothing. I asked him why he didn't tell us about the wide open pipe that was right in front of him and his response was that they came to fix the drain, and didn't see the pipe that was right in front of him. I reminded him that he also told us that there would be no more leaks under the house when he was done, and he just shrugged.
Our neighbors saw what happened and recommended a plumber to come and fix what Ali left behind. That plumber came to give us an estimate. He saw what Ali did and said he would have charged $400.00 to do the job that Ali had done, only he would have used pipes that were up to code. He said a plumber can lose their license for putting pipe that is not up to code and he told us we should call the contractors board. He said he would also have to charge $400.00 to fix it because he would not jeopardize his license by leaving 1 1/2" pipes where there should be 2" pipes. He said that it will back up on us again. He said he would connect the pipe that had been left wide open, which turned out to be the pipe for the laundry, to the pipe leading to the drain. He said, rightfully, Ali should fix it and that what he charged was overpriced, even if he had charged half. I told him that Ali doesn't care about any of that and wouldn't fix it. He told me that the contractors board would be sure to help me because they want to crack down on these crooks.
I tried again with Ali. I told him that another plumber told me that he should have used a 2" pipe to connect the work he did on the kitchen to the 3" drain pipe in order to keep to code. Ali told me that the entire house has 1 1/2" pipes, so he cannot connect a 2" lateral pipe to a 1 1/2" pipe because there is no way to do that without it leaking. It would appear that he is not familiar with combination fittings. read more