Expensive and Disappointing Billing Practices and Inconsistent Quality of Work.
Durfee Plumbing has done several jobs for us in the past year but because we experienced problems the last two visits, I needed to change my review from 4 stars to 2 stars. The most troubling problem occurred in May 2023 when they replaced a pipe that broke inside a wall, when they were fixing a bathroom sink. When they fixed the pipe in the wall, they had to move the gas stove to access the wall from the other side. We were away from the house for two weeks and when we came back and went to turn on the gas to the stove, we noticed new plumbers tape around the pipe valve for turning on the gas. We had not been aware that they had done anything with the gas pipe to the stove. When I turned on the gas valve, there was a loud hissing and strong smell of gas that clearly was a result of what Durfee Plumbing had done. Since it was a Sunday, we had to call the National Grid emergency phone line, who came out right away to inspect the gas leak. National Grid issued an official warning to not turn on the gas to the stove until it was repaired. If I had tried to light the gas pilot for the oven or stove top, and I had not turned off the gas immediately when I smelled gas from the gas valve, I could have been killed or injured if the gas leak had exploded. To Durfee Plumbing's credit, they did come out two days later to fix the gas pipe leak, and did not charge us for that.
Though the gas leak caused by their work was the most serious concern related to quality of their work, there were minor issues two other times, like not attaching the bathroom pedestal sink securely, and not adjusting the kitchen faucet properly so that it rotated equally to the left and right in the sink area. In both cases, I checked their work and got them to make the corrections before they left.
My second major concern is that Durfee Plumbing has become way too expensive in their billing practices and they have moved away from being transparent in how they bill.. Yesterday (early August), they charged us $736 to install a new kitchen faucet, which was definitely more expensive than it should have been especially since we were charged for two plumbers to be on the job, when it was a one person job. One plumber did 95 percent of the work, and the other plumber spent most of the time in the truck. It is wrong for them to routinely send out two plumbers for each job, which leads to almost double the labor fee. The plumber who did the work, Tyler, who was very personable, explained that they no longer provide a detailed invoice, but rather a "flat fee" for the whole job. This meant no explanation of how much the new faucet cost, and how much they were charging for labor. I told him this was unacceptable so at my request, he looked up the price of the new faucet ( $170 for a Jolt Pull Out Kitchen Faucet.) He explained that the labor charge was $225 per hour for two plumbers on the job site, so a total of $450 for two hours. Phil, the owner, set the total bill at $736 which means he added an extra charge of $116 to the bill above and beyond the price of the labor and the new faucet.
Finally, Durfee Plumbing could improve their communication around scheduling. Yesterday, the plumber was scheduled to arrive in the afternoon between 1 and 5 pm, but ended up showing up at 9:45 in the morning.
Does Durfee Plumbing sometimes do quality work? Yes, but they charge too much for each job and sometimes they don't double check everything carefully, like the potential gas leak they caused, the loose pedestal sink, and the adjustment of the new kitchen sink faucet. Their new policy to charge a flat fee for a job with no breakdown explanation of parts and labor is not fair to customers. They should go back to issuing a detailed invoice like most service companies do, and like they used to do in the past.
Durfee Plumbing needs to do much better in several areas before I'd consider them a great choice for a plumbing company. I'll be looking for a more reasonably priced plumber in the future. read more