I needed to remove some old cast iron boilers, steam piping, and cast iron radiators from my…read morebuilding. I had some competing bids, but thought to call a recycling company to see if they could get some benefit from all of the metals I planned to unload. Joshua Recycling ultimately gave the best price for the job, although there were a few hiccups.
Chuck from Joshua recycling quoted the job without ever visiting, so I assume that removing the boilers is fairly standard work for them. The first time the team forgot that Chuck had scheduled the job, so I was just sitting at home like stood up prom date. We cleared that up, and the company agreed to discount my job slightly to make up for my lost time.
The second problem is my fault: as a new home owner, I never knew to call a plumber to disconnect the boilers. The team came out once, and could not do much of any thing that day, so I agreed to deposit $200 with Joshua toward the final completion of the job, and to call them back the next week. They also reneged on the discount that we had agreed upon, because this time I had wasted their time, so we were about even at this point.
So call them back the next week I did. Once the plumber disconnected the boilers, I asked when they could come to pick them up. They were on site literally the next day, upcoming Christmas be damned. The team did fantastic work. They worked hard all day to remove every trace of cast iron pipe in my building. If it was attached, and related to these steam boilers, they took it. They yanked. They cut. They sawed, and carried off these heavy radiators, and pipes into their truck. They took a sledgehammer to break up the different components of the boilers, because they were that old, and tough, but these guys are tougher. I checked the building afterward, and the only thing left were the holes where the steam pipes used to come into the rooms, and I gladly patched those up.
My issue is mainly with Joshua, who directs the teams. I had an experience with a different contractor where we disagreed on the price, but we never wrote any thing down, so I chose to pay rather to devolve into he said, she said. This turned into a similar situation, only this time I was absolutely sure of how much I agreed to pay for this job, because we negotiated it very clearly the first time the team visited. Joshua insisted that my payment for the first visit was a payment, not a deposit, and that was very definitely not what I agreed to.
I was much firmer about not being upsold this time, and he seemed very frustrated when we hung up. However I am not in the habit of ripping off small businesses, and I still would like to work with Joshua Recycling again, so I had a change of heart about paying the additional $200. But this time I could not get him to answer my calls to confirm his business address so that I could mail a check. I still want to do it too, although I have not heard from him yet.
So there it is. The team is great. There can be some confusion in pricing, and scheduling, but this is still not a bad company to work with. As always, I recommend that you get as much as you can in writing, and do as much preparation for the job as you can in advance.
