I have been an SSI customer for about 10 years and have been very pleased and satisfied with their HVAC maintenance and service on my HVAC system. Every technician was outstanding and still is, and most latest one was Clint. Outstanding job and performance and very professional and clear communication and expectations set.
This review is on their Plumbing Service, which is rated 1-star. I had the same expectations as their HVAC service, but unfortunately that expectation did not match up to par with everything. It was also my FIRST and LAST in using their plumbing services. Here is why. I paid for a plumbing maintenance agreement like my HVAC maintenance agreement. What set this apart is basically being pulled in to get involved in the service, rather than be left alone to do my work like the HVAC technicians normally do. Joshua asked me to show him each room that needs plumbing inspection and had to stay because he would call me back again in my home office after inspecting a room, then asking me to lead him to another room. In summary, there were 9 areas that required inspection. When he did find something, such as a slow drain, whining noise when toilet tank is filling, faucet leaks, etc--he does a quick estimate of about $220 for each potential repair. Accordingly, I asked him to proceed in repairing a leak in the master bathtub pluming fixture located on the 2nd floor. It was a Moen product, about 13 years old, and he asked me if I have an instruction manual. Fortunately, I did have an instruction manual to replace the Moen cartridge for the faucet, since I previously replaced it in the past. Note that my home builder who installed all my plumbing fixtures do not provide the customer with instruction manuals for plumbing. Then I went into my office. Joshua called me and said that he needs me to turn off the main water valve down the basement. Had to leave my work to oblige his request. After several minutes, I went upstairs to see his progress. He said that he was having a difficult time removing the faucet cartridge and that it appears to be stuck. I gave him a tool that I purchased from Moen to remove the cartridge nut that holds the faucet cartridge in and went downstairs again to continue with my work. Again, after several minutes, I went upstairs and he said that the cartridge was completely stuck and that I would need to replace the entire bathtub plumbing fixture--and he called Moen to order the parts. After he called Moen, he asked me that I will need to contact my "tile guy" because all the tiles surrounding the bathtub will need to be torn down so he could replace and install the new plumbing fixture. That caught me by surprised because he did not say anything about demolishing my tiles in order to do this work. Also, because he kept pulling on the cartridge out and reassembled the handles, lever, and control, there were more leaks coming out from the spout than before. I told him that I did not expect to spend over $2K that started with a small leak on the spout and said that I will have to live with that leak--although worse than it was before.
As he was closing out the service ticket, he said that he will charge me about $100 for labor, for spending the time trying to fix the leak--that he never fixed. I got upset and called his manager, Todd, and expressed my extreme disappointment for the entire service. At first, Todd was defending that his plumbers have the right to ask the customer for the instruction manuals due to the various new brands and products in the market and I told Todd that my plumbing fixtures are over 10 years old and that my expectations are that his plumbers should know more about the various brands and products that are older than 5 years old, if not 10 years old. Also that Joshua did not communicate that he would be charging me for the incomplete repair service, because Joshua indicated he assumed that the customer should already know that. Also, I told Todd that I had previously replaced this same cartridge twice and have not had any problems removing them, since Joshua told Todd that the cartridges have not been replaced in 12 years and therefore were stuck. Todd eventually said that he will not charge me for this service, although his expression was not in full agreement.
Today, I attempted to repair the leak since it was leaking more than before. I was able to remove the cartridge easily and replaced the cartridge and stopped the leak. I believe the reason why Joshua could not remove the cartridge is because he did not remove the cartridge nut that was holding down the cartridge. That was the reason I gave him the Moen tool which was the cartridge nut remover. Therefore, even with the instruction manual, it was pretty useless because Joshua did not read it so that he would know that there was a cartridge nut holding down the cartridge in order to remove the cartridge. read more