If Thomas E. Clark Plumbing can get you in a situational corner, they'll take you to the cleaners. They charged us at a rate of at least $877 per hour. They might also walk off with your property like they did ours.
For same-day service of (1) a leaking faucet-sprayer hose and (2) a clogged drain, they charged us $1,509. They said they didn't have the right fitting for a new hose, so the only solution was to replace the entire faucet for $999. They said it would take days to find the right fitting, leaving our tenants without a working kitchen sink for who knows how many days. That was the situational corner they got us in. While the leak stopped if the faucet was off, a good landlord needs to keep their tenant's utilities working. Unscrupulous contractors know that and will exploit it.
According to HomeGuide, you can expect to pay "about $125 to $170 per hour when you need emergency plumbing services." For 1.5 hours of work, Clark Plumbing charged us $1,509. Given that the awful faucet they installed to fix a hose leak retails for $193, their rate was at least $877 per hour!
On top of that, the Clark plumber walked off with our higher-end kitchen faucet that he removed. According to him and our tenant, its only defect was that its replaceable hose sprung a leak. He never asked if he could take our faucet, and not being on site ourselves, we were not able to notice and stop him. I'd have assumed that, like other contractors, he'd leave any of our property he worked on, or ask if we wanted it to be disposed of. Instead, on his own volition he decided our property was at his discretion.
That work was done on a Saturday evening (Dec 21), and I called within 24 hours asking them to return the faucet. I was told they disposed of it. However, given that the county dump was closed the entire time and that Sunday trash collection is unlikely, it seems improbable that it could have been irrevocably disposed of. Moreover, it's impossible to believe a plumber would not be aware that he was walking off with a perfectly good higher-end contemporary faucet that only needed a new hose. My second call back on Sunday, asking how they could have irrevocably disposed of it on the weekend was not returned.
Thomas E. Clark Plumbing are bandits with a wrench who ripped us off in every way they could. read more