When you call Garvin's you get a cheerful bot who answers the phone with the catchphrase of "We…read moreclean out sewers, not bank accounts!"
Well.
My experience is ironic, then, yes?
I was recommended to contact Garvin's by Groundworks, a company that strives very hard to do an excellent job for their customers.
See, Groundworks had done some major uplifting of a broken basement wall, due to freezing, and they installed multiple steel I-beams to shore up the wall, then inserted epoxy into the cracks to finish the job.
"Lou," a tech told me. "Upon finishing the work, we did a survey of the rest of the house and found that there's some concerning settling at the front part of the home. The north end. You need to get a water intrusion company to check that out. We don't do that."
"Great," I sighed. "Who do you recommend?"
"Garvin's."
So, I called Garvin's, got the aforementioned bot with the promise not to clean out my bank account, and told the kind lady that I needed an expert in water intrusion. "Do you do that?"
"We do!" she said. "I can have a tech out tomorrow!"
"Um," I replied. "This is a long-standing issue. There aren't any pipes spurting water. It's not THAT urgent."
"No worries, would you like a tech tomorrow anyway?"
"That would be great!"
The tech arrived the next day and called me. "Mr. Berger, I looked in the crawl space and there is water there, but no plumbing. So I don't know what you want me to do."
"Oh," I said, taken aback. "I want you to find out where that water is coming from! That's why I hired you!"
"No," he insisted. "We are plumbers. We only work on pipes."
"Well, can you check with your supervisors? I was told, when I asked, that Garvin's does water intrusion detection."
"Sure. In the meantime, I did notice soft drywall on the ceiling basement, which is wet."
That was a slow leak when the not-often-used powder room on the first floor gets flushed. The leak was new to me, so when he asked me if he could cut into the drywall to determine the source, I agreed.
He called back while I was on a conference call, didn't leave any voicemails, and when I got a phone call from their office manager, I had just hung up with the conference call.
Long story short, the toilet needs a new wax ring and the shutoff valve for the toilet is old and no longer functional.
The quote was $850, but I could have a $100 coupon discount if I agreed.
"Send me the quote," I said. "That sounds a bit high to replace a wax ring, an intake valve, and the innards of the toilet tank. I could buy a new toilet entirely and replace it for that much."
They sent me a quote and then, here's the point of the review, billed me $661, which they immediately processed against my credit card.
What did they do? They poked a hole in sodden drywall, determined that a wax ring was needed, and repaired nothing.
This review is 2 stars because they have the legal right to bill me for the two hours that it took while the tech awaited the ability to talk to me.
The review is 2 stars because charging me $661 feels punitive in that I didn't meet the tech's expectation of availability and the company's willingness to, yes, clean out my bank account.
I don't want a refund. I want everybody to know how Garvin's treats people.
Like free bank accounts, withdrawal only.
