I scheduled my regular sewer maintenance of the main line out of my house. This routine was done on time every 6 months to break up roots found in the sewer pipe on 11/20/09. I've had a house full of guests at times and no problems by maintaining the roots. This past time on 4/3/13 the snaking did not cut the roots properly as sewage started to backup through my downstairs toilet and shower onto the floor. I called the company head, James, and explained that the maintenance did not work. He did not want to return and said he would return the cost in full by check. The cost was $125 just for the maintenance, a $30 increase from 6 months ago without notice to me till the job was done and I saw the invoice.
When they came for the maintenance, I had requested prior that I needed them to look at other plumbing problems and give a quote as to how to fix the problems and cost of repair. Prior to snaking he replaced without asking me or telling me the price, an outside hose faucet, as well as the water heater valve which had nothing wrong with it. He then decided the new problem was at the master bath handle. He left for quite a while to get equipment to find leaks and to find the bath handle part. He could not find the part yet when I went later on my own to the local plumbing store they had the part and it still was not the problem. If he had come back with the part he said it would be $250, so glad I did it myself! I was given a partial written quote on my invoice for finding a water leak, but not what the range of repair cost would be in total.
When I got the check for the sewer maintenance it was only for the cost of the valves, $58.73. I called to ask why when the issue was that the sewer maintenance did not work, and I'd have to pay someone else to snake now plus had raw sewage backing onto my bathroom floor. The woman on the phone was rude and just kept telling me they were there for 3 hours and they would not pay me back a penny more. I explained they had left, they did not have the proper equipment to hear leaks and it was not the issue, getting a quote. I was not even asking for the valve cost which was totally unnecessary. She asked me to call back because I had a bad phone connection. When I did, she just said forget it, we don't want to do business with you and you are not going to see a penny more, and hung up on me.
The main issue is the principle of not coming back to do a job that was not done properly, but also leaving me with a raw sewage backup. I'm low income, so this amount of money is huge for me, let alone having guests here and losing a bathroom because of sewage. I've had other contractors come to give quotes on the leakage issue and it took a while yet no charge and no complaining. Waterworks has no clue that treating a customer with respect and making good on a regular maintenance job could have given them more work. Instead they got angry.And I'm out the cost of the maintenance work and left with raw sewage coming up when a toilet flushes or a load of wash runs. read more