Plumbing companies.

[Highpower]

I finished cobbling an adapter together. It's a bit crude but I was trying to keep it simple. I bought a solid rubber laboratory stopper and hollowed out about 1/3 of the large end. Bored two small holes through from the small end of the stopper and inserted a couple pieces of brass tube for attaching the plastic tubing. It's a little clunky having to hold it by hand against my meter's sensor port while the calibration routine runs, but it works. Good battery - check. Good calibration - check. Good to go again.  

   

[Highpower]

(09-28-2024, 04:56 PM)Highpower Wrote:

(09-28-2024, 09:41 AM)rubes Wrote: Man...that's out of control!! Sorry for you.
I dread the day (i know its coming sooner than I would like) that I cant do that kind of stuff for myself.
I have to assume you had an estimate? and that you shopped around. or was that a surprise bill?

<--------------snip------------------->

After two weeks of not having hot water I had to submit to plumbing company #3 to get it done. Well almost. I still need to get my chimney liner replaced since it has rotted through as well. Which means yet another company i have to deal with. The good news is the chimney company can also replace the drier vent hood the plumbers broke outside while moving in/out the water heaters. (Which they never mentioned.) The wife found it after they left.  

I looked up the cost of the water heater they installed. It retails for $1000 - $1200. The rest is for not a lot of copper pipe, fittings and 3 hours of labor.  

The suck just keeps on coming.  

We had the chimney company come out that the plumbing company recommended to us to have our chimney liner replaced. We had an aluminum liner installed back when we had our furnace replaced. That liner rotted out WAY too soon. The sales rep came out and gave us an estimate of $1600 to replace it. I asked what kind of liner it was and he said aluminum. I told him no, and that I wanted a stainless steel liner instead. He made up another estimate for the stainless and then quoted us $2794  

I told him I'm not going to do aluminum again so just go ahead and do the stainless liner instead. Eventually they came out and did the job. We paid them in full and they left. The next day I had my wife go downstairs and take pictures of their work so I could get a look at it. And what did I see? They put in another ALUMINUM liner! They were counting on an old phart like me to not know the difference and they could pocket the extra $1200.        

I called the office and gave them an earful. Told them I wanted the money back for the difference and they said they would refund a difference of $900. Over my dead body says I. I just put the State Attorney General's office on my speed dial. They just left the house a little while ago after tearing out the basement wall for the second time and installing a STAINLESS liner this time.

My blood is still boiling...

[EdK]

That truly sucks!  

I bet that happens a lot and they normally don't get caught.

Ed

[Highpower]

(10-25-2024, 01:25 PM)EdK Wrote: That truly sucks!  

I bet that happens a lot and they normally don't get caught.

Ed

I agree. The funny thing is they didn't even try to deny it. They just tried to low ball me on a refund immediately. That tells me that they are probably marking up their material cost by 300% since they chose to completely re-do the job rather than give me any of my money back. The only invoice I have gotten from them only shows the original total amount quoted. No itemized list of materials used, labor and sales tax. This scumbag company doesn't want to leave any paper trail. All I have to show that they were even here is the two checks that I wrote them. The crew that was here today told me I would receive another invoice with pictures of the work they did. If I don't get it or get another 'blank' invoice, I'll be filing a complaint with the Consumer Protection Division of the AG's office after all. The Better Business Bureau is useless. The AG's office on the other hand can prosecute for consumer fraud.