Affordable Plumbing And Heating

I think there's a reason this guy is available at the drop of a hat -- I doubt he gets repeat business. He thinks customers should pay $85/hour for him to go to the store to buy basic tools of the trade (caulk). He would have left my FUNCTIONING sump pump system unassembled with the pit open had I not asked him to close it up and put it back together (problem was with the backup pump's battery but left the backup pump completely unpowered). He tried to convince me to buy a 24 volt charger for a 12-volt battery, which is a great way to have a battery explode. He doesn't carry a battery tester, and he thinks that a voltmeter is adequate to test a battery (it can show an obviously bad one but not one that's only got a bad cell or two). He charged his hourly rate for his time driving to my house as an after-the-fact trip charge, even though his answer to my inquiry of his rate structure was just a flat hourly rate for his work. And he acted like it was unusual for me to be surprised by that. I've been a homeowner for 10 years, buddy. I have no idea what his partner was doing, when I got home after my roommate let him in they were just sitting in the basement waiting and doing nothing. Not even cleaning up some of the mess they made getting into my sump pump (which was sealed with caulk). Not even doing a simple test to check if the sump pump would function with the floater put back into the correct position. They were racking up hours while they thought the responsible party wouldn't know (a roommate had let them in and surreptitiously told me to come supervise). I think he could just rip of some woman who wasn't foolish enough to let him talk her into replacing an entire sump pump system just because the backup's battery was on the fritz. The primary system's floater had just needed adjustment. What a total waste of my time and my money. I'll stick with Jim Long Plumbing, who I've used before and been happy with.