Plumbing Service

After I discovered a leak in the main water line to our house, I contacted Service Pro. I was pleased by the initial conversation with the owner, as he gave me a comfort level that I think is important when dealing with this type of service provider. He explained that the business was family owned (father and son), and he had been in Castaic, CA for 17 years. This pleased me, not only because I prefer to conduct business that supports the local community, but also because I had hoped that I could find a plumber that I could use in the future and feel comfortable referring to my friends and neighbors.

His son showed up on time at 8:00 am, as previously discussed, and explained that the project would take "most of the day." The contract quote for the project was a minimum of $900, not to exceed $1,300. While I am not an expert at plumbing, I figured a crew working for most of the day would warrant that type of rate.

The scope of the work turned out to be 4 hours, only one person with a shovel, with a considerable amount of time (estimate 45 min.) spent sitting in his truck and talking on the phone.

When we learned that the job was basically finished after 3 hours (hole still needed to be filled and mud hosed down), we figured that at a minimum, we would get charged the $900 minimum. But I must admit that we also had hoped that they would come down in price further since clearly, the job was much less of a project than had been explained in the morning; I was lead to believe that this would be a sizable project.

I was suprised to learn that the cost for the 4 hours of labor would be $1,000; there was no significant cost to materials, since they only used PVC. Since I had originally spoken with the father, I decided to give him a call to discuss the cost. I left a message with their answering service, but did not receive a return call. My wife learned from his son that he got the message, but was "unavailable".

When his son asked why I called, she said that I wanted to discuss the cost. At that time, he told her that he was the foreman on the job, part owner, and that I should contact him. He also explained that he did work "most of the day", and did not discuss revising the cost.

I later called the son to express my concern and dissatisfaction about the cost, and he again explained that he not only worked most of the day, but also became quite muddy in doing so. Therefore, unquestionably, he deserved the $1,000 for his labor. I asked how much work he would have needed to do for me to only owe him the minimum of $900, and his response was "a lot less".

I later called anothor plumber for a quote on the project, since we now understood the scope, i.e. how much labor and materials would be involved. He said such a project would cost somewhere between $420 and $500.