ComplaintsforBL Plumbing

• Initial Complaint

  03/22/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I'm not exactly sure how we contacted this plumbing company - we have a floor drain that backs up periodically and needs to be cleared annually. When the floor drain was starting to slow in clearing, my husband let me know he called "**** ******" and they were coming out on Friday afternoon. My husband is not a native English speaker and may have called them by accident when looking up **** ****** - regardless, they indicated that they would come to our house to fix the floor drain on Friday 3/17/23 between 1-4p. They called from a ************ and indicated that they were on their way at 3:02 pm. When they got to our home, it was BL Plumbing but I thought they were maybe a third party contractor from **** ******. They were not able to clear the drain, said we could NOT use the water over the weekend, and would have to come back Monday morning with a "high pressured machine". It was a struggle to not use the water, of course - by 2pm they had not returned on Monday. I phoned and he had to confirm with the crew as he knew nothing about them returning. They did return about 3p and were still unable to fix the drain - first they were going to charge $150 (on Friday) then said $400 on Monday, then asked for $250, which we paid (no receipt was given). The crew indicated we would need to have them dig out the yard and replace the pipes for $6-$10k. The next day we called ** ****** who came out in a few hours and cleared the clog in about 20 minutes with their machine. Not using water for 4 days (having to leave our house to use the bathroom!), not returning promptly on Monday (I took the day off work), not fixing the problem, having inconsistent pricing, and telling us we needed an expensive service we did not need was very frustrating. I called and let them know another company fixed it immediately and asked for a refund - they declined. I asked for 50% refund they declined again.

  

  Business response

  05/03/2023

  The customer requested a refund because she claims my technicians did not do the work to properly clean the sewer line and that we were misleading in our attempt to provide an estimate to excavate and repair the line. To clarify the technicians spent 2 hours snaking the sewer line and pulled out roots multiple times during. After fighting the clog and finding a mass of roots on the end of the snake, the technicians followed our typical policy of informing the home owner of a likely break in the line and offer to either continue snaking at an hourly rate with no guarantee of success or providing an estimate to locate the break in the pipe to repair it in hopes of fully solving what will become a reoccurring issue if not fully addressed. We’ve had customers we’ve done this for in the past and they have always said how much they wished we’d start with an estimate to repair the line rather than have to continue to service it multiple times a year, so we try to start with a permanent solution  Ultimately I told the customer I can not refund her for the work that my technicians did properly do as evidenced by the balls of roots they retrieved. Had the customer followed up with me I could have had our technicians out a possibly reduced rate but was not given that chance. I understand the customers frustration that the clog has been temporarily fixed by a different plumber but think it’s fair to add their quick success was after our two hours of work and not a permanent solution. I’ve also attempted to contact the customer to see where we can agree but have not had any response.    BL Plumbing llc. 

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