Benjamin Franklin Plumbing - San Jose

I gave this plumbing service a try since all of the others were either charging a ridiculous fee just to come out or not returning my calls.

I'm glad that I did! BFP waived the service call & they're contractor, Javier exceeded my expectations...

J

Web site shows 24 hour emergency service and even gives a 800 number to call for EMERGENCY help.  

Call the number and the woman on the end of the phone sounds like i woke her up. After 5 minutes of not being able to understand her I hang up and call back.

I get a different lady and she is very pleasant and goes over how they will be able to fix the issue, gets all of my information.  Let me restart and say I explained from the very beginning all our toilets and sinks are backed up, i need someone out ASAP.. i actually said it twice because she told me she understood how difficult it is not having a working bathroom and I responded with we have three non working bathrooms now.

So i give her all of my information, street address, etc..  it's 11pm Sunday night and she says ok, our technician will be out on Tuesday...    HUH????   24/7 emergency service as long as you need us on Tuesday i guess.

Needless to say I went with a different plumber since I have this annoying habit of needing to use the bathroom and shower more than once every 3 days.

Called BFP, via their 800 number that advertises 24/7 emergency services, on a Friday night. I tell them i need a plumber to come by and install a new toilet and toilet flange. The Old one was wobbly and water started leaking from the base.

The person on the line said they can have someone out on Sunday from 10am to 2pm. Kinda odd that it would be (3) days for emergency work. She did say it was pretty busy after the holidays and i have a spare bathroom i can use anyways, so i agreed to the appointment. I gave her my name, address, cell phone number and email address. She said she would be sending me a confirmation email shortly. Never arrived. Please note that during the call, i ask her a few times that it will be on sunday from10 to 2.

Sunday comes around and i wait all day for the plumber... No one shows up or calls to inform that no one is arriving. So now i am scrambling to find a plumber.

I finally find someone that is local and schedules work to be done on Tuesday. While i am at a dentist appointment on Monday, someone from BFP calls and leaves a voicemail that they have a plumber in the area and they can be there at 11am.

Hmmm, my appointment was for Sunday from 10am to 2 pm and they call the next day and say they can come by.... Sorry buddy, a no show / no call on Sunday, there is no way i am going to trust what you say anymore....

Wish i could leave ( 0 ) stars instead because no work was done.

One word for them - Terrible. I called them a day ahead to setup an appointment for my kitchen sink faucet.. They gave me 3 hour window from 2-5PM the next day. Right then I was impressed at first at how prompt they were.

Then the next day I took my afternoon off from work from 2-5PM and came home to wait for them to show up. In the middle of this timing window provided by them, their office calls me up saying that they can't send anyone over for the next 2 days because some of their guys didn't show up.

What I'm disgusted about is not even that they could not send someone over for an appointment they agreed on, but that they waited till during the timing window, wasted my day and then bailed on me.

I would give them 0 stars if i could.

Had an appointment scheduled for Saturday and they canceled my appointment that morning with no alternatives but to wait a few days.   I don't know why I decided to try this company but I thought why not, my mistake.  I decided to contact Mr. Rooter who I had used in the past and they came out that day and completed the job quickly.  I will never call Benjamin Franklin Plumbing again.

They quoted me $450 for seismic strapping of a water heater.
Another plummer, Marc Morrow, did the job for $100.
I don't know what they were thinking, I guess they thought I must be some kind of idiot to accept that quote.

Routine service, annual check with these guys who are contractor for one hour service plan. The plan charge is 20 per month. Using a power wrench, the one guy stripped the top cathode bolt and kept going until every speck of rust in the heater was let loose and completely clogged hot water system for house and required immediate replacement of water heater. Expecting two people the next day but only one shows up? Took entire day and 3400 dollars. I was suckered and don't want the same thing to happen to another senior.

We had Frank from Benjamin Franklin plumbing come out to fix our dish washer and he was great, fast, and wonderful to work with. We also happened to ask about this terrible noise that our pipes were making, and he fixed it quickly (and cheaply). We also appreciated that Frank came quickly to our house to fix everything. We had first called other plumbers in the area but were either cancelled on or they didn't show up. I did read the other reviews and see there might be some problems with the company itself, but Frank was great!!

Benjamin Franklin plumbing sold us an on-demand water heater 7 years ago which recently started leaking.  We contacted that manufacturer of the unit who provided us with the new heat exchanger which was covered under warranty.  Unfortunately, labor was not included in the warranty coverage so we contacted BF plumbing to have a service person come to our house and replace the part.  Here is a summary of our experience:

I asked the person on the telephone if BF has experience servicing this make/model water heater and she responded, Oh yes absolutely!.  I then made an appointment to have a service person come out two working days later, between the hours of 8 AM - noon.

On the day of the appointment, having taken a day off work, nobody had arrived by noon so I called them and the person I spoke to told me that they had a scheduling error.  So much for the company that advertises itself as The Punctual Plumber.  To their credit, they apologized and told me they would have a technician out by 2:00 PM and the technician arrived shortly before 2:00.  I thought that everything would be back on track, but this was when things got ugly....

The technician told me that the unit was installed incorrectly and offered to fix everything for me.  When I told him that the unit had been installed by Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, he told me that the company was under different ownership previously and that they were not responsible for what the company had done when it was under prior ownership.  Even if that was a true statement, I would think that a company with an ounce of integrity would stand behind an installation that has their name attached to it.  When I told him that I only wanted the leaking part fixed, he hum-hawed around, telling me how difficult it would be to repair, and then stated that he thinks someone back at the shop knows something about these units but that it is too difficult to fix while is it hanging on the wall and would need to be completely disconnected and taken back to the shop (not true according to the manufacturer of the unit).

He then told me he could get me hot water the same day be installing a new unit at a discounted price of FOUR-THOUSAND-FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!!  We paid 3,500 for the original unit which had included all of the conversion costs to switch to a tankless water heater.

I sent him away (thankfully he did not charge for the service visit...he was clearly embarrassed) and referring to the instructions that came with the replacement heat exchanger, successfully changed out the part myself, having had no prior experience, and without removing it from the wall, in about four hours simply by carefully following the instructions provided by the manufacturer of the unit.

Pretty sad when a company misrepresents its experience, arrives late, does not stand behind its prior installation and tries to take advantage of the situation by selling us an even more expensive unit.  Also pretty sad that they are unable to service a unit that they sold us.  On the positive side though, if the dang thing ever leaks again, I will know how to fix it myself (it really wasn't that difficult).

I gave them one star only because zero stars is not an option.....