Marie S.
05/09/2016 12:00:00 SA
I know that many of our friends here in Leaky Niguel struggle with the decision whether to repipe or E-pipe. Epipe is the epoxy that is blown through your pipes. 5 years ago, we did our homework, counted the cost, and decided that it would be better to epoxy than repipe. Each of the issues have their problems, but epipe seemed to have less problems at the time. Four and 1/2 years ago we left for 10 days because they needed the water off for a week. The thing we liked was that they have a 10 year warranty. Since we had had 7 leaks in 14 years, we figured a 10 year break would be good. Well, 4.5 years later, we find that their warranty is to only repair the costs, not for any ancillary damage. That is after we read the contract. I guess if we had read that it didn't cover any ancillary damage we would have understood that they don't stand behind their product. We used Pipe Restoration, Inc., based in Santa Ana. Here is the compilation of our results:
Saturday, February 27, 2016 7:30 am - come downstairs to find water all over the surface of the kitchen floor, the eating area floor, and the dining room carpet soaked. We can hear the water coming out of the pipe. We shut off the water.
8:00 am - call Epipe, instead of our usual, reliable plumbers, to make sure they handle it and to keep the warranty intact.
8:30 am - get a call back from SOS plumbing that a plumber will be there
11:00 am - SOS plumber shows up at our door. We have already pulled out the drawers, with an open panel to show him where it is leaking. He wanders around our entire house for about 2 hours, upstairs and downstairs, with his listening devices, with the water both on and off, and about 1:00 PM he tells us that he can't determine where the leak is and he thinks it is a slab leak. We tell him to open the wall opposite of where it is leaking behind the cabinet drawers and he tells us that he is not authorized to open up the wall. He turns off the water and tells us to have a nice weekend.
Sunday, February 28th, I call Epipe again, asking them to send out a plumber so that we can have our water restored. I am told someone will contact me on Monday morning.
Monday, February 29th, finally SOS and Epipe come, open up the wall that we had requested to be opened on Saturday, find the leak about 1 inch above the slab, replace the pipe, rip open more of the wall, take the baseboards, find fans for the carpeting, and we have water restored by about 10:30am.
Tuesday, March 1st, Epipe comes by and adds a fan.
Friday, March 4th, Epipe comes by and removes the fans.
Tuesday, March 8th, Epipe calls and asks if we have more baseboard to match because they accidently threw away the old, wet baseboard.
Monday, March 14th, I leave a message, asking what the next steps are. The wall is still open, and the carpeting is still not set.
Monday, March 21st, I leave a message, asking what I need to do next. The wall is still open, and the carpeting not set.
Monday, April 4th, I leave a message, asking what I need to do next. The wall has now been open over 5 weeks. Later on that afternoon, a contractor that we had contracted with to work on our bathrooms, came to get his sub-contractors started. After he is done working on getting the bathrooms demolished, I pull him into the kitchen area and show him the wall that has been open for 35 days and ask how much it would be to patch up the wall. He looks at the jagged cut, and determines that there is black mold.
I call Epipe and leave a message saying that black mold has been found. I get a return call and they said that I need to call a mold remediation company, that they don't cover. He said when that was done, they would get their dry wall guys out to fix the hole. Hello? It has been 6 weeks, was anyone ever going to call? They didn't know we had black mold. In fact, it probably wasn't there before the leak and has grown since the leak. I take to their Facebook page, trying to get someone's attention.
Tuesday, April 5th, I call Epipe again, leaving a message, asking for help with mold remediation, and I receive a return call that it is not covered. I then told them that I would be sure to register my displeasure on Facebook, Yelp, Angie's List, etc. And the guy, said, Oh well. Later that day, our contractor recommends a mold remediation service. I call and set up an appointment.
Friday, April 8th, Mold remediation starts to the tune of $3000. Kitchen cabinets all taken out.
Epipe blocks me on their Facebook page.
Thursday, April 14th, Mold remediation ends.
Monday, April 18th, we get a quote from our contractor to have our kitchen put back together: $13,500.
Thursday, April 21st, 8 weeks after Epipe tore open the wall to fix the pipe, the contractor that we have been working with for our bathrooms, has his subcontractor drywall the kitchen area that was dismantled by the mold remediation company.
Tuesday, April 26th, A mutual friend writes us an email, while we are traveling saying that