THEY ARE EITHER THE WORST PLUMBERS OR THE BIGGEST CON-ARTISTS OR BOTH. Would give 0 stars if possible.
I'm active duty Navy and I'm stationed out of state, so I'm renting out my house in Gretna. The water line from the hot water heater broke under the slab. My renter showed me it over the phone, his friend assessed it, Choice Home Warranty's plumber looked at it (but they don't do that kind of work), and RotoRooter all said that it is in/under the slab. RotoRooter wouldn't call me back to schedule, but quoted me for $2100.
I hired Pete's just because they were one of the highest rating in the NOLA area and they seemed happy to take on the job. However, the first time the plumber visited, he thought that the leak was not under the slab and could fix it, but not that same day. Even though he was the only person, out of 5 different people, who could not tell that the leak was in the slab, I went with him, again based on high reviews. The price he quoted me to fix the leak was $1200 something. He offered to replace the aging hot water heater for an extra $200 something. $200 something is a great price on a new hot water heater, even though it had absolutely nothing to do with the leak itself and the unit was working perfectly fine, I paid the extra, coming out to be $1465. He told me that if the leak is in fact under the slab it would cost more, but the $1465 would go towards that extra cost.
Then, upon installing the new hot water heater, Pete's finally figured out that the leak is in the slab and he'll need to get a leak detection done, but the $1465 that I already paid him will cover that. After they found the leak, he was saying it would cost $2k to fix. I asked how much of the $1465 that I already paid goes towards that amount, he told me nothing, that what I already paid was used up. He said, though, that at this point I don't owe him anything additional.
So, the water heater only costed me $200 extra, and after calling the leak detect company, I found out they only charge $250. That's only $450, what happened to the rest of the $1015?! It couldn't have been labor because absolutely 0, nada, zilch progress was made to fix the very thing they were hired for- the stupid leak! The only thing I got out of the remaining $1015 was you got a leak in the slab, well thank you Sherlock, but I already told you that before you even came out the first time! It doesn't cost $1015 in labor costs to discover the leak that should've been found during the initial estimate.
I called the office and they told me that I paid $1465 for the leak detect and a new hot water heater. No, that was not the deal, I did not hire them to just put in a hot water heater and have another company find the leak for them but not to fix the leak. Apparently, they thought the old hot water heater, which was working perfectly fine, was my top priority, not the massive leak under my house! Even then, replacing a hot water heater in a garage takes very little labor and I can do that faster than changing my car's oil, I would never have agreed to pay that amount just for a very simple task. I wouldn't even pay $150 for labor on replacing a unit in a flat garage. I asked for a refund because there is no way I used up all $1465 on you got a leak in the slab, but here's your $200 hot water heater, they said they would call me back...still waiting.
I'm going to pursue further action if they are not willing to refund me.