Geoff M.
06/04/2016 12:00:00 SA
I don't like to give out negative reviews. I know they can steer people away from a small business. I've done a fair amount of construction and plumbing work myself, and I understand that there are many ways that things can go wrong on a project, and I'm generally willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to a trades person. In this case I've let several days go by, mulling over what happened, and in the end I think a negative review is warranted. Read on for the details.
My first encounter with Dino's was in August 2015. I had a leak in a pipe in the wall of a bathroom in a rental property. I don't live in Las Vegas, so I need professional help for this kind of thing. I went looking for a plumber on Yelp, where I found Dino's Plumbing. They had good reviews so I called and spoke to Michelle. Their rates seemed reasonable enough, so I engaged them to inspect and fix the leak. The work was done in a timely fashion, and although there was a foot-square hole left in the drywall, I was satisfied. After all, they're plumbers, not drywall people. I had a handyman repair the drywall and felt good about my experience with Dino's.
Fast forward to May 2016. My tenant reported a leak in the master bathroom (this is not the same bathroom that Dino's worked on in August 2015). I have a reliable plumber now, I think, so I called Dino's again without hesitation. This time I spoke to a different person; I believe her name was Becky. I gave her all the details, and told her I needed someone to inspect and fix the leak. Response time was important because there appeared to be water leaking into the wall (my tenant said there was a bad smell inside the vanity cabinet). Becky said she would send someone out and I would be called to authorize the repair as soon as they knew what they were looking at. At the end of the day I had not heard back, so I called again. This time I spoke to Michelle, who clearly had no knowledge of my conversation with Becky. I described the situation in detail again, and Michelle promised to send someone out. There went one day, with water presumably continuing to leak into the wall.
The next day Michelle called with a quote; she said the plumber recommended replacing the cartridges, handles, spout, and overflow mechanism, and gave me a bundled price for everything. I questioned whether that would really fix the problem; were they sure it was the cartridges that were leaking? Michelle said that the plumber didn't want to open the wall to verify the cause of the leak because he might have to destroy part of the vanity. I told her I needed the leak fixed, whether the vanity was damaged or not. What good would new cartridges do me if the leak was not fixed? Because she wasn't sure what she was proposing would fix the problem, I asked how much each individual item would cost, thinking that I could possibly have my handyman do some of the work at a lesser cost. That didn't sit well with Michelle. In retrospect she may have known that the sum of the individual items' costs didn't equal the price she had quoted me; I don't know. What was clear was that she was irritated with my questions. She said, I'll have to call you back, and hung up. I never heard from her again, despite two follow up calls from me that same day asking for a response. I found another plumber as quickly as I could, but I had now lost yet another day. I wasn't happy, but wrote it off as a bad experience not to be repeated.
Then one week later, my tenant called and said the problem from August 2015 was back again - the bedroom wall on the other side of the bathroom Dino's had worked on August 2015 was wet. Where is wet, exactly? I asked. In the exact same place as last year, she says. Hmm....I called my new plumber, who promptly went out and took care of it. Unsolicited, my new plumber sent me before and after photos of the pipes in the wall. Using a screwdriver as a pointer in his photo, he pointed out a poor soldering job, done by Dino's on their first visit, that had sprung another leak. So not only did Dino's blow me off when I dared to ask about their pricing, but their work on the first job proved to be of inferior quality, resulting in another leak less than a year after their work was done.
Add it all up and you get a company that both does inferior work, resents explaining their pricing to their customers, and has poor internal communication. To me, that's a one-star company. Buyer beware.