SO and I called out Bull City and another plumber to take a look at our tub faucets because there was brown water coming out of them for a second or so right after we turned them on. I liked that Bull City had online scheduling and what not, along with such glowing reviews on Yelp. The other company had pretty bad ratings on Yelp and no online scheduling or online systems in place. I thought we would like Bull City way better than the other plumber.
Anywho, first plumber shows up, we show him the problem, he takes a look at the faucets and goes into the crawl space looking for galvanized pipes that lead to the tubs. Around that time, Bull City shows up so SO is hanging out with plumber #1 and I'm hanging out with Bull City. Bull City shows up with two guys, Trey and another dude.
They come in and seem to barely notice the tub faucet or hear me when I explain the problem. They immediately begin poking around at the back of the toilets, behind the washing machine, basically, everywhere BUT the tub faucets. While doing this other dude is saying things like hey Trey, come take a look at this, and oh wow!
Finally, they ask about the faucet so I explain what's going on. We talk briefly about the problem and then I show them out to the crawlspace. They start digging in the dirt around the water main, crawling all over the place looking at the piping. Other dude is like the peanut gallery. It almost felt like he was brought along to do all of the theatrical exclamations and in general create drama about our plumbing. Yep, we totally get it. Our plumbing is not to code. Our house is 80 years old. There are other things that need to be fixed and we know that, but we called you here to fix the brown water (so fix the $^%& brown water!).
So after a long while of them poking around with their flashlights and pointing out everything wrong with our plumbing *except* for the culprit to the brown water for our tub faucets they come out of the crawlspace and inform us that the brown water is coming from our water main and that all of our plumbing as well as the water main needs to be replaced in order to fix the tub faucets. I question this because there has never been brown water from any other faucet. Trey says I must not have noticed it. Seriously?! I continued to press him on it, we have white sinks in both bathrooms how would we not have noticed brown water hitting a white sink? He just shrugs and says that we must have missed it.
I'm getting gaslighted by a plumber. Well isn't that awesome.
Around this time, other dude starts poking around at the water pipe coming from the street and saying oh there is definitely some galvanized pipe in here! Trey again says that the water main needs to be replaced and all of our plumbing needs redone. My SO comes over as the other plumber has left at this point and asks if they found any galvanized pipes anywhere that could be causing the problem. Their answer: no. It's the water main.
I could see she was done with them. We listen to Trey's blustery speech about how he wants to do things right and do the best job blah blah blah. Oh ya, and that will be a $49 service fee please (plumber #1 charges no service fee). They leave.
Come to find out, the other plumber with crappy reviews and no online scheduling found a small bit of rusty pipe that ran off a pipe in the wall and led right to the tub faucet. Huh. VERY INTERESTING. So we have plumber #1 come back out and they literally unscrew the tub faucet from the wall, unscrew a segment of pipe about 6 inches long from it, replace it, put the tub faucet back on and guess what?! NO BROWN WATER!
Bull City was also incredibly slow in getting our estimate to us. Plumber #1 sends over an estimate by email within minutes of leaving. Bull City on the other hand... After 3 days I emailed asking for a copy of the estimate. No response. The next day, 4 days after I paid them a $50 service fee I email demanding the estimate or a refund of their fee. Finally I get the estimate and a whole lot of bluster about how it must have been their online system malfunctioning. Right, ok. Whatever.
It's possible that in the process of the $5,000+ scope of work that was proposed that Bull City would have addressed the problem we asked them to. But it's also possible that they would have bled us of thousands more in the process. These guys are like a shady car mechanic who takes the $cenic route to replacing a spark plug. We will stick with plumber #1 and their old fashioned system. At least they are honest.
Lesson learned: Always, **ALWAYS** get a second quote.