Richardson Plumbg

I contacted Richardson Plumbing in Florence because I needed another estimate to have our main line cleaned out after a camera scope by another company determined that it was full of scale, which led to a backup in our home.  They sent a man out--we'll call him L.  L was very nice, seemed knowledgeable, and quoted a rate that was better than the previous company.  They would need to put a camera down the line themselves, which was understandable to me, and after getting the estimate in writing later after L left, we agreed that Richardson Plumbing would return on Monday to do the job.  On Sunday night, I received a call from L that the hydro-jet was not working as it hadn't been used for a couple months and they would need to send it out for repair, which shouldn't take long.  We were very disappointed as my partner had already worked it out with her job to take Monday off and we have a basement that is unusable and we are limited in our use of water.  L said he would call back Monday to let me know if they could come out Wednesday or Thursday.  I did not hear from him Monday, so I contacted Richardson Plumbing myself either late Monday or Tuesday.  I scheduled with them for them to come out on Thursday between 11-1.  I worked it out with my employer to not come in that day.  At 1:15, I called Richardson Plumbing because I had not heard from anybody.  I spoke with Lisa, who was very nice and said L would be at my house as soon as he was finished at another house.  Around 1:45, I got a call from L that the hydro-jet was still broken and he could come out and do the camera but he wouldn't be able to do that main job of cleaning the line.  I said this was unacceptable to be cancelled or stood up twice in a matter of days.  He was very apologetic and told me the best way to get ahold of the owner was to call the office.  I called the office and explained the whole story to Lisa, who was very apologetic and said she would get ahold of the owner.  The owner attempted to contact me not long after, which I appreciated.  I called him back within a couple minutes and he appeared to have a misunderstanding of what had occurred.  I explained the whole situation to him and he was apologetic and seemed confused about why L would tell me the hydro-jet was broken.  He stated that it was not broken, though it had not been used in a couple months.  The owner seemed to fixate on the issue of the camera, and it appeared he had been told by L that I had a problem with them using the camera, which was not at all the case.  The problem was being stood up twice and apparently lied to about the reason.  I told the owner that I had already contacted another company to come to the house and that due to the losing out on two days of work over this nonsense, I would be leaving a poor review so others don't find themselves in the same situation.  This is the point where he stated he doesn't agree with people leaving poor reviews (I'm sure I would feel the same way as a business owner) and became more defensive, stating that he would then leave a response to my review.  I told him I would include that he said that in my review. I am surprised at what appears to be poor communication if not outright lying occurring between the worker and the owner and the amount of defensiveness that seemed to overshadow any apologies or concern about how they inconvenienced us.  I will admit I considered giving them a third chance initially but decided that was the definition of insanity--doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  I am not saying this company is horrible; in fact, most of the people at the company have been very pleasant on the phone.  But something is not right when there is a piece of necessary equipment that is or is not out of order depending on who you talk to and you are stood up twice in four days.  I hope they can figure this out and initiate some better preparating and accountability practices to keep this from happening again. I was excited to go with a smaller company that says it is family-owned. This was a big let down.

On July 2nd, a Saturday, we called in the evening to the emergency line because there was overflow from our basement floor drain. A man came out an hour after we called and assessed and said the floor drain need to be snaked. He did that and found a single baby wipe and said that was the issue. I expressed concern of the upstairs bathtub and upstairs bathroom sink draining very slowly. He glanced at them, not taking apart anything or using the snake, and said that slow draining tubs can be normal. I'm talking when we shower it fills with water and takes at least 2 hours to drain, which I told him. $375 and 30 mins later and he was gone.

Tuesday the bathtub, bathroom sink, and kitchen sink would not drain, at all. The floor drain was still backed up. I called at 2pm and spoke to the receptionist. I told her the story and how the issue wasn't resolved and I would like someone to come out again. She said she would give the message to the plumbers and have them call me back. The whole day goes by and I don't get a call. At 9pm I call back and the on call person picks up. He apologizes and said he thought someone had called me back. I told him no and he said they had planned to be there the next morning (Wednesday July 6th) at 9am. I called into work and said I would be late so I could be here to let them in and see what went on. 

The next morning they show up promptly at 8:45am. Two men, the original guy and another guy, come in. They start with the kitchen sink which has 12 inches of water sitting in it that hasn't drained in over a day. They take out everything from under the sink and get their very tall bucket which doesn't fit under the sink hanging halfway under the pipe while they take it apart. I offer my smaller bucket which would fit nicely but they said there's would be fine. I'm sitting in the living room just watching and all of the sudden water starts pouring out and their bucket has fallen since it's too tall. Water is pouring out all over the kitchen, into the living room, and through the floor into the basement. Man #2 says oh let me go get A TOWEL from the truck. Meanwhile I'm scrambling to collect every single towel we have in our house to clean this up. As if a single towel would do it. I used 14 towels between the 3 rooms. When I went downstairs to get more towels, it was as if it was raining. Water was pouring from the ceiling all over the floor and my belongings. I am clearly frustrated as the home we've lived in for 9 days has water pouring out all over it. I cleaned up the mess and at this point I have to go to work. They are now in the bathroom running a snake through under the bathroom sink. I ask them to call me when they've finished to tell me what all went on. The day went on and I never got a call. I called at 12 noon and spoke to the original man who came out the first time and the second time. He said they ran an snake down the bathroom sink pipe and there was a big clog but now all was well in the world and they ran the water for 20 minutes with no back ups. 

That same evening I decided to take a shower in the upstairs bathroom to see how it worked now that the clog was gone. Needless to say the bathtub was completely full and my shower lasted all of 5 minutes. The tub took 3 hours to drain 8 inches of water. I sent a photo to the number of the original guy and asked if they tested the bathtub water because if they did they would clearly have seen the issue wasn't resolved. Never got a reply from him. The kitchen sink hasn't clogged again but the bathtub still won't drain and now this evening there is a sewage water from the outside pipes pouring into our basement from the floor drain (see attached video). I have tried and tried to get this issue resolved but we are increasingly frustrated that we spent a large chunk of money on your services that didn't yield a resolution.

I spoke with a delightful person named Jordan on the phone and explained the situation to her as described above and wanted to know if they could do it faster and what it would cost.  I emailed her the pictures of the crack and of the entire plumbing infrastructure.  She called me back a couple hours later and said they could not get to me today but they could do it on Monday morning but she could not give me a quote without seeing it.  I understood that but asked if she could give me a ballpark price of what my worst case scenario would be based on the pictures (meaning tearing everything out and replacing it since you could see everything in the pictures).  She put me on hold for a minute or two and came back and told me roughly $795.00 and that that was based on two guys for half a day (2 guys x 4 hours each).  Well that seemed basically in line with what the other plumber had told me they were going to do and charge to replace it all and they could arrive Monday morning and I could leave by 1pm so I agreed hoping that when they saw it they could figure out a way to do it without replacing everything and was told they would make every effort to arrive by 8:30am but 9:00am for sure.
On Monday morning I received a call from Richardson plumbing saying they had an emergency and were running behind and could not be here at 9:00am but would get here as fast as they could.  A little after 11:00am two plumbers arrived, I believe their names were Paul and Josh.  One was a plumber and one was an apprentice, or so I've been told, and they were very courteous and friendly.  I took them to the basement to show them the problem.  After assessing the issue and some head scratching he said they could cap the vent from the bathroom vanity and bypass it, then cut the pipe here and here and splice in the pieces to fix it and it would not take very long.  I said great, as long as works as it is supposed to and is cheaper that's great.  He said he didn't have the parts on his truck and would go to Home Depot and buy them.  They left to go to Home Depot.  While they were gone I called and rescheduled my meetings since I had no expectations of being able to leave by 1pm.  
At exactly 12:06pm they arrived back at my house with the parts.  I let them into the basement and they went to work.  I went back into my home office to do some work.  At 12:50pm I was told they were finished and at 12:52pm they were out the front door.  They did what he said, capped the vent from the vanity, spliced in the piece.  It didn't leak and was very fast, I was thrilled.
The next day I get a call from Jordan again wanting to get payment, either by credit card or someone could come get a check.  I said sure, how much is it.  I have no idea since you only gave me an estimate of worst case scenario based on 2 guys for half a day and it turned out to be one guy working for 46 minutes, to be fair I cannot be sure the apprentice did absolutely nothing, I did see him carry the ladder and I did hear him flush the upstairs toilet while the other guy checked for leaks, but it couldn't possibly be anywhere close to that worst case scenario number you gave me.  She seemed a little caught off guard by that statement (?) and said she would check with someone and call me back.  A little while later she called me back and said Jay had agreed to take $100 off the original quote.  I told her that was ridiculous, there was no original quote, only a ballpark of what my worst case scenario was going to be and that was based off of 2 guys for half a day (8 man hours) and it turned out to only be one guy doing the work for 46 minutes.  The scope of work assumed in the worst case scenario and the actual work performed in no way resembled the same thing.  I said I needed to speak with Jay.  She said he was out of the office but he would call me by the next morning.
Several hours later Jay did in fact call me.  Unlike everyone else I had dealt with at Richardson Plumbing he was a rude jerk.  He proceeded to tell me that he had given me a FLAT RATE estimate and it didn't matter if they were here for 15 minutes or 3 days he was not taking any more off the bill and some additional blah blah about he'd been doing this for 35 years.  To be clear, there was NO OFFICIAL ESTIMATE GIVEN.  This phone call occurred while I was in the middle of something of a social event, so a heated argument wasn't exactly possible.  I said I would call Jordan the next day.
I would strongly recommend if you ever do business with Richardson Plumbing that you get a written estimate with a detailed scope of work and hold them to that scope of work.  Or call someone else.  And to be clear this is not a scope of work (exact verbiage from my invoice):
A-Cut out section of Piping and Fittings that were defective
B-Install Pipe and Fittings to complete project
No time on invoice, no parts, no itemization, nothing else at all except a ridiculous price.  It might as well say STOP LEAK.