Wilkes Plumbing

As stated in a previous review the owner of Wilkes is scary!  He has no qualms about being rude to customers if he feels in the right!  They do good work-the plumbers that work for him are nice- he is not!  I would steer clear and hire another company that's more professional because if the owner shows up on your job and there is a discrepancy- heaven help you- short fuse!

I had Wilkes come out in via my home warranty service to take a look at my Jacuzzi tub that was randomly turning on by itself.   They came when my parents were there and left without a comment and so I assumed it was fixed.  

After a week it came back on again and I had to follow up with Wilkes where they said they had to come back out since they couldn't get to it directly and had to go through the basement ceiling.  They came back out again, charged me more money for the 2nd trip, and said it was fixed.  Side note, they had to call a third party Jacuzzi service for advice on how to fix it.  

A few months later the same problem started again and I called them to see if they would come out and fix it but to my surprise said that because it has been over 60 days, that I'd have to either make another claim with the home warranty service or hire them direct at $60 per trip + $110 per hour.  They do not do a quality job to start or on the 2nd time around nor do they warranty their work more than 60 days so I would definitely not recommend this company.

My wife and I built a home. The builder has used Wilkes Plumbing for many of his jobs. I talked with the owners wife who handles sales and pricing. We had things in the home that we wanted to upgrade. My wife and I set an appointment to meet with the owner. At that time we had questions as to what the itemized cost of things were and what the cost of the alternative option would be. Things seemed off because she could never give a straight answer. I had to ask multiple times because I want to be sure of things. She would never tell me the cost of the original options and would never tell me the actual cost of the alternative. She would only give me estimated additional cost over the estimate. (example: The larger tub would be an additional $300 on top of our initial bid). This made it very difficult to weigh our options. Our third option would have been to purchase things our own. We would not know if we had better pricing if we did not know the original price. I also wanted to know that if I wanted to purchase my own tub what would our credit be for them not providing the originally quoted item. She told me she did not know the prices which was understandable. She claimed she would email me the prices of everything the next day. She emailed me a list and once again the list was only composed of price differences and not an actual itemized pricing of their services or products. The price difference was reasonable and despite my frustration I was advised to just continue because going with anyone else at that time would delay our build. I agreed that we would pay the additional for the upgrades. They were scheduled to start working a week or two after. Upon a visit to the home I found all of their supplies in the house so they could start working the following day. Everything we requested looked to be correct. Up until this point they had been fairly professional even with my reservations with the pricing. They had also been on time and friendly. We were happy. The next day I received an email claiming that the total price had increase. It was substantially higher than previously communicated in emails. I immediately called the owners wife and questioned the email. I was not happy. She had told me that the prices was higher because the changes were based off of the building plans and not the estimate. The building plans were designed to have a walk in shower and a whirlpool tub. She said the price was based off the house having a modular shower/tub combo. The shower and tub would be extra. The home design never had a modular unit and always was designed to have a shower and tub. It appeared that she had based the allowance off of the generic price she regularly charges this builder and not specific to the building plans we had. I told her that this was not acceptable because when we had met with her we had a copy of our plans with us and had previously requested she had itemized costs ready when we meet. She did not have that and never took the time to recognize that my home was a different design than she had previously provided service to. As a business professional she should have had a way of handling this. None of this would have happened if she would have originally provided the information I had requested. I told her that the new price was simply not feasible. She said they had already started the install and that it was to late. I told her to stop working on the job because I do not approve the additional costs and I will not be liable for them. I was irate and spoke to her in such manner. I told her no further work is authorized until costs have been reviewed. I went to the house to check on the status of what was already done. The plumbers were still there working. As soon as I walked in an older man confronted me saying are you the owner I told him yes. He started yelling and got in my face saying if you ever talk to my wife like that again you'll regret it. I told him that his wife was trying to pull one over on me. It turned into a big fight. They would not leave and so I did because I was concerned about my safety. I had emailed them and told them to only do what was in the original estimate. I had to buy and install my own tub and build my own shower including laying a cement shower pan. I still was forced to pay them extra because they would not allow any other person to work on the job because they held the permit. If I wanted another person to work on it I would have had to have the city pull their permit and issue one to the new contractor. It would have delayed my build and Wilkes would not have finished the job they were over charging me for. I was stuck. I was lied to, over charged, screamed at, and threatened. In the end I still had to pay extra and did not get anything from them that I had wanted in my home. Worst experience ever and I would never recommend anyone to use them.