A Plumber Now

I called A Plumber Now to come fix a major issue with the plumbing in my grandparents house over the weekend. They did a great job and the cost was extremely reasonable.

Stay away if you value your time, your money and your sanity.
Despite what their website portrays, they are just a middleman — a dispatch of whatever plumbing school dropout is available to take the call. Even though this introduction service is not outlined on their website, it seems to be the core of their business plan. Oops, they forgot to be able to provide fast service. And then when their lackey showed up, he screwed us royalty just in time for Christmas.
Let me tell you our story. We had a leaky external spigot to fix. I called A Plumber Now (APN) and left a message. My call was returned promptly and an appointment was made for the next day at 1:00pm. The appointment came and went. An hour after the plumber was to arrive, I called and left a message. Some guy who identified himself as APN called back and said he’ll be by in two hours. Two hours came and went and then I called that plumber’s cell phone. He didn’t answer. Another guy called back and said he’d be out in a couple of hours. He made it out to determine that the majority of the work would need to take place inside the walls of the basement unit of our building. He killed the water, took a $ 500 deposit made out to «A Plumber Now» without giving the requested receipt and made an appointment with those unit owners for the next morning. One day blown and two people inconvenienced.
The next day, that 10:00am appointment came and went. They showed up at 1:00pm. They ripped into the wall and stated that the piping had to be replaced all the way back to the water heater. We couldn’t understand how that would be possible but we aren’t plumbers so… The quote was for $ 3000. I complained and magically the price dropped to $ 2300. We bit the bullet and agreed stating that we’d need a fully itemized receipt. We got one from «Flow Rite Inc.» and were told to write the check to that name.
They did some work, not the work on the invoice however. Instead of replacing 10 feet of copper pipe all the way to the water heater, they replaced maybe 3 feet with a used, dented up, beat on, flattened piece of copper. The solder didn’t hold and there was drip. They tried to putty that but it didn’t work because it shouldn’t. Then they put some teflon threading tape over it, left and I am sure you can see where this is going. That was day two without water and two people having lost their days.
We called APN on day three. We left a message that we still had a leak. Tess, the APN phone rep, called the unit owner back apologizing and she sent another plumber. That plumber came out and was dumbfounded by the work. He said it was horrible. We showed him the itemized invoice and he concurred fully that we were not given anywhere near what the invoice promised. With that, he consulted with his boss (he was from yet another company that is dispatched by APN) and was told to not touch the job. He said we needed to call back Flow Rite. He left.
We called the number on the invoice. «This number does not accept incoming calls by request of the owner» was the message. We called the plumber’s cellphone. Voice mailbox was full. We left a message with APN that still hasn’t been returned. We texted Tess and she said she doesn’t know anything about that plumber. She saw our invoice courtesy of the second plumber and said it wasn’t hers. Despite it being the invoice we got from the plumber she sent, she said it wasn’t hers.
We immediately put a stop payment on the $ 1800 but Tess had already cashed the $ 500 deposit. Remember, Tess doesn’t know who the plumber (from Flow Rite) was that gave her our $ 500 deposit. She has yet to return any of our calls. She takes a lot of lunch breaks at all hours of the day. We never heard from Flow Rite again and good riddance. We had Rocket Plumbing out to clean up the mess. They did everything we needed, quickly, and for $ 822 out the door. Rocket was brilliant.

I will not be using this service anymore moving forward. The post that Tom T made a few months back is similar to my situation. In fact, during this most recent job and in just one instance, this plumber made plans with me to come back to continue the job at noon the next day. It was important because the building did not have hot water during this time or for several days prior. Not only did they not come back until the following afternoon (not the next day but the day after), they were difficult to get in touch with that day to ask where they were. I tried calling over 10 times. On top of that and during another time on the same job I received a text from the plumber stating they were 5 minutes away. They showed up 2 hours later.
On the actual job itself, the plumber had a hard time sealing new pipes together. This delay was causing the water to be off at my building for a significant amount of time. Finally out of frustration one morning after the fix that was supposed to work did not work, I called another plumber who promptly came in. I found this plumber on Unilocal — had a 5 star (or close to it) rating with hundreds of reviews. I was impressed when this plumber called to tell me they’d be a few minutes late 20 minutes before they came. And sure enough, they were only a few minutes late. Anyway, this plumber took an hour and a half to explain why the plumber in question’s work was not holding, fix all of the problems and be done. It was a bit more eye opening than that but just laying out a few details here.

These people are crooks. DO NOT do business with them. They were suppose to replace a grease trap for us, which should have taken 2 days. After 1 whole week they still had not done the job so I had to get someone else to do it. They took an $ 800 deposit which they are not returning now. Even though I spoke with the owner Tess and she promised she would return the money to me. Now they ignore my calls and do not answer my messages. I have probably left close to 50 messages for the owner Tess who refuses to call me back. I have also filed a BBB complaint against them and if my money isn’t returned soon will take legal action against them.

Once again, A Plumber Now came to my rescue. They sent George and Alex (a father & son team) and they found the leaking culprit quickly, which was a broken water line from the back of the frig. The leak made it through the wood floor and into the garage ceiling. Within a few hours, they removed the damaged insulation and replaced it and patched up the drywall. The frig part needed to be ordered new, but within 4 days (over a weekend), they were back with the new part and voila. I highly recommend A Plumber Now for all your little and big emergencies. They are always polite, professional and most importantly, budget-​friendly.