Kauai Maintenance & Construction, Inc.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2014/02/25) */
February 18, 2014
To : Revdex.com,
This is in response to Case # [redacted] . I received a call from the daughter of the owner of the house @ [redacted] St. [redacted], Hi. about a shower not working. Daughter says they moved in...

after it had been a rental for many years and would like to get the shower /tub working and change the old trim kits that she described as really bad looking. I asked for a description of what was and was not working. Then suggested that she send me a picture to save her an extra service call. I diagnosed the problem as the diverter not working at all an the hot and cold cartridges were probably bad also. Then I researched 3 suppliers in the Lihue area for the cartridges and possibly the diverter. I knew what cartridges they were but the diverters are more difficult to identify. I bought the cartridges, seats and extension for the cartridges and a possible 2 diverters. All the while I am not charging for this time which was easily an hour. Daughter called several more times asking when I can come to the house. I finally had a chance to drive there which actually takes a half an hour, from my shop in La- wai. I drive on Kauai roads everyday from Princeville to [redacted] and there is no getting any- where quickly. I was with my one of my employees. I had him start disassembling the valve trim while I found the water meter, which by the way was buried with dirt and has not been shut off for many years. We pulled the diverter and it was different from the 2 I bought , and badly damaged. I then took pictures of it so I could search for it. We then decided to change the cartridges, seats and extensions and handles, on the hot, cold and diverter while the water was off. The handles and trim kits were original from circa 1975. I explained to the daughter that I would have to do research to find the diverter. I tried to find it all the while getting calls from the daughter asking if I found them yet and the answer was no. After about 2 weeks passed and who knows how much time I spent looking at schematics of valves on the computer, I finally found the diverter, extensions and the exact trim kit, which includes the escutcheons, threaded extensions and handles in chrome, the daughter wanted me to replace.
So I called the daughter and explained I found them and all the parts would be around $200.00
including shipping, plus labor. Do you want me to order them. Well her response was I could buy a new shower for $300.00. I don't even know what that means ? I then said I could just order the diverters and replace them. If I remember correctly she said it would be to expensive to pay
me to come out again. I ordered the diverters so I could have them in stock for myself, because they are hard to identify and find. So to summarize this, I charged the owner which I never met 1/2 there 1 hour for me , 1 hour for my employee, 1/2 hour to drive back, 3 hours, I also paid my
employee 2 hours for that job. How can I charge 1 hour to diagnose an unknown problem that took at least 3 hours out of my life. As for the materials,I do not know what handles the owner
looked at. There were 3 handles, 3 escutcheons, 3 cartridges, 3 seats with springs and 3 extensions.
So much for being a nice guy for trying to help people that do not understand the logistics of running a business with vans with expensive maintenance & tools. I have been doing this a long time and unfortunately there are very few people that just do not appreciate my services. I would like to get paid for my Invoice and possibly just break even. [redacted]. [redacted], - owner
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 7, 2014/03/03) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
First of all I feel its only fair to the consumer to let them know up front that you are bringing a second worker to the job and you are charging for that worker as well. You should inform the consumer up front of your specific charges. How do I know if you spent three hours researching for these parts? I am not paying you $322.00 for less than a hour at my home,driving time and a second worker. Your communication was poor with my daughter. I'm still stuck with a non-functioning shower! Its not that people don't appreciate your services, we don't appreciate the outrageous fees that you charge. [redacted]