Mr. Honey Do

Review: We hired Mr.Honey-do(Mr.HD)for removal/installation of a wall heater at our condo in Lake Tahoe. We wanted an electric heater installed and requested that he locate a 220v outlet possibly in the wall of the old heater, measure for the new unit,and install one of three units we had provided.Mr HD sent a worker who was not,as we later learned, an electrician.He confirmed that there was a 220v outlet/line and removed the old heater. After they were ready to install the heater and tore out the wall they told us they were misstake and that there was no 220V line where they told us they had found it.We were left without heat in our rental condo during ski season.They did eventually patch the damaged wall.The bill Mr HD sent was for $835.14 including $522 "assesing wiring in condo, investage [sic] 220 wiring that was never installed" etc. 3 hours were billed for repairing dry wall most of which did not need to be broken out if they had correctly determined there was no 220.Their worker said he used a volt meter ,but we never saw one and obviously he would not have tore out a wall to install a new heater.Mr HD, when cleaning up after the dry wall patching, used our personal vacuum instead of their own heavier duty one and broke ours, requiring parts and repair. We asked the worker if he could run a 220v line from the outside breaker to our unit and he said we needed to hire an electricien as he was not one. We were shocked. We did offer a settlement compromise to MrHD of @253.14 which he rejected by threatening a mechanics lien. This settlement offer included time for the old heater removal, which may not have been done if we were advised no 220v was there. We feel that he held his business out to do an electrical installation and to locate a 220v line but he, instead, sent out an unlicensed non-electrician without supervision. He cause us critical time delays in heating our unit & fixing our vacuum cleanerDesired Settlement: Removal of the mechanics lien, if any, and settle all claims for $250.00, providing releases of liens on labor and materials.

Business

Response:

Mr [redacted] contacted us to install a wall heater for his studio apartment. Which we can do. It involves some electrical work, which we do. We are a handyman service which offers a wide variety of services. I sent one of my assistants which is more than qualified to handle this tasks, and has done so numerous times before. Here is [redacted]'s description of the situation; "The first day I was sent to [redacted] to un install the gas heater , I spoke to [redacted] over the phone. He told me that a few years ago he had a 220v line installed and should be in conduit behind the wall by the heater . He told me that on these old condos there was a lot of strange stuff done ie: lots of unnecessary conduit and things not up to code (like a 220 line buried behind drywall.) Upon removing the gas heater I located conduit behind the wall , I did not locate a junction box/outlet to test the voltage of the wire. Going off what [redacted] had told me I assumed it was the said 220 line and planed on finding the junction box once a heater was there ready to install to minimize drywall damage and repair time. On my second visit to northstar with [redacted] and [redacted] present. The new heater was there ready to install. I tore out the necessary drywall to find the junction box. What I found was 110 outlet buried behind the wall.. I went to the breaker panel and located a 40 amp 220 breaker labeled 227 . At this point I did not open the breaker panel cover to verify there was anything actually hooked up to this 40 amp breaker. [redacted] and [redacted] convinced me that some where buried behind the drywall there was a 220 line in conduit.. I kept looking and tearing out drywall as they watched and encouraged me it was there. After no luck I used my best judgment to start searching different areas of the condo. I found several other junction boxes and used a volt meter to test them, none of them read 220v. After testing and scanning for possible junction boxes and conduit containing a 220v line , I opened up the breaker panel cover to the building and discovered that there was nothing hooked up the 40 amp 220 breaker labeled 227. I went and got [redacted] , showed her the panel and told her that there was in fact no 220 installed in her condo . She then asked me if I was an electrician , I said "no" , she then told me that I must be mistake and to keep looking inside the condo. I told her and [redacted] that their options at this point would be for me to reinstall a gas heater , install one or several 110 wall heaters , or upon approval from the HOA I could run a 220 line from the panel to their condo and hook up a heater. I told them I would need a qualified electrician and approval to shut down power to the entire building and make the connection to the 40 amp breaker. I kept in contact with [redacted] and [redacted] for several days after this as they tried to get approval for the project from the HOA." So I sent another assistant of mine into the studio for drywall repairs. we finished those tasks as well. Mr.[redacted] told me they were waiting for response from the HOA for the electrical tasks. I never heard anymore. I sent an Invoice to Mr. [redacted] for the time spent on those tasks. He replys with his professional attorney response, "We have reviewed your invoice for service and dispute it. First, to get the legal part aside, we deny owing you $835.14 or any amount." I left a voice mail for Mr. [redacted] to call me back. He did not. So, without any communication from him, I began exercising my rights as a contractor to get paid for the work we did. Bottom line; We looked for 220v electricity in the wall that the [redacted]s were SO VERY positive was there, and was not. We offered to install 110v electric for a heater that would have worked just fine for there studio, and they declined. (I even called the electrical contractor, in the [redacted]s behalf, that allegedly installed the 220v for them to see what went wrong.) The 220v electric line they wanted, we could have started the task. But the whole apartment building's electrical needed to be turned off to install and connect. That's where we felt that bringing in a electric contractor would be the proper sequence for finishing the work. The [redacted]s never got the HOA approval in time for the install & there holiday rental. They could have had it all done easily with 110v, instead we are dealing with it like this.

Sent on: 3/6/2014

Consumer

Response:

I am rejecting this response because:

Complaint #[redacted]- Reply

Mr. Honey-Do (HD) admits that he sent a non-electrician to do a job on a 220v line. The state license board shows Mr. HD has no employees, so he hired an unlicensed sub contractor. Mr. HD never came to the condo to supervise.

We hired [redacted], a licensed electrician to fix the mess Mr. HD left and he told us first thing is to check the breaker box so that you can disconnect the electricity for safety purposes.

[redacted] told us the breaker box showed that the two switched had no bridge connecting them which means that there was no 220V service. No bridge means just 110V service. See attached photo. That should have taken less than a minute to establish, making all the other work obsolete and unnecessary. Instead Mr. HD sent us an e-mail that they found the 220V.

The wall was ripped out for the purpose of installing the new heater in the hole, not to find the 220V because they claimed they had already found it. [redacted] asked me where I wanted the new heater and then ripped a hole for it.

Mr. HD admits that his unlicensed subcontractor handyman checked in the building's breaker box only after failed attempts to locate the 220v line and tearing walls out. He further admits that his handyman did not "...open the breaker panel cover to verify there was anything actually hooked up..." and that he kept "...looking and tearing out drywall..." HD himself was not present to supervise his worker.

When we first e mailed him on 11/19/13 we told him that " We were told that ...they [a prior electrician] had put in a 220 volt in the wall". HD replied on 11/22/13 after doing 2 hours work removing the old heater and opening wall : "We already found the 220" and estimated 4-5 hours work. In reliance on that, we told him we would be there to meet with him in the condo. When we got there [redacted] showed instead of Mr. HD and the gas heater had already been removed! That day 11/25 work started when the problems described in our complaint occurred.

HD seem focused on our stating a legalism (" We deny owing you $835.14 or any amount" ) at the start of our complaint to him in our 12/23/13 e mail so he may have missed that standard line in his junior college business law class or the state classes for his license. Please note in that e mail that we did make him an offer to settle based on removing the old heater before we even got there and for some of the unnecessary wall work. We never received a reply from him and I have no recollection of any call from him leaving a message.

We just flew there again and noticed that the drywall repair caused white residue to stick on our custom wood trim and baseboard, scratches and dents and there were gaps left and the new patch was not painted, just covered with a prime coat. Our walls are eggshell shiny and the patched wall is spotty and covered with flat primer. We have attached some photos.

Although we did incur needlessly air fare, car rental, and some loss of rental income due to HD's poor work and overbilling, we did not and are not making that part of our claim here.

Sincerely,

Business

Response:

I am rejecting Mr. [redacted]'s response to my response because; He continues to lie about the facts! We are a handyman service. We can do small electrical items as needed. We could have done the requested service Mr. [redacted] ordered but there was no 220V line where they said it was. When we did find an electrical line in the area where they (Mr. & Mrs. [redacted]) thought it was, it was 110v. We could have installed a heater to the 110v line, but Mrs. [redacted]'s unwillingly attitude toward that idea was dismissed. She wanted 220v line. My as't [redacted] showed them in person exactly what needed to be done. AGAIN, we could not fully fulfill the request for 220v line without HOA approval to turn off electricity in the building. They never responded to us on that matter. Now Mr. [redacted] says he hired an electrician to "fix the mess Mr. HD left behind". What was the mess??? We left no such mess. We never installed any wire. All drywall repairs were already done. Again the [redacted]'s we very adamant that there was 220v electricity in the wall, and why not, since they had paid for it when they hired the previous electrician (Johansson Electric). Funny thing how they never called him back to fix "the mess". AGAIN Mr. [redacted] in his attorney like fashion distorts the facts. My as't [redacted] found a wire in the wall, and his first reaction was that he found 220v. After hooking up his electrical tester to this line, we found out it was not 220v but 110v. The [redacted]s were made aware of this. This is when we followed the electrical conduits down the hallway to the breaker box and told them that we could run lines, but should consult an electrical contractor for hook up. And to get permission from the HOA. This is all proper protocol. No!! The wall NOT ripped out for the heater as AGAIN Mr. [redacted] distorts the facts. There was not electrical outlet on the wall! we had to open up the drywall to find electricity!! HELLO!!! Mr. [redacted] keeps up his consistent lies as his wife direct every move [redacted] made in their studio. When [redacted] told them there was no electrical in the wall, Mrs. [redacted] frantically kept instructing [redacted] to keep looking. What Mr. [redacted] doesn't tell you is that many Phone calls and text messages, and e-mails were passed back and forth to each other during this situation. As time was of the essence to get this done before the holiday period. He makes it sound like they were not there on premises while this was all going on. In fact they were there. Mr. [redacted] goes on beating up on the little handyman service for not remembering his college business law class lectures about legalism. No they do not teach you that in contractor class either. Mr. [redacted]s offer isn't even close to acceptable. ($253.14) But in all fairness and a willingness to work this out, I will accept that amount off the total bill of $835.14 and accept $582.00 to close this matter. Its too bad Mr. [redacted] didn't have the communication skills to keep us updated on the matter. As we could have worked this all out, gotten them the electrical they needed and avoided this current situation. But we never heard from them again, and so I invoiced accordingly. Sincerely, [redacted]