Northeast Networking Systems

We received a call from the home owner on Sunday. He requested a service call for a loose toilet. Uponhis request, we scheduled the service call for the next morning. During this call the home owner wasmade aware of the service charge and informed of the acceptable payment methods.We arrived Monday...

at 9:30a.m. Upon arrival, the tech found the toilet rocking freely and water spotsshowing in the kitchen ceiling below. The tech unbolted the toilet and pulled it. The sub floor was rottedand the metal flange was deteriorated. The tech recognized the sub floor would need to be replaceddue to rotting before any repair to the leaking flange could be done. The tech reset the toilet properly.Afterwards, the tech explained his actions and the necessary course of action to complete the repair.The technician referred a reputable contractor who could replace the rotted floor.The tech had a half hour of travel time to Johnstown and a half hour back to Delaware. There is a $5.00trip charge on each invoice for this travel time. We also charge a service call of $95.00, which covers thefirst hour of labor. The tech spent an hour at the home pulling, diagnosing, and resetting the toilet. Wealso gave the homeowner a $10.00 coupon. Therefore, the customer was charged $90.00. The plan wasto return to the customer's home once the floor had been corrected in order to finish the repair. Oftenwe return on a continuation in cases such as this. This avoids two separate service charges forinterrelated calls. Instead we charge in 15 minutes increments as if we never left following the first visit.The invoice was signed and tech left. At no time was I or any one in my office made aware that acustomer felt we had treated them unfairly. I have been in the plumbing business for 26 years and wehave grown our company on referrals and repeat customers. I personally speak with every customerregarding any concerns. At the least, I would have hoped the customer would make me aware if theyfelt taken advantage off. I am always willing to compromise and acknowledge their concerns.In conclusion, the diagnoses given was correct as well as the course of action. I know without questionthat any company would proceed as my ours did. I do not feel the charges were unethical. A contractorwill no doubt need to repair the floor before a plumber can return. Once the floor is repaired, theproblem will still not be fixed until a plumber returns. The contractor will still expect payment for thelabor he performed as does our company.I hope to hear back from the home owner. I was made aware the review has been posted on google aswell. Although the accusations are very serious, I find the review to be quite vague. These reviews arevery upsetting to our company and I would appreciate some clarity on the situation, as I have yet tospeak to the customer.[redacted]OwnerAmanda Plumbing[redacted]

We received all call from the customer at 8:00 a.m. Tuesday morning. The customer stated his sewerline was plugged up. We dispatched a plumber to his home and arrived at 10:03a.m. A plugged sewerline is a common problem and the first course of action is to use a mainline machine in an attempt...

toclear the line. After running the mainline for an hour, the tech and his helper found it to be ineffective.They ran multiple heads and despite their best efforts were unable to get more than 30 feet out. Themainline did clear enough of the line to allow for a camera. From the camera, we hoped for any insightinto the cause of the blockage. The tech and his helper retrieved the camera and returned. They spent alittle over an hour scoping the line. From this we provided an estimate for the replacement of the sewerline. The replacement would be $2890.00.It should be noted, I was in contact with the customer at this point. I was straightforward with himconcerning the situation. I explained at that point there only one other solution possible for the backedup line. We have a high pressure water jetter, which can be more effective than the mainline machine insome cases. I offered the customer the option, explaining it may or may not work. It is essentially agamble because there is no way to know what the outcome will be. What we hoped for was the jetter toclear the line and avoid the high price of the $2890.00 sewer replacement. The customer understoodthe risk and made the decision to try the jetter despite this. It was disappointing that we were notsuccessful with the jetter, but there was no other option except to replace the line after this.In this complaint, the customer expresses disappointed in how we handled the sidewalks. My companywould have been happy to just put the sidewalk back into place. However, per city codes, sidewalkscannot be set back in place after being removed. They must be repoured on any sewer and excavationjobs. As plumbers, there is no landscaping after we excavate. The dirt was placed back in place as neatlyas possible and will settle after a few months.The can completely understand the customer's frustration with how the events unfolded. The chargeshe explains are not something anyone would be happy about and this was a very costly repair. We didnot cause the problem and the charges were fair and in no way unexpected by the customer. Isympathize with the way the situation ended up. It was surely an upleasant experience to suddenly needsuch a repair. My intentions were to hopefully avoid such a high cost repair for my customer. In the end,it was what was necessary to fix the problem and our company did the repair the customer approved.The customer was free to receive other estimates for the repair and I think would find our price isactually on the lower end compared to many other plumbing companies.[redacted]OwnerAmanda Plumbing[redacted]