PF Plumbing Contractors, Inc.

Review: To Begin, Our home is less than four years old, and PF Plumbing was responsible for installing the new water heater and supporting water lines. With that information in mind, let me begin my complaint.Last week, our water heater expansion tank began leaking water. We called PF Plumbing to diagnose the situation. They said it was under warranty and came out. At this point, no trouble. Once the technician arrived, he tested the water pressure and found it to be too high. He then attributed the expansion tank eruption to the excessive water pressure. After he diagnosed these two issues, they then said that these items were not covered under warranty and they gave me a quote for $632 ($218 for the expansion tank, $360 for the pressure regulator, and $50 for the diagnosis) for a new water pressure regulator and a new expansion tank.During this same weekend, we had delivered our second child and needed to get the issue corrected, so I made the mistake of trusting this contractor's price quote and expertise. Later, after the work was completed, I reviewed the cost of the parts and the difficulty to install these parts. The expansion tank screws in to the water heater like a reverse soda bottle (quite literally a five second installation!!) I then looked at the prices of these expansion tanks and they can be bought at Home Depot and Lowes for $50 for a high quality tank. PF Plumbing's markup is 300% over retail at Big Box Stores! I then checked the Pressure regulator- this part can be had for between $20-$99, depending on the quality. As the original failed at less than 4 years, I would guess the part installed was not the higher end... I also checked installation for this part. It has a male and female screw, just like a pipe fitting. This was a situation of 1) Take the old off by unscrewing the female then male, 2) replace. This vendor charged a $500 premium on faulty parts and 30 minutes of labor, when they installed these parts originally less than 4 years ago! Dispute filed!Desired Settlement: I would like a more reasonable invoice submitted. After reviewing the parts costs and the labor involved, adding a service fee, a reasonable cost would be between $250 and $300, allowing PF Plumbing to make a substantial profit in this situation. They should stand behind their original workmanship as well, and if their parts cost $320 for a pressure regulator and $200 for the expansion tank, they need to explain why these parts are not outperforming their counterparts.

Business

Response:

lets start here,

pf plumbing was the original contractor for the installed plumbing work and provided a standard 1 year builder warranty to the homeowner and the builder, date of our final inspection was 09/26/2008.when this customer called in they were told that the water heater would be under / fall under a 6 year parts warranty due to the statement made by them { the water heater was leaking from the pressure relief valve} which is part of the water heater. The Pfplumbing csr called the customer back before our technician even went to the customers home to confirm the warranty , which is provided by the manufacturer, and reaffirmed with the customer that the water heater would be under this parts warranty and that there would be a service fee and labor charges.

This is terribly unfair to pfplumbing, as the Lyons family did not have to accept our charges other than our service fee of $49.00. they had all the right to decline our service and find another contractor. it is also terribly unfair for Mr. [redacted] to attempt to determine what our charges should be to him as he is not in the plumbing business and has no idea what our costs are / were to make these repairs. PFPlumbing sent a truck, with inventory, tools that cost well over $100,000.00 to this home, along with a technician that is drug tested, background checked, trained and recieves ungoing training monthly, who was curteous, professional , clean, inteligent and performed a professional repair, who also recieves health insurance, 401k, paid vacations, holidays and sick days. we provide good jobs for the community..... we provide potable water, sanitary sewer and comfort to the public , we believe in our trade and our pricing. please try to get a doctor or a lawyer to come to your home for $600.00 , how about a surgeon?!

my technician was dispatched at 1:03 pm and arived at the Lyons home at 1:43 , diagnosed and repaired the problem and started the truck at 2:45pm, with a total job cost time of 2hours and 42 minutes per the gps tracking in his truck. Mr. [redacted] has implied of the simplicity of installation and the low cost of these parts along with the fact that the parts failed in +/- 4 1/2 years but, has not complained about any part of our service other than our price which he accepted at the time service was rendered, and signed our invoice stating he was satisfied.

now that we are here,,,,

I am sorry that Mr. [redacted] feels my pricing is unfair, I always unquestionably guarantee my / pfplumbings service 100 % and if Mr. [redacted] will call me directly I will do whatever I can to ensure he is 100 % happy, my direct line is ###-###-####

Consumer

Response:

[To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, you must give us a reason why you are rejecting the response. If no reason is received your complaint will be closed Administratively Resolved]

Review: 9498238

I am rejecting this response because:

As a CPA (License Numbers: [redacted]), I fully understand the cost structures of businesses. I understand that you have to pay your employees, cover depreciation on your trucks, and cover your expenses. This is accomplished by volume of customers, not taking advantage of a single customer. The Diagnostic fee of $49 covers the time the service tech is deployed 1:08-1:45 as I recall. Assuming it took 10 minutes to diagnose (1:55) Total install time took less than an hour 2:45-1:55 (50 minutes). This supports that the labor piece was indeed simple. As you stated, and as it is understood, I could have (should have) called another company, and paid you $49. After making that payment, you would have spent a total time of 1.5 hours and received a payment of $49.

As to your comparison to your business as to a surgeon... You do not have 8 years of medical school with staff paid to compensate them for their stature. Further, you do not have the fixed assets or the capital overhead of that of a surgeon- nevertheless, when I visit the doctor for my annual check-up, they charge $150 for approximately 30 minutes of their time, plus admin time. So, you are justifying your charges of ~$482/hour for labor and $150 for parts. ($632 total bill remember) by comparing to a doctor's office. Surgeons have much greater overhead of liability insurance, VERY expensive surgical instruments, Anesthetics, and they carry substantial risks. Your employee was respectful, but that does not make you the equivalent to a Surgeon's office, nor to their fees.

I leave it to you to actually justify your fees, as of now, you just showed me that you charges me $49 for the diagnostic, which took about 1 hour, then charged me ~$215/hour, which covered your travel back to your office as well (not a true cost to the customer)- So let's call it $430 for the true installation labor time. Mechanics at dealerships charge $95/hour, General Practitioner's/Doctor's $150/hour, and PF Plumbing $430/labor Hr... Partners' at CPA firms making $1,000,000 annually charge a rate of $500/hr to corporate clients, perhaps this was your goal? How are you really defending your rates at this juncture?

Again, based on the widely accessible parts that you installed, you made significant profit on those at $150 as well.

Can you please provide me with some sort of documentation to your excessive rates?

Regards,