ALVCO SERVICES

After my initial positive experience with Tim, I gave him the contract to install a grey water reclamation based irrigation system in my house. A couple of weeks into the project we found leaks under the flooring in my two adjoining bathrooms. Over the course of over 2 weeks Tim worked very slowly to correct this problem (on a time and materials basis), and on 9/13/14 he presented me with a bill (which I paid) that included a $425 charge to "replace leaking cast iron waste line". He claimed the leaks were fixed and was supposed to start a second phase of our project (installation of grey water system.) Due to his delay in starting work on my grey water system (which we originally contracted for - the leaks were discovered incidentally), I decided to dismiss him from the project and began to get bids from other contractors, including Mike Council Plumbing. While the Mike Council crew was under the house assessing the grey water project work, they told me that the two bathroom sinks that Alvco plumbing supposedly fixed were still leaking heavily. It was the plumber from Mike Council's opinion that Tim's repair work suffered from numerous defects. The most critical issue concerned the plastic pipe that was used to 'Replace leaking cast iron waste line' (on Tim's invoice from 9/13, this was billed at 425 dollars.) That plastic pipe was 2" in diameter, and Alvco connected that pipe downwards on to a lower section of pipe that was 1.5" in diameter. The coupling was not properly sealed, and water leaked from it. Dave, the Mike Council plumber, told me that that the 1.5" pipe should have never been connected to; it should have been replaced entirely. . (This was basically a "plumbing 101" mistake.) I took a video walk through of Dave's review of Alvco's work: available here: youtu.be/uxSBcbEyYHI. On a final note, when I contacted Tim via email and followed up with a phone call he was very abusive, yelling that I should have contacted him to fix the issue, and that I had no right to bring other plumbers to touch "his work". I found this to be very odd, given that I paid for the work and the parts (and own the home where they were installed), and so, I think I have every right to call in other contractors if I have no confidence in the original work being done. One other key reason why I did not call him was because even for this one-day-plus leak job (which was completed by Mike Councils' team in 1.5 days) it took him over two weeks to make progress (which turned out to be non-progress), during which time major parts of my bathroom were not usable (except for the toilet.) Take away: this plumber might be good for small repairs, but I would predict trouble for anyone who hired him for a more involved job.

He came and took some pictures of some leaking pipes. But they weren’t pictures of our pipes. They were pictures that he had taken previously some other place. In addition to that he cut out the central part of our drain system but there wasn’t anything wrong with it. He tried to charge us almost $3000 at the end of two or three days for essentially wrecking our plumbing. He happened to be doing a lot of work where we live. It is community where only older people above the age of 55 live here. So he has been taking advantage of older people doing this. He came up with set of cross structures of pipes about four inches in diameter from underneath our house that he had cut out. There was no leak in that. I said that I would have it tested for leaks and that I would pay him the full amount that he asked me if there was any leak. It turned out that there was no leak. He never came back or contacted us. He knew that there was nothing wrong with it. So we ended up paying $1000 less than what he was going to charge but we still paid him about $1500 which was a real rip off. He should be jailed.

We moved into our new house in January and the guest bathroom did not come with shower doors so we selected and purchased our shower doors at a local home store and found Tim via Craigslist and found him to be knowledgable and easy to communicate with during our initial discussion which he quoted us for about 2 hours of his time to install the shower doors. When Tim arrived he helped me unload the doors from my vehicle and I showed him the downstairs bathroom where the work would be done. He began working and I checked on him a couple of times and noticed that after a couple of hours he had barely done anything...even though he told me that he used to work for Sears and had installed hundreds of shower doors. After a couple of hours of work he had to leave and would be back the next day to finish up. The next day he arrived and began his work again and finished up after another 3 hours bringing his total to 5 hours of work, which he had originally quoted 2 hours and was charging me by the hour (strike one). Upon completion I inspected his work and noticed that the silicon seal seemed wet and asked about it and he gave some lame excuse about it being water from when he cleaned up. This bathroom is in a downstairs bedroom that we were prepping to get ready for a family member coming to visit...note that this home is a new construction and that room/bathroom had never been used to this point in time. About a week later after the job was completed I was getting everything ready in the room/bathroom for our guest and was going to clean up some of the mess that Tim left behind and this is when I really noticed the BIG problem(s) which caused me to thoroughly scrutinze his work with a much more keen eye!! First off, I noticed what appeared to be smudges of white silicone/caulking seal on the linoleum flooring...as I got down to clean these spots up, as I did, I noticed that under each spot there was a dent/hole in the linoleum!! It was as if he dropped something heavy/sharp while working and rather than fess up he tried to cover it up (shame on you!!). Next I noticed that the silicone seal around the shower doors still had that wet feeling...almost like it was some old cheap silicone that he had used? And I see that the metal frame of the shower doors (the top rail system) that needed to be cut to fit, well he didn't file off the metal burrs from the edge so now there are sharp metals burrs stiking out, which means I will neet to take this apart and file the edge and replace as to not have a safety hazard - UGH!! Lastly there were a few scratches on the sink counter as well as a permanent marker pen mark (like from a Sharpie) on the inside of the shower enclusure where he was marking where to drill a hole or something, but looks like his first mark was wrong...and now it won't come off. I've not contacted Tim about this as my only words would be explitives to express my displeasure!!

We chose ALVCO services because he seemed extremely responsive and trustworthy during the initial meeting. He took time to explain the scope of work and explained the difference between his company versus the competition; also mentioned he would complete the job in five days and would ensure he would minimize impact to our daily activities with respect to the use of water. However, after receiving the first initial payment (50% down), he worked slow. Started his days at 11:00am and disrespected our scheduled 9:00AM starting time (so we can provide access to him). It took him 3 days to simply provide piping from the service meter to the house (approx 20 feet). We ended up terminating the contract and settled for $1000 for the work performed. Now, we have to live with the wet soil conditions(potential leak) plus he used our own garden hose as a pipe from the new main to our existing pipes. Our neighbor also complained of him using her water in her front yard without permission.