UNITED PLUMBING SERVICES

I've used United Plumbing in the past to do small maintenance plumbing jobs. This time I needed something more extensive, and had the worst customer service experience of my life. The supervisor on my job, "George", came out for a routinely scheduled sewer line clean out. After he camera inspected the line, he told me that a section near the back of my property was broken and full of tree roots and needed to be replaced. He quoted me $1800 to fix it. I had no idea whether this was a fair price or not, but I went ahead with the job because I did not want to risk having a clog in the sewer. George said the job would take 2 hours, but it ended up taking two days. He arrived the next day with two laborers who knew nothing about plumbing. He also showed up without most of the basic tools he'd need to do the job- and had to leave for two hours to go buy shovels at Home Depot. While he was gone the other workers began: They started cutting the concrete and digging the hole to expose the sewer pipe, and almost hit a gas line that was located in the same section of ground! They were careless and inefficient, and spoke no English so I could not communicate with them. George finally came back, and immediately started pressuring me to expand the scope of the job- my guess is because he realized he had underbid and wanted to make more money. He claimed that the next section of pipe that led out to the city sewer line was also very clogged, and I should have him "sleeve" it. To do this, he quoted me $3800! I reluctantly agreed to this, and then ten minutes later he says he called the office and said they did not approve what he quoted me, and it would actually cost me $5000. At this point I realized he is making these numbers up and trying to gouge me, and all trust in this company ended. I told him I would not pay for this, and he said if I did not do this job now and later the line needed repair it would cost me "thousands of dollars": in other words he was trying to scare me into it. I refused his outrageous quote, and by then it was getting dark and they left for the day leaving a giant hole in the ground and an unfixed sewer line. George called me at 8PM that night, saying he could lower the quote on the job to $4000 (funny how they can shift around $1000 or so in their efforts to manipulate customers). I told him no, and to come back the next day with all the tools he needed for the job, and I wanted him to just finish the original project for the $1800 he had quoted. He also asked me not to call the office because his boss was aggravated with him. How juvenile and unprofessional. George returned the following day with one worker, and they finished cutting out the pipe and replaced it with plastic. He also installed a clean out pipe, for which he charged me an additional $200. I thought this was a lot of money for a piece of pipe that costs $15 and an additional 10 minutes of labor, but at this point I just wanted the job to be over. I had to stand there the entire job and watch everything they were doing, because their attitude and actions were so unprofessional. They finally filled the dirt back in the hole, and then had to place concrete back on top. George only came to the job with two small bags of concrete, and had to leave again for 2 hours to go to Home Depot to get more. With a 4' by 4' hole, didn't he know he needed to bring more? Even I would know this and I'm not in construction. They had left space for only a 1" concrete cap, which would have cracked because it was too thin. The original concrete was 6" thick. I told them to remove some of the dirt and make the cap at least 3>4" thick, which I know they would not have done if I had not been watching. They finished the concrete, and it looks absolutely terrible. This is a patch in the middle of a smooth concrete walkway, and what they did was leave an uneven, not level, and totally rough surface. George wanted me to pay him in full and said he would come back on Sunday and finish- which I knew was a lie as there was no way he would ever come back. I'm going to have to install a top coat of smooth concrete myself. Believe it or not, George is still telling me I need to do the other part of the sewer line, and he offers to show me with his camera how damaged and full of roots it is. So we do this, and the camera reveals a completely intact and utterly clean 20' section of pipe: he totally lied about the need to do this work. By now I can't stand having this crook on my property, and I pay him and he leaves. Before signing the invoice I ask him about the warranty on the job, and he does not want to write it in the paperwork- so I wrote it in myself after calling the office to confirm the details. Do not use this company.

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I had an issue where no water was coming out of my shower head. I called my home warranty company and they referred United Plumbing to come by to take a look. It was $65 for the diagnostic. They sent out a plumber was very sloppy looking, reeked of cigarette smell, who seemed like he didn't want to be there and was in a rush. He turned on the water, nothing came out, went to the crawl space and noticed I was not running copper piping. Immediately he told me my pipes were old and suggested that in order to fix this, they would need to replace ALL pipes to copper. He quoted me $3800 to re-pipe just the main pipes and if more issues arise, it will cost more. I was a little hesitant to agree as it was very expensive and let the plumber know I will think about it. The next day, I called another plumber to explain to him my issue and he came by and immediately knew the issue was a clogged/bad shower head, he removed it and water was coming out! How could United Plumbing MISS THAT!? United Plumbing uses un-educated and un-skilled plumbers who just want to replace everything instead of troubleshooting correctly. They are dishonest and want to make as much money from you as possible. I was very upset and called into the main line to speak with a manager. Every time I called, I was met with an excuse that the manager was either on vacation, away from his desk, or out on a job. In addition to leaving him multiple voicemails which he never calls back I finally had enough and left a voicemail demanding he call me back or else I would post a bad review. I receive a call from him within 1 hour. Speaking with him over the phone, he was very aggressive in defending his company, did not listen to my issue at all, was un-apologetic and even told me I was whining like a baby. He refuses to do anything about it and tells me I'm an idiot for complaining. I was really shocked and taken back by the rudeness from this conversation and have never delt with such unprofessionalism before. These guys are really the worse and only staying in business from contracts with home warranty companies. They are crooks, dishonest, liars and hard working honest people should stay away from.

Also fixed leak in main sewage line

On behalf of my daughter. AVOID at all cost. Worst customer service experience in her life and incompetent work. Home warranty company AHS, sent United out to look at their water heater which had a little bit of water in its pan. Since discovered that home warranty always sends cheapest and worst companies out. United determined that the heater needed to be replaced. They did a terrible job and flooded their house destroying their new hardwood floors downstairs. Despite having 3 independent eye witnesses, who saw the water pouring out of the new water heater that United put in, United said they were making up the story, didn't return phone calls and 6 weeks later finally gave them their insurance details. Still fighting their insurance company. If you want poor quality work, followed by rude and unprofessional customer service, look no further.

This work was done for my Aunt who I have power of attorney over. United came out to inspected a backed up toilet and they told the caretaker that the source of the problem was roots out at the street. So they dug up the front yard, cut the pipe and used the camera for their "sales pitch". They went in and supposedly cleared the roots out and added a capped pipe that sticks out of the yard, not very attractive. They toilet plugged up again a week after they supposedly fixed the problem and they said that they would have to charge us again for it to come out! I told them to leave because I feel they took advantage of our situation and overcharged us tremendously.