Black Mountain Plumbing Inc

On 12/18 I received a call from Angie's list asking for my review for Black Mountain Plumbing. I don?t like writing poor reviews, but told the gal that I would state my comments- as it?s important to their business and their customers to do so. I contacted Black Mountain Plumbing because they were offering a deal on replacing an outdoor hose faucet for 99.00. Coupon Code ? 1133094-1. When I went to schedule the appointment, I was told they didn?t work weekends. Since I work Monday through Friday the gal on the phone stated she could schedule me the first appointment in the morning on March 14th so I wouldn?t be late to work. They were late. When they finally called he said he had to get to another appt first before ours. Would like to have known that ahead of time so I could have rescheduled for another day. I didn?t read the bottom print realizing the deal included a home inspection- of which I didn?t want. After I had talked with the plumber in front of our house, I went back inside. When I was in the other room, the guy walked right into our house without knocking or ringing the doorbell to do the home inspection. I told him then- I didn?t want one. He then went to help the other man do the outdoor hose replacement. He later stated the pressure regulator was no longer working and needed to be replaced. I agreed to have that work done at the time. From the very beginning of their arrival onto our property, I was getting the feeling all he wanted to do was upgrade to another project versus what we hired this company to do. While in the kitchen area, I heard water gushing and when I looked through the window it was pouring out - spraying onto both of the men. Did not feel confident at all in what they were doing. This main guy did not have any social skills and was very annoying. Kept on stating how the work done, was not up to code. Our house was built in 1970- of course new codes have been upgraded over the past 42 years. I can?t help what was done to the house before we moved into it in 1994. We paid them an additional $497.60 for their work that day. Week and a half later, I went out our front door- which we rarely do as we enter from the garage and noticed pooling of water. I contacted the company again- and made another appointment for March 25th. The same plumber showed up with a different guy. On his invoice- it was already written ?a billable service? without even knowing what was going on. How infuriating! What I think happened is that they dug into the original line when doing their work- as we didn?t have an issue until we went to replace outdoor hose faucet. They repaired that for $196.15- of which I didn?t feel we should be paying. Wrote the company through their website about this- but got no response. I?d never use them again NOR would I give them a referral. Would give them a Z if there was such a rating. Extremely dissatisfied.

Diagnosis was quick and the options for correcting the issue were clearly outlined with the costs and benefits of each. I choose the lower cost repair instead of a replacement and they immediately completed the work. Larry and Daniel were courteous and forth right. There are probably less expensive service providers, but trusting the people, diagnosis and work is worth a lot to me.

Unfortunately, it didn't go. :-( The Board chose a different company. I would've like to go with Black Mountain.

Larry arrived fresh-looking and in a clean outfit well inside the 4-hour time window I?d been given. He was very personable and friendly, and at the same time very direct and to the point. I could tell as we were discussing my plumbing issue that he was obviously highly qualified and experienced. This is the fourth time in less than two years that I?ve had a plumber out to open a slow drain in one of my bathroom sinks. The problem is always blockage at the sanitary tee, I?ve been told, which is actually a double tee, shared by another bathroom (they?re back-to-back). Previous plumbers (from a well-rated companies, I?ll hasten to add) have dropped a snake down the sink, spent a few minutes snaking, declared victory, and left. The slow drain problem would temporarily be alleviated, but would return again in about three months, beyond the warranty period. Then I?d have to have someone come out and clear it again. I wanted to try a different plumber. Larry didn?t even consider just snaking down the drain. Instead he first removed all of the plumbing up the tee (in the wall), so he could see what he was doing. When he saw the extent of the blockage he exclaimed that it was seriously blocked, - ?big time?, as he put it. He also didn?t use a standard snake with a small motor, like the others did. He used a heavy duty machine with a snake that had a heavy-duty steel hook on the end. Even then it was a big job to get through all of the hard, corroded blockage, but with a lot of perseverance, he finally did. Larry said that the opening in the drain from the sink down to the main sewer line, a distance of about 3- 4 ft., had an opening no more than about 1/4? diameter when he started, and that when he finally broke through all of it, it was open more than an inch in diameter, maybe 1-1/4". I doubt that pipe will be clogged up again in three months time! Black Mountain Plumbing is more expensive than the others, but I got a real professional who knew exactly what was needed and how to do it, and took the time to get it right. Finally! I?d say for anyone else who has a nagging plumbing issue to go directly to these people. Let?s put it this way: If you shoved too much cilantro into the garbage disposal all at once and need to have the trap cleaned out, go with one of the others. If you have a big league problem, go with this big league plumber. Very professional, clean, tidy, and got the job done. I was satisfied in every way. And I got a 10% Angie?s List discount.

I came home and there was a smell. I called the plumber because there was sewage on the floor. The bill was $ 538 and I was told that for a service call in the middle of the night is $190 per hour. He was here for one hour and five minutes. He did a good job and he found where there was a blocked. It was difficult because there was a clean out the side of the house. He was very efficient but very expensive. I would not use them for a midnight service call again.

Solomon was professional, courteous, efficient and neat. Excellent service.

Called back right away and got here within a day. Work was clean, no mess left.

When I first called it was after hours so I got the answering service. The service took all of my information for the office to call me the next day. No call came the next day. None of the work was critical, so not problem. The following day I called to schedule the work. On appointment day, the plumber showed up a little over 2 hours past my scheduled time slot for the work to be done. I was now occupied with other business of the day so my husband showed him where the work items were located. The plumber explained that some of the optional items I was interested in having done just weren't cost effective, so some of the work was declined. He satisfactorily replaced an outside rusted water shut-off lever which required sawing off the existing pipe and lever, installing new copper plumbing and lever, and soldering it all together. Price $256. He then replaced a nice quality toilet flush handle with a poor quality standard off-the-shelf equivalent. Price $45. I had (because of a life-time guarantee on parts) on hand the necessary replacement kitchen faucet cartridge required for the faucet repair work. This job (which I have had done before ) takes all of 15 minutes. I was charged $186.00. Black Mountain Plumbing charges by the job and not by the hour. The most recent exact same faucet cartridge replacement work I had done came to a total of $45!. I choose to use Black Mountain Plumbing after referring to my "Angie Monthly". I had been very satisfied with my previous plumber but thought that I would use Angie's List to get someone perhaps better. I will, however, be going back to my previous plumber, someone who charges a fair and honest hourly rate not a ridiculous rate that equates to $744.00 per hour!

The 3 different plumbers that came out were all professional, on time and did great work. Plumber #1 came out on the 16th of Oct. and 17th of Oct. Plumber 2 and 3 came out together on Oct. 23rd. I have no complaints about the staff at the office or the fellas who performed the work at my home, they were all professional. My only concern is the cost. I feel that the leak detection at $115.00 and cartridge replacement of $268.33 was too high in hindsight, especially for something that took the plumber 15 minutes to look at and diagnose on day 1 and 15 minutes max to remove and replace the cartridge on day 2. The charge for the Remove, Replace, Repair Bath Tub Overflow and install new tub faucet and single handle valve trim kit (showerhead not included as it did not need replaced) of $313 seems completely acceptable. In all fairness, they did advise before performing the work of the cost and I did accept these charges. It was only later when I thought about it and was told by a plumber at home depo that a cartridge is no more than $35 for hardware that I second guessed my acceptance of the charges. When I mentioned my concern to the BMP plumber who had done the work on the 16th and 17th, he nicely suggested that I call around for competitive pricing to get a feel for what other plumbing repair companies might charge and if I wanted a labor and materials charge I could call the main office to request that. My plumbing is fixed and my naivete may have cost me a little in this case. I would use BMP again and would refer them to others.

Black Mountain Plumbing was verify professional from the appointment setting, recommendation of CPL, to the plumber performing the repair work. Dave was the plumber that came to the house to give a quote for the repair. The quote was reasonable and the repair was completed in a timely manner. Although Dave was professional, I thought he assumed the close to do the repair work without discussing the quote up front.

John made the first call for the leak. Solomon came and installed the valves on a later day for a separate job. Both were very professional and really helpful in explaining things. Solomon was able to do the PRV in a way that didn't require me installing a separate PRV for sprinkler system which I appreciated as it saved me money. I thought pricing was more than fair. I doubt I ever use a different plumbing company in San Diego.

The service went very smoothly - he checked all spigots around the outside of the house (I think 6 total), and identified 3 that leaked. He said they could not be fixed, but should be replaced. The spigots were the screw on kind (no soldering required). They replaced them very quickly and diligently. It took a bit longer because he was training someone junior and had them do the work. It wasn't until he left that I realized the spigots costs $10 on amazon. I can understand charging us $99 for the first spigot given he came to our house. I felt overcharged given we had 3 replaced and how quickly the old ones screwed off and the new ones screwed on. The only complexity was a goop they put on the threads to keep it from unscrewing (at least I think that's what it does). He looked at a recirculating pump under our sink and said it needed to be replaced. He provided a written estimate of over $700 to replace the pump, saying the pump was very expensive. Amazon sells the pump for around $250. 500-600 dollars labor for that pump replacement seems extremely high, and I will not use them to do this work (it looks simple enough that I will probably do it myself). He was very nice and got under our kitchen sink to tighten down a spigot for our filtered water. He said it was a cheap spigot (with plastic parts that secured it in place) and so wouldn't stay tightened until we replaced it. I think this was good advice. He provided a quote for installing a replacement spigot (that I would provide) which also seemed high (just shy of $300). Bottom line, they were quick to schedule, arrived promptly, the service tech seemed competent and nice. I was just not impressed with the value.

I smelled gas and called SDG&E who came out, located the leak and left notes for the plumber. The plumber came same day and told me minimum charge for gas is $257.00. He then spent about 10 minutes total fixing the leak and left. He did not spray soapy water on the line to confirm no leak as SDG&E said he would. I went out of town the next day and came back to smell gas. I called Black Mountain again and someone came out and confirmed that the first plumber had sealed the wrong end of the gas attachment. This plumber did spray the soapy water to confirm the location of the leak. He spent about 20 minutes total. The first plumber left me with gas leaking, a dangerous situation. Also if a gas leak takes 20 minutes to fix, $257 seems pretty expensive.

Solomon came out to work on our plumbing both times, and both times he was very professional and fast. I don't know how their prices compare with other companies because I didn't check. But Solomon explained what was going on, had me sign papers indicating that I understood and accepted his fee proposal, then did the work quickly and professionally. I would definitely call them again. I also wanted to thank the office people for being easy to work with, including having me email photos (rather than pay them to come look at a leak), recommending specialists for other work that needed to be done, and working with our landscaper to sync up digging that had to be done so they could save us some money. Aside from the fact that having to deal with plumbing issues really sucks no matter how you cut it, they made the experience less painful by being super professional, and we really appreciated it.

.The installation was quick and went very well. I don"t really know if the price was on the high side or not. I had not priced it with anyone else. I am happy about the overall experience. In the future, I would check around about the price. Right now I am just happy that it was fixed and I no longer have a leaking faucet.

Solomon from Black Mountain Plumbing answered the emergency call that I made @ 3:30am and he was very calm and collected. He was able to guide me in resolving the immediate issue, which was the nonstop leak from the sink. Solomon came back later on that morning to fix the problem. He was courteous and professional.

They were referred by Core. I double checked their ratings on Angie's List after getting their referral from Core. I think they were pretty good to work with. The feeling was a little bit less personal compared with say, Core. Black Mountain was a bigger company, you call the office and talk to the secretary, all of which went smoothly for that kind of structure. So I think they were thoroughly professional because of their scale, you know you don't call one guys cell phone and talk to that exact guy immediately. So they met my preference for the type of business to work with but I think they handled the entire job quite well. They sent a pretty big team on site to get it all done on time and they met their projected projections. On the whole I was satisfied. I would hire them again if I ended up with a similarly big job that I couldn't have Core take care of for me.

We were ecstatic with every aspect of the work, from the immediate response of service (we called first thing this morning and were scheduled right away) to the professionalism, friendliness, and helpfulness of Travis and James. They had to first work outside in the heat and then repair the bad pipes in a small excavated hole in a tiny bathroom. The work was of fabulous quality and the price was very good for the work. The soldering looks beautiful.

Plumber and Journeyman arrived on time. Very knowledgeable, helpful and professional and polite. Office personnel were also very friendly and helpful. Great experience. Will definitely use them again for any necessary plumbing issues.

Came within 2 hours of our call. Very professional. Provided options for the fix. Also decided to help to check the water pressure.

Black Mountain Plumbing was fantastic. We had some extremely complex issues with our house, with numerous contractors involved trying to find and fix the problem. BMP was involved numerous times, fixing other plumber's mistakes and improving safety and code-compliance. They were very friendly, punctual, professional, and thorough. But what particularly impressed me was how helpful they were beyond the written contract -- for example, the owner of the company spent about two hours at the house evaluating and brainstorming about both plumbing and general contracting problems, and he was willing to respond to emails and coordinate with our other contractors. They're a little more expensive than other plumbers, but I think you're getting more too. I highly recommend them and will never hire another plumber again.

Called and made appointment to obtain estimate. BMP estimator was available to support an appointment for an assessment and bid within a few days, a reasonable period of time since this was a non-emergency repair. They were upfront about the $117 cost of the estimate before scheduling the appointment. They did tell me that they cost of the bid would be able to be deducted from the work IF they won the job. They didn't mention that taxes will be added bringing the total cost of the estimate to $135 nor did they let me know that the the taxes would not be deducted from the overall cost. NOTE: BMP is the only company I received bids from that charged for providing a bid. Only scheduling drawback is that BMP works M-F 8-5 for estimates. From a scheduling flexibility perspective, this rates as a B- at best since it will require many customers to take off time from their work and often suffer the resultant income loss. Most of BMPs competitors support estimate appointments as late as 6 or 7 M-F and mid- day on Saturdays even though their work hours are listed as M-F 8-5. Estimator arrived at the house on the appointed date and time, listened to my concerns and desires, went into the crawl space and did a complete inspection of the main drain system. NOTE: Only 2 of the 4 companies I received bids from actually went under the house and assessed the system. Initial bid for the work was $6100, about $800 to $1000 higher than the two other competitors with reasonable and realistic bids (see other my other reviews). BMP was willing to consider the other bids and work with me to come to agreement to do the work for $5445.10 on 18-19AUG from 8AM to 5PM daily. I'd rate the overall estimating process as a B, pulled down by cost and scheduling constraints. Technical work=A+, Communications=A-, Responsiveness=A, Schedule=B-, Cost=C, Flexibility=A+ To facilitate efficiency, my family and I agreed to vacate the house (no working bathrooms) while the work was being done. BMP was willing to sequence the work so one bathroom would be available but it would have extended the schedule, which we didn't want to do. On 18AUG, technicians were not at the house at 8:20AM and I had not heard from BMP. Called and was told that the techs were finishing loading materials and would be at the house by 9am. Techs calls about 15 minutes later to say they were enroute. They arrived just before 9am. First day, ripped out all the old cast iron piping, taking about 3 hours. Started ABS installation from main external line to first bathroom. Completed installation to toilet, (about 3 feet) and sink (7 feet) with lead tech realized the ABS drop was to high. Cut that out and re-installed from main external line to first toilet and sink. Stopped for the day. Techs loaded up and hauled off cast iron piping. Lead tech let me know they would be at the house approximately 8:30 the next morning because they were going to pick up more materials at BPM before showing up. Last day, Techs arrived on time and about completed the rest of the main drain install and new cleanout install without issue. All leak tests were sat the first time! The techs cleaned up the site both under and around the house. While the cost of the work was $300 higher than the nearest competitors revised bid, BPM did outstanding work.

The service was professional and quick. I thought replacement required welding which would require a plumber. I learned newer homes have screw on bibs so it's a job a homeowner could take on. I was happy to have it replaced and looking and working like new again.

It was good. He fixed the problem and did a good job.

It went great. Of course, I had a 1" outdoor facet and they had taken the 1" parts off the truck. He went back to the shop and got the right parts, came back and was done before i even knew he had come back. This was great - fast and a good price.