Charlie's Plumbing

I wanted to like Charlie’s Plumbing but unfortunately my experience wasn’t as positive as other people’s experience. Based on Angie’s List reviews, and the recommendation of a friend I chose Charlie’s Plumbing to install a hot water recirculating pump in my house and to look at my hot water heater to determine if it should be replaced. First the good: I get hot water in my bathroom much faster than I did previously. The equipment was installed correctly. Now the not so good: I talked to Josh (Master Plumber) before hiring Charlie’s Plumbing. I confirmed the price of the pump and compared the price to the same pump on Amazon. Charlie’s was a little higher but I was happy to pay the extra to support a local company. The entire cost was to be $500 (parts and labor). The pump ran around $300.00. This means that labor is about $200.00. Charlie’s normal labor rate is $150.00/hour. But the guy who installed the pump was in and out in about 30 minutes. This means I paid a whopping $400.00/hour of labor. In addition, I was originally told that I could have an additional crossover pipe installed in my kitchen to get hot water to the kitchen more quickly. I would only have to pay for the additional pipe. After completing the install, the installer, Johnny, checked the kitchen and declared it to be okay and it didn’t need the additional crossover pipe. I have been monitoring it in the last few days and determined that the water does NOT actually get hot faster in the kitchen. I called Charlie’s Plumbing to discuss with them. They said that after I talked to Josh, they talked to Leon the other Master Plumber (and owner I think) and he said that the additional crossover wouldn’t work. In fact, it would render the pump useless. Johnny never conveyed that message to me but rather chose to deceive me into thinking the water temperature was improved. When I asked about the hot water heater, he asked how old it was. I told him it was about 16 years old. He said (without even looking at it) you need a new hot water heater. He never did an inspection of it. I called and spoke to Stephanie. She was the one who informed me about the additional cross-over pipe rendering the recirculation pump ineffective. She also apologized that Johnny didn’t convey the message to me about it. However she did not see a problem with the effective labor rate of $400.00/hour. Summary: I appreciate that Stephanie apologized. But that doesn’t change the fact that the installer lied to me and also cut corners (didn’t inspect the hot water heater) so that he could get out of my house as fast as possible (making an effective labor rate of $400.00/hour). No, I would not use this company again.

They are very good at what they do and are very conscientious. They do commercial and residential repairs and their plumbing work is just perfect. My overall experience with them has been good.