Master Plumbing, Heating & Cooling

Sean from Master Plumbing and Heating identified much more than a dripping faucet on this service call. I was so thankful he repaired the problems and got my bathroom fixed in time for the holiday. Thank you Brian S. Anderson

Mat did an absolutely outstanding job!! He diagnosed the problem quickly and once the drains were clear he ran two extra checks to make sure everything was clear. Some of the best customer service I have ever received. Would highly recommend him and his company

Bill was our service tech this morning. He was right on time and began his inspection immediately. He kept me informed as to what he was doing from testing the water to draining the water heater. Left me a brochure on water quality and future recommendations to think about. He did a great job and cleaned his work stations when finished.

Our home is 90 years old and had two toilets that might have been “originals.” After having had Roto Rooter come out, there was no blockage, just very slow flushing action. Roto Rooter recommended we replace both toilets. After scheduling a service call with Master Plumbing, John arrived and went right to work. We talked about options, and he made it very clear what the price of the new toilets would be. By the time he had removed the old toilets, the new ones had been delivered. John did an excellent job with both installations and cleaned-up where he’d been working. He left a few hours ago, and we can report that we are very satisfied and will definitely ask for John, again. Thanks, Master Plumbing.

Master Plumbing and Heating Cedar Rapids: "Sean was so professional and knowlegeable. It was good to have comfort and confidence in a service person! I look forward to working with him again

Master Plumbing installed a new toilet five weeks ago for $800. It has been backing up so often we have not used it for three weeks. So they came out today, Austen flushed it a number of times and said there was nothing wrong. I repeated the problem and he repeated his answer. He then said for $507 he could lift the toilet and put a camera down to look in the pipe. We have used Master Plumbing for at least twenty years. A couple of years ago they started their trip charge to estimate a job and they would not come out without the trip charge. I said, we have always paid you what you wanted, please just come and fix it, No way. This is after a relationship that I thought was strong, $800 water heater, $800 furnace fix in winter and that was plus the part they would need, new faucets and drain cleaning. Recently I called to find out how much to put in a disposal and they would not put it in without a trip and estimate. They put in the last one, but oh well. Austen said there was no warranty for their labor with the new toilet. This is after I did pay them the money for their "green plan" a couple of years ago, so you get a discount. It was portrayed to me as an annual check of your appliances in addition to the discount. They did, however come out and check our appliances and told me of things that were wrong with THEIR OWN WORK so I let that plan lapse. I was stunned that someone wasn't embarrassed, but I never heard anything. Evidently you have to pay just to be their client now. In closing I feel that Master Plumbing is not interested in a long term relationship so we will find another plumber. I miss Aaron so much, he was our Master Plumber for a long time but has left the company.

Plumber was very professional & explained several options.

Would definitely hire them again - very courteous, on time, and even took the time to come back over the weekend to assist with our sump pump!

Good. The bad part was the cost. $670 in labor for a little over 2 hours work. That's in excess of $220 an hour. That registers in the price gouging area.

Upon arrival I was told that there would be a space in the drywall above the shower which would have to be fixed by a dry wall person. Of course I told them to go ahead. Had I known this in advance I would have gone with a different company. During the course of the install several holes were ripped in the dry wall around the actual shower. There seemed to be a lot of delays during the day. No attempt was made to protect carpet in other parts of the house. It would have been far better if they had used the back door.

They were on time and fixed the problem. The price was a little steep but they did the job and cleaned up afterward.

They initially determined that we didn't need a new faucet and only charged a service charge, but when my husband was not able to get a valve to budge, they came back on just an hour's notice and completed what my husband could not do. The charges were reasonable.

They were a little bit pricey, but there's also warranties and stuff that comes with it. I would use them again. It depends but hopefully I don't need them for a long time. The sump pump is the only thing that they can help me with. My heating and air conditioning is geo-thermal, which they don't do. I really don't have anything that I need to call them for. The only thing that they can help me with is my sump pump which is brand new and they are supposed to last 20 years. I would recommend them to someone else.

They told me that if it does it again, to call them right away and they would come back and take the next step. They’ve been good to work with. The cost of this service was free. They covered it because they installed the system.

I was happy at first and had confidence in their experience. However, the installers had no intention of listening to me and would wait until I was out of ear shot to make decisions like venting out the front of the house or placing ductwork under the joists where they could have been between. They could care less about how the basement was going to be finished and made a lot of work by not sticking to the plan that the estimator and I had come up with. They were unwilling to run the thermostat wire back to the original placement and instead want to put it by a door because it was easy. All in all, watch out. The installer said he had 30 years experience in HVAC, but it is actually 30 years experience of weaseling out of work.

It went well. The tech was friendly and knowledgeable.

BADLY - Wrote them this letter and never got a reply. MASTER PLUMBING 03/22/2016 3111 1ST AVE SE CEDAR RAPIDS IA 52402-4403 Re Invoice 50208207 03/04/2016 your service technician John C. with a trainee came out to do a diagnostic test of my hot water heater but never touched the gas control thermostat which I thought was bad. Instead he replaced the hybrid swirl dip tube in my water heater with a longer straight drop dip tube for $224.15 which I thought was excessive. He told me it would cost $263.24 to replace the gas valve thermostat assembly under warranty and that he would quote that price on the invoice - which he did not. The water heater operation was worse after he was here so I hired a plumber to replace the gas valve thermostat assembly and the total cost was $147.66. The new valve assembly got the water hot like it should but it cooled off way too fast. I bought a Tankless water heater and before the old water heater was disconnected I drained it, removed the pressure relief valve and looked inside the tank to discover that the dip tube John C. had installed was laying sidewise in the water heater. When my installer disconnected the old water heater, he removed the cold water fitting and verified that the dip tube was in fact laying down in the heater – most likely caused by John C. over tightening the fitting when installing the dip tube. I remember watching John C. take the cold water fitting off to add a washer he had forgotten and I think he knew at that time that the dip tube had dropped off into the tank, but he proceeded with hooking up the water line and getting payment from me. I feel that I was ripped off by John C. and will never use or recommend your service.

I called Master Plumbing because my old plumber is regularly backed up days or weeks, and I just wanted this tenant taken care of. I was in the market for a new plumber to assist with our 20 rental units. Plus, MP was at the top of Angie's List for Plumbers with an "A" rating - whaaaat? Because of coupons, maybe?? At the time, I thought it was worth a shot to try them out. Anyhow, they were able to get to both jobs (both leaks occurred within two weeks of each other, at the same rental property) within a couple of days, so that was good. They arrived at 4:30 for a 2-4 estimated window, so just a little late. And they quickly completed the work. So quickly, in fact, that the tenant happily reported the first job took less than 30 minutes and the second job took about 10 minutes to just tighten a valve (no parts needed). Had I known how expensive they were going to be, I would have tried a different local plumber. On the 10-minute job, I received an invoice for $170 with one line item: "Minimum Service Repair." On the job that actually required a replacement part, the $240 bill had two items listed: a $170 lump sum for a "Tub/Shower Repair - parts stocked on truck" and a $60 "Service Fee." This wasn't an after-hours call or anything, so I'm not sure why the extra fee in addition to the over-priced 20-minute fix... I followed up by requesting a more detailed invoice, showing labor hours, parts, etc. - - some kind of information regarding the work/repair that took place on both of those visits. As is customary for any plumber (or other contractor) to provide. Received one unsatisfactory response, and then no response to my second (or third) inquiry. Hence, the 'F' in Responsiveness. In the four plumbing jobs that I've had in the last two months, I'm back to using a local plumber. Unfortunately, my old plumber is still over-booked. But the new guy, Colony Plumbing, has been FAST, does high-quality work, and charges fair prices, with invoices that actually show the work that was done and the parts that were needed. Others have rated Master Plumbing with an 'A' grade. So obviously there are experiences out there that are better than mine. But I just thought I should share, in case anyone else is looking for a solid company to perform a higher volume of plumbing work than just 1-2 calls per year. We just can't afford to use MP on a frequent basis. Especially when there are so many other local companies who would love to be your service provider and will give you great customer service and fair prices.

We just moved into the neighborhood, and all of the sudden we didn't have hot water. We called up the phone number that was stuck to the water heater as we figured they'd be the best ones to call -- WRONG! The technician showed up a half hour late to the house. He spent roughly half an hour diagnosing the issue just to tell us there'd been a lock put on our gas line and that we'd need to call the gas company. He waived the service call fee, just to turn around and charge us $150 in diagnostics fees!! So nice of him... I call the office, and ask them if there was anything they could do. The lady that answered the phone said she couldn't, but she'd have a supervisor call me back. Five hours later, I decide to call back in because I hadn't gotten a call back. She tells me that she spoke with him, and that there was nothing they were going to do about the charge. I said well I'd still like to talk with him about it. She said "Tom" would give me a call. I never got a call. 4 days go by, still no call from Tom. My wife calls in and finally gets to talk with him. He tells her "It's not our fault you didn't pay your bills and got your gas shut off on you." Nice...Real Nice. We had just moved into the house, and there was a mix-up with the accounts -- not that we failed to pay any bills! I called back in and asked for Tom to speak with me. I get told he's on another call and he'll call me back. He calls me back at 4:30 exactly (the time they close). I call back at 4:32 because I just missed the call. He's already out of the office.... Bottom line: If you're going to use these jokers, make sure you get a quote in writing as to EXACTLY what they're going to charge you ahead of time, otherwise you may get charged $150 to diagnose something as simple as the fact that no gas is coming into the house.

I had a coupon for "free visit with any purchase" and the guy basically used it against me. He jacked the price of the service WAY up and then told me that if I didn't purchase the service, then the coupon didn't apply and I would have to pay $75 for the visit (he was there for 10 minutes at this point and hadn't performed any work). So I had to pay $300 for 45 minutes of work, a simple unclogging of the drain. We have had clogging of the drain before, so I said something along the lines of "well if it doesn't work and backs up again within the next day or two, can you come back?" He responded by letting me know it would be full price again if that happened. I'm a younger girl and was home with my twin infants and felt very taken advantage of. Felt like highway robbery. I didn't complain at the time because I hate confrontation. Had the same issue happen again this month and called a different company - was $125 for same work. Very disappointing.

They're good people. I had a bad experience with them last fall when they came and did a heating check. A gentleman who apparently is no longer with them told me I needed to replace my furnace immediately. I couldn't go down and look at the furnace because I'm temporarily disabled from surgery. He wanted me to replace it with a Lennox furnace and I told him I appreciated his input but I wouldn't be spending all that money without doing research. I've been using the furnace all winter. The furnace is over 20 years old and I do realize it will have to be replaced but I did not appreciate his approach that it was going to be done.

Master plumbing and Ac is just another run of the mill company that fails to provide after sales service and is bent on voiding the warranty at the flimsiest excuse. They insist that visits would cost more than a $150.extra. when you try to leave a feedback at their site you get an automatic reply from the owner with a picture of the owner couple in their cozy house. That is all that you hear from them! The purported 5 Star feedbacks on their site is a sham to hoodwink customers!! ****YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED********

Setup an appointment for a plumber to come take a look and give an estimate for a failing main valve replacement job at a rental property. The appointment was set for 6/14 from 1000-1200. I asked and they confirmed that I would receive a call 30 minutes before to coordinate since I had to leave my 9to5 job to let the plumber into the rental property. In anticipation I left a few minutes to 10 to get some things moved around to have better access to the main valve. I didn't receive a call and no one ever came. Furthermore and the most unprofessional aspect is that I didn't even receive a call to let me know that no one was going to show up. It's not so simple for me to just leave my work, a fair amount of planning and consideration has to occur in order for me to get away for something like this. When I had the chance later in the day I called them to see what happened and was told that the plumber in question was unexpectedly delayed at the previous job. Ok sure, I understand things happen and plumbing jobs can sometimes go south quickly, however it doesn't excuse the lack of communication not informing me of a late arrival or of the absence all together. I had to call to find out. What if I hadn't called? If I had done something similar to one of my customers they wouldn't no longer be my customer. The receptionist was quick to try to reschedule me for the next day. Giving them the benefit of the doubt I scheduled another appointment for the next day. I was to expect a plumber anytime from 1400-1600 with the expressed and confirmed direction to call me 30 mins in advance to allow for me to arrive at the property and let the plumber in. To my chagrin, I received a call at 1557 informing me that the plumber was "finishing up" at the previous job and would be on his way. I'm sorry but to me that's late, way late! If the plumber was actually at the property at 1557 I would have been quietly furious but probably would have still let him, but basically what I got was a call at 3 mins to 1600 to tell me that the plumber would be late. No thank you. I told them don't bother and that I wouldn't work be needing their services. So am I to believe that the office didn't know he would be late until 3 mins before 1600, and that's when they informed me? I'm sorry but some people actually respect schedules. Some, even many, businesses do a great job about being respectful of other people's (in this case potential Customer's) schedules and being courteous in their communication of any schedule delays. So, if you are reading this considering this vendor for your job, don't bother. Why take the chance? Why risk the wasted time. The same day I called a competitors service I found right here on Angie's list and they came that day,! They gave me a great quote, they were even on time, which to me is 5 mins early.!

Bob did a good job. He was here ahead of schedule and explained things clearly. Price was reasonable. Would recommend their work. Would have appreciated them cleaning up the work area better than they did.

Although there was a disconnect between dispatch and the technician, he arrived late for the appointment. Ryan did a great job at explaining the process and providing an estimate. The line clean-out was quick and he even wiped down the floor, whenever he didn't wear shoe booties. Minus the lateness a good experience.