Paul Flaherty Plumbing Co Inc

I've dealt with a lot of contractors over the 20+ years I've owned properties in CA, TX and MA (including the electricians a couple days before I referenced above - who did a great job...and I gave a positive reference about - also found on Angies List, and it was just a mistake about the bulkhead I know). This service call was different. There was a deliberate attempt to maximize the fee collected, and that shows an arrogance and lack of concern about the customer / reputation - all very negative things for any contractor. The plumber who showed up today was a young guy, and he probably hasn't learned that lesson over the years (was not the owner of the company...but he does work for the company). He was so quick to address and quickly dismiss the initial service call estimate provided over the phone (which he proactively brought up a couple minutes after arriving) that it honestly seemed rehearsed - like this was standard occurrence (changing fees upon arrival). My wife and I both were left feeling like we were just fleeced out of a fair amount of money. There are plenty of good contractors out there, but this isn't one of them.

I originally tried to fix a leaky bathroom faucet myself, and I ended up creating a bigger leak on a Saturday afternoon. I called Paul Flaherty Plumbing's after-hours line (after trying unsuccessfully to get in touch with some other plumbers). They called me back within 5 minutes and scheduled for one of their plumbers to come out within 1-1 1/2 hours. Larry showed up right within the quoted window. He was able to fixe the twisted pipe below the sink, but he did not have the parts to repair the faucet stems, which were the original problem and needed replacing. Larry was very professional and quick at performing the work. He said he needed to get a quote on Monday morning for the replacement stems (our faucet was not a typical model faucet) so I could decide whether to have the stems replaced or have the whole faucet replaced, if I wanted. I eventually spoke with Larry on the following Wednesday (after a few follow-up calls) and was able to get the quote for the replacement stems. I ultimately bought a replacement faucet that I had a different plumbing company install (mainly based on just schedule availability). Overall, I found Paul Flaherty to be a good plumbing company and will consider them again in the future. The only reason I gave them a B for responsiveness was because it took a few days to get the quote for the replacement parts after a few follow-up calls by me. In terms of their responsiveness to my initial emergency situation, they were very responsive and professional.

We've exclusively used Paul Flaherty Plumbing Co Inc since moving into our home and have our favorite plumber we request for our services. Pricing, from what I understand, is definitely not the cheapest, but we have had no issue with their quality or professionalism and find them to be very responsive and friendly on the phone - we will continue to be a customer. A plumber and his apprentice were in our home over the course of 2 days ripping down copper pipes and replacing them with pex tubing. Very friendly, hard working, answered all of my questions.

excellent review of our issues

Sunday - he answered the phone, troubleshoot, and recommended another company.

Overall the service was fine, what I wasn' happy was the pricing. The work was compleated in approx 1/2 hour. Then the paperwork was done including a recommendation for a pressure reduction valve was written up and an estimate was shown on the bill . Resulting in additional time to prepare the bill.

I called Paul Flaherty Plumbing on a Wednesday morning and they sent someone out the next day. He explained he could easily do the work, but he'd have to cut the bottom drawer (in the back) of the vanity to fit the pipes without completely redoing all the piping work. We agreed and the service tech was done in 2 hrs. He was very professional and courteous. He used the faucet & drain I had purchased and already unpacked and he managed to find all the pieces and put together the whole thing beautifully. I couldn't be happier with their service and my new, working vanity. I will certainly call them again.

I am very satisfied with their service. They are very responsive and punctual. I will recommend them to my friends.

It went really well. They were professional, on time, and knew exactly what they were doing. The charges were also very reasonable.

I recommend Paul Flaherty Plumbing Company. I discovered a reasonably serious plumbing issue on a Sunday evening and called on a Monday morning. The gentlemen with whom I spoke was courteous and helpful and scheduled someone to come out the following afternoon. The plumber arrived on time, quickly diagnosed the issue, and explained the problem, the fix, and the associated cost. This was a relatively larger job and it was accomplished that afternoon. The plumber was respectful of the surroundings, cleaned up after himself and provided some recommendations on a few other items.

They came to the house when they said they would, did the work and went home.

After Paul Flaherty Plumbing attempted to service my steam boiler back in October 2011, I drafted the following review. I held off on publishing it until now because I wanted to see how other servicers handled my steam heating problems, on the principle that maybe Paul Flaherty Plumbing was OK in comparison. In retrospect, this wasn?t necessary: what I had written still stands. It?s a bit long, but you don?t have to read it all! The conclusion is: if you have an old steam system that needs real repair, avoid Paul Flaherty Plumbing. So here?s the original review, again for work done back in October 2011: I called Paul Flaherty Plumbing earlier in the week to see if they could send a steam heating guy to take a look at my system for potential renovation or even replacement, as last season I experienced severe short-cycling and wet steam leading to overly loud and prolonged hissing at my radiators. When our building was condo-ized the steam heating was poorly split and every unit has problems of one sort or another. Heather, who answered the phone, immediately signed me up for a Saturday 9-11 am appointment, which was great! She was also very clear about the potential upfront costs of such a "service call" -- I think it was $120 for showing up, including $35 traveling cost -- which I appreciated. However, after I hung up I realized that I may not have adequately communicated that I was not looking for an immediate repair but rather an estimate of a rework, which normally does not incur a fee. However, when I called back to clarify my needs Heather assured me that I would be sent the right guy. On Saturday another lady (possibly Heather again) gave me a call around 8:30 am saying that the guy would be at my home in 40 minutes, which I thought was pretty cool of them! About an hour and a half later -- with no calls in the interim to update me -- Jon arrived with apologies as he had gotten a bit lost. He came up to my condo and listened to my radiators, which annoyingly were on best behavior so it was more difficult to hear the symptoms I was describing. Jon was actually pretty sanguine at that point that my system was behaving decently well, despite my admonishment that he listen a little longer to at least witness the short-cycling. Nevertheless, the wetness of the steam was still audible and at my continued urging we headed down to the basement to where the boiler resides. For the next four hours Jon proceeded to identify little problems and appear to fix them. The first indication that something was wrong was the gauge glass was completely full. But when we tried to drain the boiler the water seemed to come out really slowly, plus the drain itself appeared to be leaking in addition to being clogged. Eventually, after we started losing patience with the slothful draining, Jon pulled out his water pump to speed up the process, only to discover that there was no water left in the boiler! It turns out the upper cock on the gauge glass was clogged and prevented the water from flowing out of it, so Jon took it off and tried to clear it. Jon never managed to unclog the upper cock: it always blocked the return of water as the boiler was drained. I suspected so myself, and wanted to try clearing it by screwing it shut then opening it up, but every time I did so Jon admonished me to "always leave the cock open!"And so it went: this was the general tenor of our time together. Something would seem overtly broken, an action taken to fix it, a discovery by me that it wasn't really fixed, followed by calls by Jon to one of his "real steam experts" at Paul Flaherty to get advice. To Jon's credit he followed the ?expert? advice competently, at least on the surface. Unfortunately, his lack of true steam heating expertise backfired on him: the "repair" took way too long and as he (and I) became increasingly frustrated. He began to commit errors in his haste. The phone kept going off and it appeared he was having skip other appointments along the way, which only fed his frustrations, though I have to say he did a pretty magnificent job of quelling his own emotions. Jon was professional if nothing else. In the end, Jon simply disconnected the automatic water feeder and the boiler fired and all seemed well. That is, until the next day when I realized I was still getting wet steam and short-cycling like before. It turns out nothing had been fixed after all, as you?ll see in a moment. First of all, there was some benefit to all the "work" done, for example after all the multiple drainings and fillings the water was definitely much clearer and the drain was flowing much more freely. Of course, this would have happened anyway the first time I drained and refilled the boiler myself (at this point, we hadn't had the boiler on this year yet). Nevertheless, in the days after Jon left I proceeded to discover that the gauge glass cock were in fact still clogged, the drain itself was in fact not broken (I just had to screw the handle back on which then provided enough torque to close the drain fully), the pressuretrol pigtail was still clogged and contained no water (causing the boiler to fire continuously), and we should have flushed the boiler at least one more time after letting it boil once more (which lifts out a lot more junk). Moreover, some of the "advice" he gave me turned out to be inaccurate: for example, I was told never to close the gauge glass cock, but it turns out the only way to clear them was to close them fully then reopen them, something Jon never tried even when I was standing over him suggesting that very thing. As he would never let me try it myself, I had to do it on my own time, and then of course it worked. So lesson learned here is that not listening to the needs of the customer at the outset leads to a poor experience regardless of how well you staff your office or delegate responsibilities among your team. I asked for a steam heating expert to make an estimation for the repair or redesign of my system, but instead I got a younger -- if very nice! -- guy who was way out of his depth and still charged me for most of his time (three out of the four hours). Later in the week my first choice of expert finally became available and in the couple hours I spent with him I learned exactly what was wrong with my system, and more. Importantly, I learned what the most critical work needed to be and what was of secondary concern. He just knew what he was doing: for example, he asked to see my boiler room first and clearly saw what was wrong with the system from there, rather than looking at my radiators first. I was able to speak in depth with him about the correct angle that risers should come off the line, the portions that would most likely have the most hammer, the reason why I was getting wet steam (far over-sized boiler), how to reduce it without replacing the boiler (double the headers/halve the steam velocity), and a whole slew of other tidbits. He demonstrated exactly kind of expertise I had read about in Dan Holohan's books and heatinghelp.com, and this was unfortunately not the expertise I got from Paul Flaherty. And after all that, he only charged me $75 for his time. That's over 80% less than what I was charged by Paul Flaherty: sure, it was also half as many hours, but none of it was wasted and he didn't need any more time. I have to admit that I feel partially to blame for the bad experience with Paul Flaherty. In retrospect I should have cut Jon off much earlier in the process, but he kept repeating the Paul Flaherty mantra of "the customer should be happy" (or something like that) and I didn't have the heart to tell him I didn't think he would succeed. Suffice to say that I?m not gonig to make the same mistake again with other servicers! So in the end, I decided not to even let Paul Flaherty come back to try to redeem themselves. I'm taking the $467 hit -- yes that?s how much they charged me for failing to solve my problems and not giving me the estimate I had asked for! -- and moving on. That's how rough the experience was for me. I realize that this was the weekend when the Nor'easter hit and the most experienced guys probably had their hands full, but I would have much rather that they canceled the appointment at the last minute than send a more junior guy to waste my time. I would have understood. In fact, my first choice guy was going to show up on Saturday too, but he called me beforehand to tell me he couldn?t make it due to heavy demand. Now that's professionalism, and that's why I still got him to come back later in the week, and why I'm going to give him (and my condo's) business in the future. For steam heating, try someone else. That first-choice company I ended up going with? Same initials as my neighborhood, Jamaica Plain. ;) ---

The plumber arrived on time and completed the work in a little over an hour. He cleaned up everything when he was done and removed the old toilet.

Everything went very well with this job, salesman took care of the estimate in a timely manner, the service technician was great, showed up on time, explained what was going to be done, what he had done when finished and cleaned up the area. He even suggested I get in touch with the vent pipe Mfg. to see if I could recover some of the cost for this since there was a recall on the Plex Vent product.

The quality of the work was excellent. The faucet that we bought (prior to the plumber arriving) ended up having a faulty part and the provider had to stay longer to fix it. Although he wasn't pleased about it, he stayed and fixed it and everything works perfectly now. He cleaned up his work area when he left.

It went very well. The plumber was prompt, courteous, and professional.

The service was prompt and efficient. The Technician was very knowledgeable and professional. I was very pleased and will continue to call them when necessary.

I called and scheduled an appointment for 10/12. During the appointment window, a tech from Paul Flaherty arrived and checked the boiler. That tech was unable to take care of the issue and asked if I would be home the following day. I told him I made the appointment specificially for this day and for this repair. He called his office and had another tech come out later in the day. The tech arrived and began his inspection and repairs. Turned out we needed two parts for the boiler and the tech was unable to complete the cleaning of the boiler. He left saying he would be in touch when they found the parts. On 10/14 I called and asked for a status on the parts and was told we would be contacted when the parts arrived. On 10/20 I called again asking for status on the parts. I was told Mr. Flaherty would call me back that afternoon. No response. I called back in the afternoon and spoke to Mr. Flaherty who told me he was having a difficult time tracking down the parts. The morning of 10/24 I called again asking for a status on the parts and asked for Mr. Flaherty to call me back. At 1:02pm called and asked for the part numbers they were looking for. At 1:04pm I called someone on the West Coast and asked him to track the parts for me. At 1:45pm my contact on the West Coast called me and said he found the parts (in New Jersey) and would FedEx them to me, at which point I called Paul Flaherty to let him know I had the parts and I would be contacting someone else for the repairs. We hired another plumbing company to finish the repairs.

Woman answering the phone talked fast and it was hard to understand even the company name. Then when I said I could not wait a week just for the quote, she said good bye.

Brian arrived before I did (I was 10 min late), and the office called me to check - they were very nice! Once I got there and put the dog behind a gate, he came right in and got started. He was very professional. I don't know much about plumbing, but he seemed knowledgable and efficient. When he was done he restarted the gas heater and stove, gave me a detailed invoice, took my credit card info and that was it. I don't have any idea how much others would have charged, but the invoice was right in line with the per hour fees they quoted me on the phone, with parts added on. It seemed a little expensive, but that might just be because I don't hire plumbers very often, so I don't know the going rates...

The plumber (Jody) clearly explained the problem, the replacement options, and their respective costs. When the plumber encountered an unusual problem in attempting to install the new disposer (my sink apparently had an abnormal thickness), he drove to a plumbing supply store to obtain a different disposer that could be installed properly. The additional time that this unanticipated trip added to the job was not added onto my bill. Also, a free water test was performed, and explained to me. All in all, the job was performed very capably, and I would not hesitate to use Paul Flaherty Plumbing again in the future.

Here it was, the day after Memorial Day and I am "indisposed" one last time prior to leaving the house for an important engagement. Next thing I know brown ooze is backing up into the bathtub. I run downstairs and brown water is pouring onto the washing machine. So what do i do - I head for the computer and Angies List. I start calling plumbers who have received honors, knowing that it is difficult to reach companies right after a holiday. After about 4 tries I reached Paul Flaherty Plumbing. I explained my problem and told them I needed someone to come today, but not before 2 PM. They told be no problem, someone would be there between 2 and 4 PM. At exactly 5 minutes before 2 PM, Jeff from Flaherty Plumbing arrives. After a short explanation, he went right to work. He diagnosed almost immediately that the main drain for the house was blocked. This was a drain in a 55 year old house with a bolt that had probably never been moved. He worked on it and worked on it, being careful to not strip it. Finally, he realized he needed to cut the bolt, but he had a plan in place to replace the bolt. After cutting the bolt he worked diligently with a mechanical snake over and over, to clean out the pipe. He could have just done a few passes, but he wanted to ensure we didn't have a repeat. Knowing that he didn't have the replacement bolt for a permanent fix, he called plumbing supply stores until he found one that had the part, got in his truck retrieved the part during what was now rush hour and returned to the house completing the fix. Through the many many times he came in and out of the house, he never failed to put on booties and did a terrific job of cleaning up. I highly recommend Jeff and Paul Flaherty Plumbing for a POH Award!

I received an estimate. The work was scheduled promptly after I replied that I was interested. The plumbers arrived on time, were polite and businesslike and the work was performed in the time frame that they estimated. I note that they tested the system, and they cleaned up.

I called them and they came quickly. Everything was done very well. I had no complaints. It was a pretty standard procedure. I guess they were able to come quickly because that was the most important thing. There was nothing out of the ordinary. It was normal. They were professional and willing to answer questions. They answered whatever questions I had. I would use them again in the future.

The plumber came, did the job competently, gave me a clear and complete estimate prior to doing the work and filled me in on the advantages of the the dishwasher I'd purchased. In contrast, Sears, from whom I purchased the dishwasher, called me twice for the same information and couldn't find a date to make the installation. While it cost a bit more to use Flaherty, I have total confidence in the work they do and know that I won't have to talk to a number of different people and explain the same issues repeatedly without the work getting done.