PLUMBING DOCTOR

This plumber was a nightmare to begin with. We called because a pipe bursted in our front yard, and was leaking water all over our lawn. He came out to give us an assessment and said that he would be back the next day because he needed a machine to dig with. 3 days later, he returned, with the machine to dig a 2 foot hole. While he was working, he constantly wanted to chat with me. I was home alone and this made me quite uncomfortable. He finished the job in a day and charged us nearly $600. Because this was above the estimated cost he allowed us to pay half up front and half later, we told him we would pay the balance on the 1st of April. I'll start with the quality of the job. Apparently, he aloud mud to get washed into the pipes, because it clogged up one our bathroom sinks to the point that we had to replace it. We had to do a lot of work to get our toilets working again because of the clogs as well. About 3 weeks after he finished the job, at about 8:00 am he began pounding on our door. I was not dressed and my daughter was getting ready for work so we did not go to the door, assuming he'd leave a note on the door. 15 minute later, I looked out the window and he was still parked in our driveway. He came back to the door and began pounding again. 15 minutes later, he was still there... just sitting in his truck. He came to the door and began pounding again, so I decided that I had to go to the door. He demanded that I pay him the remaining balance, and I told him that we had agreed that I pay him on the first. He began screaming at me, so I asked if he would take a post-dated check. He took it, but I was left a bit shaken. WARNING to any potential customers... the Plumbing Doctor is a bit of a stalker.

We called the Plumbing doctor for an after hours call because on a sunday because our toliets were backing up on us. He and his father came out and did some looking around to tell us we had a clog in our drain line, (we had figured this much out ourselves) and that it would run us around 200 for the work to be done. He came back out on the next day with a large "snake" machine and proceeded to run it into our pipes, the problem was he apparently had no clue how to run this machine because it kept going into our back toliet which was not one of the ones we had problems with considering it was right at the end of the piping system under our house. He let it do this so much that he broke the toliet that originally came with our home, and still charged us to bring us a used one he had at his house. It took him nearly a week to bring out this new toliet, and get it set in. The toliet leaked after he got it set in, we pointed this out and he kept saying he would come fix it. He never did, it still leaks. However, he did continue to call me, claiming he just wanted "someone to talk to". Uh, hello, you met my husband and saw that we are happy together. I eventually had to get my number changed just so he couldn't call me anymore.

We called the Plumbing Doctor because we found water in a closet under the stairs. The issue was diagnosed as a bad water heater that needed to be replaced. So, the water heater was promptly replaced for $584 (including 3 hours of labor at $75 / hour PLUS a $35 service call fee). Only problem was that the next day, the closet had water in it again. The Plumbing Doctor was stumped, so we called BJ's Heating and Cooling Service to check on a pipe that drains water from the A/C unit. Turns out the pipe was clogged and we were charged $45 to have it cleaned out. Problem solved. But, what about the $584 I was charged for needlessly replacing the water heater? The Plumbing Doctor had already been paid for his "services" and refused to consider refunding any of the charges. In short, I'd strongly recommend finding a more knowledgeable and ethical plumber than Plumbing Doctor.