MUSTARI MECHANICAL SYSTEMS

I was acting as general contractor when my mothers house and our family home was severely damaged by a neighbors house fire. I needed two bathrooms (roughed in) meaning bare studs so just water line hook ups and drain line hookups to existing lines. I had gotten several estimates from other plumbers and they all came in around the $5000. range. I called Tony as my final estimate because he had performed some minor repair work for a couple of my immediate neighbors. He seemed like the neighborhood plumber. He showed up and was very friendly. I walked him through the job in detail and was very up front with him about what I was expecting to pay and that I had also gotten other estimates. In short, I knew what the work was worth. I had also told him at he time to include a price for everything no matter what that price is because I wasn't going to pay foe extra unauthorized work. Thinking back, that was the first red flag I missed. When I was expressing this to him he literally showed me his back and behaved as though the conversation had ended to minutes prior. His quote was very reasonable at $3000. to $3500. When he came and did the work, of course taking several weeks longer than he initially said he would. I started to see more and more red flags. He was only there about a third of the time. Not unusual . But the guy he left to do the work wasn't a licensed plumber. After speaking with this man and finding this out, this guy was also complaining that Tony carried no Workman comp. on him. Fortunately I had the job insured for over a million. But still... Anyway, other red flags started popping up. Tony came to me and said well the plumbing inspector isn't going to require us to fill all the drains for 24 hrs. to insure nothings leaking. I thought what is this us crap. So were going to wait for all the wiring, sheet rock, tape, paint. carpet etc. to be finished before we find out that a catastrophic failure is around the corner? I could go on but I really have more important things to do right now. Long story short after his original quote of $3000. to $3500. I put a side $5500. just in case. When Tony was 90% done with the job he came to me and demanded over $10,000. I said " your not even finished yet" I was very busy at the time so I gave him the $5500. and said will talk when your finished and every thing is in working order. He promptly cashed the check and walked off the job never to return. He then went to the building department and tried have my permit canceled. They told me to fire him and they would issue a new permit immediately. Which they did. He then tried to sue me and my aging mother. Who by the way had nothing what so ever to do with our arrangement. Only meeting her once for about five minutes when she stopped down to see the house. He continued to harass me. One evening keeping me on the phone for over an hour. I just kept re explaining my position and why, yet there was no logical discourse. No negotiation . He just kept whining the same thing over and over. " I need my money". I truly wish I never met this guy.

After trying the obvious and simple methods of snaking out the drain, it was deemed the "T" in the basement was where the snake was getting hung up. The pipe needed to be cut so the snake could be used from the basement. Sure enough this did the trick and all the material causing the clog was released. The pipe was repaired and the bathroom sink has returned to draining properly. Very satisfied with service and would recommend.

It went well

Initial visit was to inspect furnace ahead of the winter season. He told me what filters to buy and then came back to install them a few days later at no additional charge. Courteous and responsive to my needs and questions.

The bathroom went from an ugly, leaky entity to a much more modern and functional place. Every step was explained by Mr. Mustari and the work was performed in a very timely manner and within the budget agreed to.

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He has been my plumber for 25 years. When I call him, he is there the following day. He is in and out. He does excellent work. I recommend him to all my friends and family. He knows his stuff. He is very professional. He would get top marks across the board.

About a week ago, my boyfriend heard a trickling under the house while changing a grass trimmer line. At first everyone (friends and such) who was consulted thought it was a ground water problem as the house next door had been taken down about a year ago. The water didn't smell bad and seemed to be coming from the area where the other house had been. We had our contracter open a wall to see if it was a water leak and it wasn't. We scheduled Tony to come look at it the following Thursday, Tony showed up when I expected him to and identified the problem within and hour. We had a sewer back-up in the main drain that was flowing (water only) out an auxillary outlet that (fortunately) was not capped. The project was going to require opening up the floor in the basement apartment. Tony asked us to have our contractor do it as he had recently rebuilt our house after a fire. Our contractor, Gary Foster, took the floor up the following morning and opened the area Tony needed to work. I called Tony to let him know the area was accessible. Tony was here within a half hour and had the problem corrected in a few hours. The problem was tampons and baby wipes, by the way, in a bad way... It could have been much worse... I expected a bill of $1,000.00 or more and I paid $295.00 for his services. I am so fortunate to have found him. Let me share how I found Tony... I live in a close-knit downtown Albany neighborhood. At a Neighborhood Watch Meeting, about a year after I moved here, one of my neighbors mentioned that she has the BEST plumber. I didn't think too much about it until I needed a small repair. When I first bought my house (roughly 6 years ago) I had a terrible experience with an outfit I found in the Yellow Pages. I was still pretty new in town when I needed this small repair job. I contacted my neighbor and she described Tony as and quot;competent and fairand quot;. She pegged it! I have used Tony several times since I met him. He is a h*** of a nice guy and works neat. He is straight forward about how much it will cost and is very, very good at what he does. I could go on and on about him but let me give you one example of how he saved me... Years ago I has a leak from the second floor shower to the first floor. The leak was in an elbow... Ancient plumbing, etc. For $100 Tony corrected $400 in estimates... Please contact me if you would like any other opinions on Tony. I LOVE HIM!!!!!!!

I have been working with Tony for sixteen years and he has always been reliable, he gets back to me, and he charges a fair price, and he does good work. He is pleasant to work with. If he makes promises that he can't fulfill for some reason, he might even try to do it himself, he would not sound too sure but he would do it, and he has. He doesn't make promises that he cannot carry through and I have always been impressed with him getting the job done. Sometimes it means going after five and sometimes it means coming back on the weekends, and he has done it. I am a fan.

See above.

They offer many kinds of plumbing services but we use them as a referral agency for tilers too. Our overall experience with them has been good.

Tony gave me an estimate of $800 on the 'high end' to install a tankless system and do some minor re-plumbing work to get rid of all of the needlessly long runs that were present when I bought the house. I decided to go with a Navien unit, with a big reason being that they use simple PVC venting instead of an expensive proprietary exhaust like most other brands. Navien units are only warrantied when installed by a trained, autherized installer, and Tony had assured me that he indeed was an authorized installer who had installed hundreds of tankless units before, many Navien units among them. He seemed more knowledgable and professional then the other 2 companies I had brought in for estimates, so I went with him, despite his estimate being $200 or more higher then the other estimates. He and his helper showed up when they said they would, although over the 2 days it was being installed, Tony was there for maybe 25% of the time, and almost all of that time was spent with his head in the installation manual. I should have paid more attention to that red flag, but I was juggling a lot of other stuff around this time. He convinced me that the unit I purchased did not have the internal circulating feature I thought, and required a large external recirculating loop to work, and that the extra supplies needed would raise my bill another $200 or so. Another red flag, but he was very convincing. By the end of day one, the unit was 'installed', but not working properly, and I was told that they had to come back the next day to finish up, which they did, but then hit me with a bill of $1630 ($1270 labor, $360 parts, despite me providing most of the copper and fittings already - I guess PVC is the new gold!). I was super p***** and should have fought it then and there, but I couldn't deal with more on my plate at that time, so I sucked it up, wrote out the check and thought 'at least my pregnant wife will be happy to have hot water again!' A couple months later, we had no hot water. Apparently, tankless units hate hard well water and require a filter in such a case, or the heating elements get all 'gummed up'. You would think a 'master plumber' and qualified installer would know this and mention something to me @ some point, but he did not. In fact, when confronted about it later, he said 'how would I know you were on a well' (despite me mentioning it to him when he asked me, or by just looking @ how things were set up), and something about him needing to get a water test to even know the right kind of filter to install to make the well water safe for the tankless unit. At this time, I also noticed a few other problems. The unit was not placed far enough over like I requested to be able to fit my washer and dryer back where they were. Not a big issue, but a little annnoying. They didn't glue a grill over the PVC venting pipe outside on, so I had to do it when I saw it fell off. The unit also had a few errors before it quit completeley, due to water building up inside the unit and not draining properly. Why did it not drain? Because the 'master plumber' and 'mechanical engineer' had the condensate drain tube running back UPHILL to go into the house drain. Last I checked, water does not run uphill. They had more then enough room so the tube could have been run downhill, but they decided to mount the unit low on the wall to make their PVC runs easier. And they didn't correct the problem when they ran the tube - they decided to hide their mistake. While that issue proves their incompetence and lack of professionalism, it was not what made me most mad. After getting nowwhere trying to get them to help me with why the unit stopped working, I had to do my own investigation... and found that the unit did indeed HAVE an internal circulator like I had said, and it has an OPTION to run the large external circulating ring for use in larger houses if you change an internal valve and setting. The reason the unit did not work on day 1 is that Tony had set these wrong. The next day when he came back, he set them to use the external ring (internal is the default!) and the unit started working. What does this prove? That when he read the manual he saw which way the valve and settings had to be, and had to have seen that this unit did indeed have the internal circulation, and did not need the external ring he INSISTED it had to have, and charged me so much more for. He was not man enough to admit his mistake and made me pay for it. lastly, after denying all of these errors, I was able to get him to say that he would replace/correct the condensate drain tube, but that it would have to wait for him to get back from vacation. I was unable to get ahold of him again, so just went ahead and fixed it myself. While I told all my friends and family to avoid this guy, I was waiting for a good forum to really spread the word. Thanks to Angie's List, I finally have it!

He did a great job, was very reliable, kept in touch with me at all times, and was reasonably priced. I have used Tony for many, many other jobs of varying types.