DAP Sewer and Drain

This is going to be a long tale, so let me jump to the end: believe all the reviews that are descriptive on the web, and do not hire for ANY reason. He has people do fake 1 line reviews to get his numbers up. This one is so bad it will have multiple court dates before resolution. Ok the tale...I like to hire local workers to "keep it going" locally so to speak, on the few things I do not do or no longer want to. Dave (his name) readily confused the phrase I said ("I am this close to doing this myself, but dont want to do it") with one I didnt say: "I am unable to do this magical work". Reality is, I am in the process of retiring and shutting down my enterprises, construction being one of them. I took the integral garage in my house, walled off the opening, and turned it into a cozy den/home office that came in handy during the plague. Im doing it all myself and paying cash, so its been a drawn out venture. To fit my design (of which I will show pics) I for the last few months during the winter, would sit back in my chair at slow times and thought the design of this out to a T. I am educated as an engineer from my time at CMU so lets say, the design was thorough. At our walkthru Dave assured me, not a problem and worked up a contract for $745 to complete so I ok'd him to start. We had a misfire day 1, he had something else to do after not showing up or calling me at all, so later than night, set it up for the next day. Bargaining in good faith, I said ok, but now I had 2 contractors on site...the masons covering the old opening with matching brick, and dave. Time was of essence as Lowes is threatening to deliver carpet and Boscovs furniture any day, and I dont want to open a poop line over a new carpet or couch if you get my drift. Previously I had this job estimated by A1 who said sure, about 4 hours and $400, but they are overbooked so I figure daves increase was plague related but heckfire, everything is up. 4 hours in Dave leaves for the second time to get parts only this time never came back. A few hours later I get a set of texts from him I archived that said its not gonna work out unless I agree to a new price of almost twice the original contracted amount. He stated it was because of the extra work and parts. Before he walked off he said that the toilet flange upstairs has to go (it was copper, it didnt strictly have to but ok) so I figure, the upstairs bathroom is the LAST project we are doing here and we want a new long nose ADA height toilet, to off to H-D I go to purchase the parts. So I asked him, other than the toilet and flange and mini parts that I just got, what other parts and work are you talking about? I demoed the old toilet and floor, the flange, repaired the floor, installed the flange, toilet and plumbing MYSELF. With no help at all from dave as it was not my first rodeo and well, he was not here. So he shows back up, lets say before 5pm after 4.5 hours gone, said he was having a diabetic attack. I told him whoa, tell us, we can feed you etc to make sure you keep up with whatever regimen you need. so he proceeds to restart work but I told my wife and him, this job is getting finished today so I am now babysitting. I dont want to, but I have to. He is now hacking the living crap out of my floor joists under the shear wall. Ugh. so providing tools (not my first rodeo) I loan him some and help him. he is having trouble getting the wet 'stink pipe' thru. It looked like a rabid beaver was boring thru the joist so I said, look, cut out the key from the bottom so you can pretend you are making a hole and I will mend the joists myself to restore integrity, at this point, 50% of the 2 supporting twin joists are GONE and the hole for the 1.5 inch bathroom drain looks like a howitzer hit it. he cannot get it to line up, he is creating secondary traps - he appeared in all facets to be someone who did not know what they are doing. Im not a plumber (but have plumbed whole houses) and could see this. finally at 8pm he says he has to go out to the truck to get something and take tools out (including my long reach phillips bit) and we will water test. so I wait. and wait. and stare at the damage he did, designing my fixes. and wait. I go out to look. he left? so I fruitlessly text him. so I clean up the debris field. put away all the stuff, dispose of all the trash. time for the water test. Water EVERYWHERE. and here is why: 1) the angles for the wet vent is not 90, its about 70. but he used a 2 inch 90 and of course the pipes hardly go in it, so it is not sealed, at all, it has at best, a glue plug. so it leaks. 2) the angle for the bathtub drain is appx 65-67 degrees, not 45 so he used a 45 and of course, the pipes do not go in, have at best a glue plug, and leak 3) instead of using the tub/shower drain/overflow (aka foot and head) KIT that every lowes and h-d sells off the shelf for like $10, he made his own. BUT, it was 1/4 inch too long past the end of the tub and the head/overflow was 1/2 inch too short, needless to say, with no connection and no gaskets et al, it leaked THE WORST. 4) I was not about to test flush the toilet, I didnt need a facefull of THAT. AND! 5) the wet vent had an upward slope of 1/2 inch. Correct me if I am wrong but....(you know where this is going) ... AND! .... 6) the toilet trap/riser/90* was OVER 1 INCH LOWER than the rest of the pipe. Take a guess what would be collecting there.... I pointed this out before he left and he said he was upset because someone had been watching him for the last couple hours. Duhhh. So at about 9pm I get a phone msg, he used some app to request a cash payment of the contracted $745 using a phone. Serious? 1) I am never using a phone or app to send anything other than a text message - EVER. 2) No way I am paying cash. His sign and truck say visa/MC, I am using that to assure my warranty BUT! The job was not done, the job was not finished, the job was faulty and the best one: HE DAMAGED MY HOUSE. H-D was open to 10, there is one 5 miles away so into the car I went. I was up until 1am cleaning the debris and mess and making emergency repairs. (turns out the toilet leaky areas were he never tightened the screw clamps). I took the next day off work to restore all services - wasting a vacation day - Dave does not want to know how much my vacation days cost that he now owes me according to Mr atty. I spent all day saturday (actually, about 3-4 hours interspersed with helping other familiy members with other projects around the house) to redo the job. I will post my pics so you can be the judge. A day or so later, Daves wife emails that he had an episode and was admitted to the hospital, which may or maynot be true and I certainly wish no ill on anyone, but my teacher wife who has had the required drug resistance education swears he was on something, the speech patterns, tweaking, eye glaze - but I cannot prove that. it was just noted. I have been reminded 3 times since to use a phone app to send him cash - still not happening and now, we need to rectify his contracted bill against my supplies (3 H-D buys), 2 days of time, damage repair etc. Mr atty thinks high 4, low 5 digits need to slide my way, so we shall see. Even without a punitive component, he owes me net. A lot. Did Dave ever call or text or write EVER again? no. Similar to ALL other reviews. His work was not good enough to be considered substandard - similar to all other reviews. I will now post my pictures and if I cannot annotate them there, I will return here to do so. ok picture 1 'his stack' shows what he came up with, not to the upper left how it leans and violates the space I would have used for window trim and the box cover I made for the stack...the WHOLE purpose of doing this was to get pipe out of the way of ceiling, trim, boxes, wall space etc. see how it leans? see how the tub drain to the right angles up? picture 2 'my stack' shows what I spent months thinking about, measuring, drawing and did in a few hours of work as a citizen. picture 3 and 4 'not a xx - see the leak' show the improper use of angles and trying to force it in, creating leaks picture 5 - floor joist hack, shows how much had to be cut to put in an improperly angled pipe to boot picture 6 - my mending plate, since he reduced 2 close joists under a shear wall to essentially 2x5's, I used 5/8 T1-11 as a mending plate to keep the bottom of the joist from spreading, which would cause a failure. this method is actually stronger than a sistering picture 7 - a proper angle shows how easy it is to actually do it properly. So, wrap it up...I demonstrated what he did (or didnt do) in detail with pictures and the faults spelled out, but I also took the time to show my remedies. Not that I am advertising, but to illustrate how someone who is NOT a plumbing professional is able to a) do it right or b) repair shoddy work. I argue that if I could do it, a professional tradesman should as well. But didnt. So, avoid the nightmare because I am NOT coming over to fix any more of his work.

Called Dave to unplug a sewer line at my son's house in Millvale. It was to be a $99 special with the camera.. He did not unclog the line. He did not even bring a camera. He charged $145. I gave him $160 as he was to return 2 days later on Wednesday. After numerous calls and texts to him he returned with 2..one saying he would call me at lunch ,which he never did and another text with an exorbitant price of $3200.. He did not even know that complete situation of the plumbing problem. My son had to pay another plumber to re install the toilet he had removed.!!!! Very unprofessional. Complete waste of money.

Didn't install properly water softener and because of it all my basement flooded , then disappeared not answering any calls/msgs, made appointment and DIDN'T CAME!!! Complete ignore!!---your reply is pathetic, y did you install it then? Thanks G-d paid with cc - canceling right now. Stay away from the guy he is charlatan!

When I called DAP sewer and drain to get help with my shower, Dave was happy to schedule an appointment and fit me in relatively quick. He showed up about 10 minutes early, which is always a good sign. I met him at the door and he presented himself in a professional manor before asking if he could come inside. I took him to the bathroom that was having the issue. He asked a few basic questions and seemed concerned that there wasn't anything over the drain and said there was probably something a bit bigger blocking the line. He went outside and got a few tools and came back in. After about 15 minutes, the drain was free and clear. There was a mini action figure about 20 feet down in the drain coated with hair and sludge. He offered to clean the line while he was here. While writing up a receipt, he informed me that I should get something to cover the drain so my sons toys stay out of it. He took the time to go on amazon and show me what I would need to prevent this problem. I will definitely be calling DAP sewer and drain for my future plumbing needs