Beacon Plumbing, Heating, & Mechanical Inc

I was not home and the furnace stopped. We called Beacon and they sent a guy out. He looked at the furnace for five minutes and then came in to tell my wife what he had found. He spent ten minutes telling her what a terrible (7 year old, gas) furnace we had and what a piece of junk it was. He said if he touched it, the bill would start at $450.00. He was generally rude in front of my wife's business associate who was visiting her. We approved having the work done, assuming the job was extensive. He installed a $29.00 part in 10 minutes and billed us just under $600.00. Total time on site was less than an hour. When I called to ask for an explanation why they charged more than an attorney per hour, they had nothing to say.

I was not here when they came but my husband was happy that they responded so quickly and professionally. My husband had to go out of town and was pleased that everything went well right away.

The pipes still knock whenever I use my irrigation system, which I didn't discover until much later as it was fall and it was turned off. Also when I used my washer, or flushed the toilet the pipes knocked loudly. When I had someone come out from Beacon to look at them, they wanted to charge me $800 more to add a pressure regulator, which I found out from another company that I don't really need. The pipes were nor securely fastened under the house. There was also a leak in the new hot water heater they installed. I am still finding pieces of plumbing equiptment and parts that were thrown in the gardenand even in the neighbor's yard. I discovered a hole poked through the wall behind a bookcase, weeks later, when I was vacuming and found plaster dust under said bookcase. They didn't tell me about that, and even though it explicitly says in their contract that they are not responsible for poking holes through the walls, they should have alerted me to this problem. They told me they would wrap the pipes, but as it was not written down, they didn't do it and I had no recourse. For such a big job ($13,000) I feel I should have had better treatment. They barely cleaned up after themselves, and my sister even bought them lunch from a hamburger place, which didn't improve their customer relations. I learned a lesson to always do homework and beware of places that over advertize. They only need to get you once, with such a big job. Apparently they don't feel they need repeat business.

Just before trick-or-treaters started coming on Saturday night, our downstairs shower backed up with sewage! Yuck! My husband, a non-Angie's-List convert, called Beacon because he'd seen their ads. Their guy came out, looked for a cleanout, couldn't find one, and wanted to immediately start nearly $2000 in work digging up the line, adding a cleanout, and clearing the line. I made a run for Angie's List, saw the D grade, and told my husband we needed to wait. (We do have a backyard, after all). While the Beacon plumber was there, the shower actually drained itself. I called an A-rated plumbing company on Monday morning. They said that the problem may have actually fixed itself, and that I could try running shower, washer, dishwasher to verify. If they ran, then we're fine, it cleared. Sure enough, it did. If it hadn't, then their next step would have been to try to snake from the downstairs toilet rather than DIGGING UP THE MAIN LINE for a couple thousand dollars!! At first I was impressed that the Beacon plumber would have been able to start a big job like that at 8:30 on a Saturday night, in the dark. Then I realized that that would have committed us to a huge project and price -- he was already going to have to come back in the morning -- absolutely no other reason to start that night. My husband is now required to run all companies through Angie's List before making a phone call. I don't care if the downstairs is flooding, take the extra ten minutes and just check the list. Just saved us two grand.

I should have known better, but I used Beacon once before and had a good experience (I must have gotten lucky). I had a dripping bathroom faucet. (I have ONE bathroom, so I'm somewhat stuck when it comes to lavatory facilities...) Beacon charges a $75 "service fee", which I stupidly assumed would be rolled into the total cost. Wrong. I got an estimate, which was high, but the total bill was more than $900, about $250 higher than the estimate! The plumber installed a new faucet (not a surprise, but the cost sure was) and spent most of his time complaining about the size of my bathroom. It was a very expensive mistake and one I'll never make again.

I bought a "Beacon Preferred Customer Plan" for $200 the last time someone from this company was at my house. One of the plan benefits is that the usual $75 service fee is waived for every future service for three years. I just called to schedule another service and was told by the (very unhelpful and rather rude) person on the phone that she had "never heard of" this benefit. I then asked for an estimate of how much my routine maintenance would cost and she (again, rudely) said she had no idea. I was NOT impressed.

I have not had a very good experience with Beacon Plumbing. When he came out he claimed to clean the drain out and the following day it was over flowing again. I called them and they had to come out again. They came out in a timely manner, but they were cussing and swearing the whole way. For the work that they did not do I thought I got screwed on the price.

I am actually a little dissatisfied with their service because the toilet continues to leak even after they have worked on it; however, the faucet looks fine so far. They were on time and the price was a quoted.

--My water was gushing out of the ground and it was said I needed a new connection fron the street. --I was given an estimate of $6000 for a new line with connection included to tht two garden pipes --They got the "mole" stuck and brought in a backhoe that dug a huge hole to recover it. --When done (and unfortunately paid for) I discovered the second watering pipe was omitted. --They would not respond too calls. --They inisisted this was not required and wouldn't fix it. Finally they agreed to do this for $750 more. --Like a fool I agrfeed to this thinking the agony would be over. --Then when it rained, a sink hole appreared and it looked like part of my hillside might wash away. --The City of Bellevue got involved and inisted that they replace the drain pipe that was cut. (Beacon had tossed the pipes down the hill in hopes we would not see them.) --Beacon came back and reconnedted the drain. --Beacon didn't answer complaints . Was hard dealing with various people who were in and out. --I got another plumber to connect the exterior water line for less than $100. --I tried to get Beacon to refund some of the money. No response.

They did a good job. It was a tough install because it was in a crawl space. After they were done, we had a few problems but they were great to come back and fix them. They were punctual and responsive. The man that we have come out is sharp and thorough.

He did a good job with the work he was hired for, but I was put off by the hard sell. I later found out that the work he was proposing is not required in the City of Seattle and could potentially drive up our utility bill if not done well and correctly. It made me feel like he was treating our one-time repair as a marketing opportunity to get more work -- and not in a good way.

We gave Beacon a call when we discovered that we had a sewer back up in our tub. They said that we got lucky and that they had a truck in the area. They sent him over when he was done with the other job it was only about forty five minutes. They came in it was about an hour and a half of work and the clog was fixed and it worked fine. They gave me a very reasonable price. They did a great job and fixed it very quickly.

We had a new garbage disposal installed by Beacon Plumbing. There was no advance estimate submitted for our approval. At the conclusion of the installation the bill stated that the charge for the new disposal, an Insinkerator Evolution Compact Pro 3/4HP, was $700. No new plumbing was required. Labor was additional and the total bill was $918.89 including tax. The $75 "appearance fee" was not credited toward the bill. We subsequently learned that the actual retail cost for this disposal is less than $200. I've called Beacon 4 times to ask if the $700 charge for the new disposal was a mistake. Each time they promised to call back the next day after they had a chance to look at my service record. I never received a return call. The matter is now with the Washington State Attorney General's office. The quality of the work was also poor: the plumber neglected to turn back on the water valves for the adjacent dishwasher. I can't help but wonder whether this was intentional, hoping for a call back for additional work. Update as of 3/9/09: I'm pleased with the work of the AG office in pursuing this complaint.

Terrible. A second opinion form Fox Plumbing showed me that Beacon was a bunch of shady crooks (see my report on Fox Plumbing's job).

After arriving after their window, they started to investigate the kitchen sink (and after one of the two gentlemen threw up outside), they ran a snake down the sink and then put the sink back together but claimed they wouldn't take responsibility if it leaked now because of some unspecified oddities in how my sink was put together. After they gave me the "don't pour grease down the sink" lecture and they left, I noticed they managed to reassemble the sink in such a way that the sprayer hose was wrapped around the plumbing. I didn't even bother to try calling them back, since I never want to see this company again.

They did a good job. They came on time. Cecilio explained everything well and didn't mind me watching. He gave me an estimate before hand, and their prices were consistent with that.

I called Beacon Plumbing becasue I had a $50 off coupon and my drain was running slow. They arrived and gave me an estimate close to $300 to clear the drain. I declined the estimate, but had to pay them $50 for the service call as my coupon was not valid for the call if service was not agreed to. I then called Fischer Plumbing for a second assessment of the problem. They determined that my drain was not running slow at all, the problem was in the mechanism that opens and closes the drain. It was not opening properly, so the drain could not drain properly. They charge by the hour and estimated it would take 15 - 30 minutes to fix. My total bill, including service call, was slightly over $100

They quickly diagnosed my problem and fixed it in 10 minutes. The plumber was knowledgeable and courteous so I will request him again unless it is an emergency. Beacon is a little odd in that them plumbers carry a book with pricing-and everything is by this book. They charged $255 for the water supply replacement, $75 for a trip charge, and the rest was taxes. He said he could look at or fix something else while he was here since I paid for his time and so little time was used. A nice gesture which earned a smile. Unfortunately I had no other problems and didn't take him up on this offer. I will probably call them again and request the same plumber. Their price was not the lowest but I had an emergency and was looking for fairness and speed; not cheap. The plumber was great, his "assistant" was on the phone the entire time and did nothing (that I saw).

My furnace stopped working in the midst of the great snowstorm of Dec 2008. I was unable to get anyone to come to my house due to the snow. Beacon had two people at my door within an hour of calling. They weren't able to get their truck up the snow covered hill to my house, so they walked. They brought a mat to clean their boots so as not to get snow in the house. After quickly diagnosing the problem and telling me the cost for repairs, they walked back to the truck to get the parts. They returned with the parts and tools needed as well as another mat to keep the area in front of the furnace clean. The whole job was complete in about 1.5 hours. Including the instruction on how to properly clean the filters in the furnace to prevent this from happening again. I have no idea if I was overcharged or not (it seems expensive), but after 2.5 days with almost no heat, price didn't matter so much. I found the company responsive and the two technicians polite and professional.

They were wonderful. They came within a half hour. The price was a little excessive, but the guy was wonderful. He cleaned up after himself so well. He was informative and honest. He also pointed out something else that's ready to give.

They charge 50 dollars to come out and give you a quote and don't deal over the phone. They employ convicted felons and under-qualified workers for an outrageous price. We ended up doing some of the work ourselves.

We were calling around to get prices, and remembered Beacon from all the commercials. They had a $99.00 fee to come out, but that would go toward the work if we hired them. They sent out a technician that looked like he had just rolled out of bed, and he had a big wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth. He came in and looked around for less than 5 minutes and gave us an outrageous price! I told him that we had another quote that was thousands of dollars less than his bid, and that the other company had inspected the job thoroughly, and he replied with, "well that's my price," so we said no thank you. Then we had to pay him $100 to get him to leave! Never again! Don't make the same mistake we did.. "You WILL be freakin' after you've dealt with Beacon!"

Terrible. First person came out and tried to clean out pipe to no avail. Did a good job trying but as I recall $1200 for 2 hour work. Had to go back and get camera to check line. That was another $1000+. He then recommend they would need to dig it out. the two many crew cam out the next day and wanted $3000 to dig it out at point of clog. I came home to learn they spend most of the time reverifying the spot of the clog the prior person already clearly marked. I paid $3000k for a small hole. They then recommended $9000 to run a new line to the street. Calls to others in building profession said they were price gouging beyond belief. I asked them to leave the job and told them I would only pay a partial amount of the $3000k the they wanted for the present work to which they readily agreed and said they would give me a price break on future work. I did a temp fig to get through the winter to get new quotes in the summer. As suspected, new quotes were all $3500 (with permit) or less. I realize during a storm there is a price premium but they were simply taking advantage of people. All the complaints and the investigation in the news about them are relevant.. Under no circumstances should someone call them. My recalls of the $ may be slightly off as this was a number of months ago but they are off by at most $500. They guarantee the price, but is it incredibly high and then if it does not fix the problem they ask for more.

We'd tried all the typical amateur plumbing tricks - plunging, snaking, cursing - to no avail. I was really kind of worried about what a plumber would find; we have 3 toilets in the house and I figured if there actually was something wrong with the line, we were going to be more than slightly inconvenienced. The very professional plumber determined almost immediately that the toilet itself was defective and recommended replacement. He gave us an estimate on-the-spot for replacing it, including options for upgrade, and listened (without cracking up) to us actually discuss whether this was work we could or should take on. He had the old toilet out and a new, working one installed within the hour, and cleaned up so well you'd never know we had plumbing work done.

Great, because I ended up hiring Fox Plumbing to do the sewer replacement.