Chris's Plumbing and Sewer

Bait and Switch, Stay Away! I wish I could leave a great review for this company, and wish that I'd seen the very low ratings on virtually all their reviews on Yelp and AngiesList before hiring them. Every one of those reviews describes our exact experience, leading me to believe this is their standard MO. We had a pre-inspection before putting our home up for sale. We hired a very reputable company that only does inspections, not repairs. They found a break in our side sewer, at about 4ft depth, and also recommended installing a clean out. We contacted our sewer insurance company NWC, and they sent out their estimator who told us that NWC would pay for the repairs, but not the clean-out, which of course we expected as that isn't covered by our plan. They gave us a quote of $1500 for the clean-out. My husband always likes to get a few quotes. Within seconds of inputting our online request, Chris called. We were impressed with his responsiveness. In about an hour, his workers arrived promptly and gave us an estimate of $880 for the entire project (repair line and install clean-out). This seemed a little low, so we called Chris to make sure there wasn't an error. He said, nope that's what it is, we don't take advantage of our customers like some others do. And so we went with them -- their bid was lower even without insurance coverage, and they could start immediately. The next day, 3 or 4 hours into the job, they called to say a complication had arisen. Surprise! They claimed the break in the sewer was actually 6 ft deep, not the 4 ft shown on tthe inspector's video. And they had to increase the price to $2500, THREE times the original quote, for supposedly digging an extra 2 ft. More importantly, the the hole they dug wasn't even 6ft. My husband, who is 6ft tall, went down into it with a ladder, and from his shoulders up was above ground. As if that wasn't bad enough, they also told us our clay line was full of roots and would be shot in a few years. According to them, re-lining wasn't an option and they HIGHLY and earnestly recommended that we replace the entire side sewer, to the tune of $25-35k. For a perfectly fine sewer line in a house we're about to sell. Lol!!! Anyway, they had started the job and we just wanted to be done with them, which I'm sure is what they count on. We managed to negotiate them down to $2200, and a few minutes later, their incredibly rude "office manager" called and demanded immediate payment of $1100. This was a 1 to 2-day job, and there was never a mention of the half down when they provided the estimate or even after they begun the work. Of course we planned to pay upon completion (last thing any seller needs is a lien on the house). She became rude and belligerent, and I told her the company sucked and they could go to ****. She then started screaming at me at the top of her shrill voice, and said she was calling the job off and would ask the workers to stop work and fill the trench back up. She then hung up on me. I called her bluff and texted her back to thank her for the free dig of our icy, clay soil. Because even with filling it back up, they've now made the job easier for the next workers who will be digging loose soil. Of course their sales guy (the "good cop") called immediately afterwards to apologize and try to walk back her threats. We did end up having them finish up the job as we just wanted to be done. Obviously I would never use them again, or recommend them to anyone I care about. While their ultimate cost wasn't outrageous, it was the very transparent bait and switch tactic that was so off-putting. And we had the $1500 insurance bid that we'd have gone with, had we known this was their MO. I honestly don't know how companies like this stay in business!!