Able Plumbing

My experience with Able Plumbing left me disappointed and feeling ripped off. They should be called Unable Plumbing. The workmanship is poor and their prices astronomical. The job leaked 3 times. I was charged $500 for labor. What is their hourly rate and the number of hours I am being charged for?? It appears they just plucked a figure out of the air. The plumber was here 4-1/2 hrs. At least 1-1/2 hrs of that time was spent running for parts and redoing a botched job. Th plumber shows up on the job without the parts he needs, despite the fact that the owner came and looked at the job in advance. Shouldn't he have come prepared instead of charging me over $100/hr to go shopping? Then he has to run and get more parts after his work leaked, again at my expense. They had to come back a second and third time because there are still leaks. Cadillac prices for Edsel work. And then the ridiculous add on charges: $595 for a tank I can get for under $300 $39.95 for solder and torch. I could buy a new torch and whole roll of solder for that. $60 for truck charge and removal of old tank. I have to pay for his truck in addition to over $100/hr? 229.75 for misc parts that are well over twice their retain price If anyone would ever hire this company, please get an estimate in advance and find out what their hourly rate is. I was in a desperate situation with no water and did not do this. I feel they knew that and took advantage of the situation. Over priced work, disappointing results. Never again!

He came first to see the leak and then came back next day to put a new gasket. But he charged $100 for labor charge and $40 for truck charge. The gasket itself costs only $10. He did not even mention once about how much it will cost. Of course, I did not ask for it at the beginning which I should have.

They fixed six leak in a tub and he ended up damaging it and it cost us $800 that he cause. And then when we called him out, they said they don't do it free of charge and it was $49 for charge on there and he did how many hours he worked and I figured he worked about seven hours but he charged $700 for that time period so it came out to a $100 an hour. I will not use them again in the future.

Less Able came out and gave me a qoute of 300.00 - 1000.00 to fix a leak at the pitless adaptor to my well depending on how it went. It was located under concrete so I rented a saw and cut and disposeded of the concrete myself to save some money (or so I thought). Less came as stated and everything went very smooth, no problems, except I had to run to town to get supplies (I paid for) which were supposed to be brought along. He spent less then $50 in connections used from their truck and charged me for. So when I was handed the bill for $1497.00 for what was qouted at 300 -1000 and (and I already had done the hard part !!!!) I was not happy. When asked why so much I basically was told thats how it is and deal with it. Well my advice is to never use him or at least at get a qoute in writing first, don't take him at his word. I actually thought it would come in at $700 since I did the concrete cutting and back filling. Needless to say I am very dissappointed with the cost of service provided. There were no problems, actually went easy, so why so far off?? I got no answer to that. Carl

unknown

I called Able plumbing because our septic tank was running over. I suspected the pump was bad & Able confirmed that. They installed a new pump, then tried to pump the tank out & it would not pump out. They suspected the pipe was frozen & said I should have the tank pumped out & they would return in a day or 2 & check where the pipe was frozen, they never called or returned so I called them again & they said they would call me in a day or 2 & return then. I never heard from them so I called another plumber who determined that the pipe was not frozen, the mound was clogged & needed to be jetted. I will never use Able plumbing ever again & I feel they overcharged me for the services provided the day they were here.

Would not give a written estimate prior to the work, so we asked for a "best and worst case scenario" verbal estimate. Les told us best case $900, worst case $1500. The total bill came to over $1800 including tax, so clearly his "worst case" estimate was a lie. Our neighbor later told us he had similarly under-quoted work he did for them years ago, so apparently some things don't change. Sure wish we had spoken to them before we called Able Plumbing. The installation went well enough, and the crew was punctual and completed the work in about 3 hours. (Hard to believe 3 hours work could cost over $1800...) The final bill seemed full of nickel and dime parts that were overpriced (various gaskets and seals at $10 each seemed hard to believe). Despite the sticker shock, the biggest trouble came after the work was complete. Les shocked the well with chlorine tablets and promised to come back in one week to do a water test. Five weeks later, we had not gotten the water test results back, and we called Able Plumbing to find out if they had heard anything. Turns out Les had "forgotten" to come out to collect the sample. His terse response when we asked why he had not come out was, "Forgot about it." He did not apologize until later when I met him to take the sample. He came out that day, and two days later called us to say the water test came back "unsafe." He came out to shock the well again, and unbelievably failed for a SECOND time to return to take the second water test. He did come back after we called a second tie, and that test came back unsafe again. To find that out we had to call him. His response was, "I got several tests back a couple days ago, and I think one of them was unsafe. I'll have to check at the shop in the morning to see if that was yours" Unbelievable! He showed no concern over the safety of our water system, even though we had a 6 month old baby and a 2 year old toddler in the house, and our family had experienced several bouts of vomiting and diarrhea over the time period when our water was (unbeknownst to us) unsafe for consumption. After a third trip to shock the well, we finally managed to obtain a satisfactory result. I wish I had gone with a different company. They overcharged us for the work (greatly exceeding their worst-case scenario estimate), and then failed to ensure our water was safe for fully two months after they did the work. I would not recommend Able Plumbing to anyone.

The men came on time. We were charged for two men although only one did the work and the other was a young boy. My fiance helped hook up the hose and turn off/on water for the older man. So although we were charged for two men, my fiance did more work than the younger boy. The younger boy only brought the older man a pen and wrench I believe. The problem was fixed. We had water leaking in basement due to a clogged sewer. The man charged us 320. I was able to get him to $300 after complaining. They were stating that on Saturdays there is a two hour minimum charge, which was never discussed until the bill was handed to us. We were also charged time and a half for two men, which only one man worked on our pipe. We were also charged I believe $39.95 just for them to "bring" the snake machine with, but this was not used, and I think it should of been. So although the clog is gone, we still have roots that we'll have to pay to get removed soon. After asking about the two hour minimum they tried to justify it by drive time, and they were close by. The entire time spent at our home was about 20 minutes. We will never use them again.

The plumber who came was knowledgeable. He told us the holding tank in the basement no longer had an air space. He corrected the problem. Then told us the pump needed a new part which he also replaced. The sticker shock was the extra charge for Saturday: $350. There was other work recommended as well, we told him we wanted to get another person to check the price. We found out from other contractors that Able Plumbing is known for their very steep prices and were advised not to use them again by more than one other contractor in the area. Each one I called said the service performed by Able Plumbing should have been about $100 to $150 even if done on a Saturday. Needless to say, when one of the contractors actually apologized to us before we even told him what we had done, we knew we would not use this company again.

On Monday we called 2 other business in the area and found out the job should have cost about $75 to $100. We were told as long as the pump was working fine now the other work was not necessary. The others also told us to tell everyone we knew never to call this company to do any work. Not because they didn't know what they were doing, but because their prices were so much higher than they should be. Being the first name in the telephone book often means they get the first call. They won't quote any prices before they come. One of the other contractors even apologized to me when I told him who we had called to work on the pump. He said when he heard the name he knew we had been taken advantage of. The plumber called us at least 2 more times telling us we needed the other work done, but we had already been warned by other businesses not to use their services. The bill would be at least 3 times what they would charge.