Dale Plumbing & Heating

My 75 gallon water heater for an apartment building went out, leaving 11 people without hot water. Dale Plumbing sent someone out within the hour, and by the end of the day I had a new water heater and a bunch of happy tenants.

I have had Dale plumbing do work for me several times and have always found them to do good work for a reasonable price; that is until this last time. I noticed signs a leak at the back of my house just below my laundry sink. I called Dale Plumbing and they had two guys at my house within an hour. They determined that the leak was inside the wall and showed me the video they took. One of the plumbers told me that I could get a quote for the work or go with time and materials at $195/hr. He said that I owed them $195 for the diagnostic visit and, should I have them do the work they would deduct that payment from the bill. I received a quote for $1,662.50 to open the wall and fix the leaky pipe. It seemed a bit high but I wanted the work done so I signed and returned the contract. Two plumbers showed up on time, did a very professional job and were done within 2 hours. I was presented with the bill of $1,662.50 and I reminded them to deduct the $195 from the previous visit. He called the office and was told the $195 had already been deducted in the quote price. There was no indication on the quote that this was the case. So, the job ended up costing a total of $1,857.50. A very liberal estimate of the materials would be $150. Rounding up to $157.50 for materials, the labor cost would come to $1,700. At 4 man hours, this equates to $425/hour. I clearly should have gone with time and materials. A fair price for this job would be $1,000 max! My wife and I are both retired and on a fixed income; this is a lot of money to us. I realize that I signed the contract, but I think I’ll be looking elsewhere for a plumber in the future.

We continue to hire Dale Plumbing every year for the annual backflow prevention assembly device test. They are efficient and reasonably priced.