are these plumbing charges typical?
The upside to all this, is that your fingers are not too cold to type
pigthree
in Plumbers and Plumbing 13 years and 5 months ago
10
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10 replies
anonymous | 13 years and 5 months ago
Our furnace wasn’t working so we had to call in a plumber on a sunday. They fixed the issue and also corrected some other problems with our system for which I am grateful. They seemed knowlegable, and I feel good about the work. The charges were more than I expected, though, so I wanted to see if this was common practice. They finished the work in 1 hour and 2 minutes (I timed it). But then spent close to 30 minutes on paperwork and documenting our system so they could get me a proposal for a new furnace. In the end we were charged for 2 hours of work at $185 per hour. PLUS (and this is what bothered me) $48 per hour “trip charge.” Why would there be an hourly trip charge on top of an hourly labor charge? So in the end, $468. There were 2 guys here. When they were finished at the 62 minute mark I thought my charges were going to be $185. A little bit of sticker shock, naturally. heat works though.
coopfornow | 13 years and 5 months ago
You might get an answer if you ask them to adjust the bill, and give them your reasons. And I have heard about “travel time or trip charge,” but not per hour. If they were going to charge you for a proposal they should have informed you. I am not a professional though, this is simply my opinion as a consumer.
Master Plvmber | 13 years and 5 months ago
You could have called my office, cottontop, to have the charges explained. But, sure, this is another way to go: asking uninvolved, anonymous people. I won’t talk about my rates here, but I will ask you how much you paid the plumber who left your steam heating system in its current state: a badly undersized riser which will have to be removed and repiped; a back-pitched horizontal main that creates banging; spitting main vents and radiator vents; excessive pressure; leaking return, etc. Plus you’ve got undersized boiler piping that is configured horribly and all of this is costing you lots of extra money to run. You were also told you would get some credit for today’s invoice toward work to be done in the future if you hire our firm. My crew also did a system evaluation (part of the 30 minutes paperwork) for you to determine if the boiler matches the system demand, which I’ll have to put pen to paper and about an hour of my time tomorrow at my office for you. It’s a Sunday, your heat is up and working despite the disaster you were left with by another plumber. But I’m sure you paid him less than our hourly rates. All this being the case, is it really the $48 trip charge “that bothers you”? My office now tells me this was all explained to you, but you opted for service today, acknowledging service tomorrow would be cheaper.
pigthree | 13 years and 5 months ago
what should you have paid? cottontop? park slope? i’m not surprised John. i wonder what cottontop does for a living.
eman134 | 13 years and 5 months ago
most plumbing outfits have a two hour minimum
anonymous | 13 years and 5 months ago
guys, it was just a question. And a fair one. I acknowleged the work was good, but needed to know if the pricing was fair before giving them future work. There was mention of a trip charge but I was not told it would be hourly. It still doesn’t make sense to me. If you have an hourly rate, than have an hourly rate. If you want to explain it, then I will listen openly. Also, I was careful not to mention the actual company, so, I think I went about learning a consensus opinion in a very fair way. That’s what this board is for, and this board is what led me to the plumbing company I called. The half-hour to do paperwork was another issue, fo which I got charge full 1 hour charge including th etrip charge.I
anonymous | 13 years and 5 months ago
depending on feedback received on this forum, I would have called the office to discuss. But did not want to enter that conversation uninformed.
pigthree | 13 years and 5 months ago
consensus opinions on this fourm can be wrong. Seems like every person who has gone through one home renovation is suddenly an expert. reminds me of fsrq (i think) and her/his school of “walk around” regarding brickwork and pointing – information, totally wrong. or Benson and his/her pretend knowledge of foundation structural integrity when his background and profession is engineering in underwater cable.
Master Plvmber | 13 years and 5 months ago
Fair enough, Cottontop, but it is on rare occasion one gets reasonable feedback when talking about money and contractors on any internet forum, so my defenses do tend get a bit heavy-handed. My office can give you a clearer explanation on Monday, though the person you spoke to on the phone tells me you were made fully aware of the extra hourly charge for today. Misunderstandings are not an impossiblity. I know that. To see this from another angle, and this may not be your problem, but just a bit of background: So far, 2012 is carrying on much like 2011\. When the economy took a nosedive in 2008, good-paying projects demanding quality workmanship all but dried up. The budget for nearly every renovation I looked at was dropped to bare minimum and the lowest bidders, however unscrupulous and unqualified, saw the most work in their careers. The current and last heating season have for me been *filled* with undoing and redoing all the horrible work done by the cheap contractors empowered by the recession of the last three years. I now routinely see completely messed up installations by plumbers and general contractors who have disappeared/phones shut off/moved back to China or Europe, etc. I’ve been asked three times this heating season to provide written testimony with evidence of negligence for various law suits. It’s disheartening to see over and over and it takes a great deal of time trying to figure out what can be salvaged and what has to go when pricing a proposal to repair. In part, this is where some of the labor charges figure in. I hope you can see this as a positive and proactive approach to solving problems like yours. Best, John Cataneo, Licensed Master Plumber Gateway Plumbing and Heating
anonymous | 13 years and 5 months ago
I agree that there is a lot of misleading information out there, but there are a lot of people who have hired plumbers and they all know what they paid, and whether or not they were happy with the results. The previous plumber sucked, and has been fired. As was the GC who hired him. Now I need a new plumber who doesn’t suck, but who I can afford. This is the predicament of people like me who are trying to hold together 150 year old homes that have never been properly maintained. We have to be smart with our money or we’ll never get everything in order. I didn’t know I was getting charged 230 an hour to prepare an estimate, and then getting charged a full hour for 30 minutes time. I think it’s understandable if there’s a 2-hour minimum, but I don’t recall that information. And there’s plenty of work to do around here, so I would have been happy to keep him busy for another 30 minutes anyway. Look, i wasn’t even that upset because I was happy with the work and because I have heat. But I did want to know if what I paid was reasonable based on good quality work in the area coming on a sunday. anyone else?