Soooo, in reference to earlier rhetorical questions on contractors…this is what happens when you don’t get estimates – you get charged twice the amount that you initially thought you would. On our first meeting with the plumber we pointed out several problems and got an estimate of under $300. well a month later and several other problems (initial list was #1-3 of the list below) fixed we paid twice as much. Now, he did do a good job and came, or at least called to cancel, every time he said he would.
But in my humble, non-contractor experience he did not do $600 worth of work:
- put in an outside water hookup with a spigot – this was completely replaced as ours was broken
- fixed leak under the kitchen sink
- fixed copper pipe leak the crawl space under the kitchen
- fixed drainage problems in the basement hook up for the washer (the laundry sink would not drain properly so we had to keep a bucket under it )
- identified (cause we probably wouldn’t have!) the kitchen ceiling leak as a toilet wax ring problem and put in a new wax ring,
- fixed copper pipe leak that caused severe rust in the heat vent in the basement;
what really cost us money was the toilet adventure, taking off the vent duct, and laundry drainage.
Pretty expensive lessons to learn, but here’s what we plan to do differently next time:
- Get several estimates for a job – even though as you can see above all of these were pretty small and #4, #5 and #6 (otherwise known as the items that cost us a ton of money) didn’t actually come up until later;
- communicate on how much each additional service/job would cost
- don’t think that anything will be free. every. little. thing. will cost you money
oh well, at least its the weekend – my dad was here this week and we got an electrical saw as a housewarming present, good bye vines, hello nice yard!
