Called Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air (SPPHA) to fix a leak in my bathtub that was leaking into my basement. Damen from SPPHA comes over at his scheduled time and before even walking 10 steps to the source of the leak starts trying to sell me a new water heater "Oh man, this thing is a ticking time bomb. I wouldn't be doing my job as a plumber if I didn't advise you to replace this" (Side Note: When you waste my time trying to upsell me you aren't doing your job as a plumber either - STFU and start fixing some pipes.)
After listening to his sales pitch for a while he finally looked at the leak and tested it - just as he suspected it was leaking. Seems like a good use of $69 to pay his visit fee. Damen goes to his plumber bible and says "we don't charge by the hour, we do up front pricing which is better for the customer." After looking in his book for a while Damen comes back with an $1,000 estimate to fix it.
After cleaning the crap out of my pants I froze up and told Damen I needed to call my wife "I totally understand, this is a big decision." Damen asks if I want some privacy and I say 'yeah, why don't you step outside." I call my wife to complain, knowing we were not using SPPHA to do this job and signal for Damen to come back in.
Damen understands me passing on his services (which felt like his motive all along - get my $69 visit fee and not do any plumbing whatsoever). I try to get more info out of him by asking "Is the price driven more by parts or more by labor here?" His response, "totally labor, the parts are minimal."
I then tell Damen I have to be back at work by 12 and need to leave by 11am to get there. (At this point it was 8am.) Damen then advises me that he thinks he could have the job done in 2 hours if he started now.
So let's break this down:
-$1100 quote to fix the pipe
-Price is almost driven completely by labor
-Lets say an aggressive estimate of $100 parts, leaving $1000 for labor
-SPPHA can fix the whole problem in 2 hours.
-$1000 / 2 hours = $500 per hour.
Short of a prostitute there is no profession that is running at $500 per hour.
I had an independent plumber out 2 weeks later who fixed everything I mentioned earlier, and some other quick fix items, for $200 in total.
Minneapolis/Saint Paul Plumbing Heating and Air is honestly the worst company I have ever worked with in 10 years of living in the Twin Cities. The plumber I hired to do my work had over 30 years of experience while SPPHA had 4 years of experience. SPPHA also threw this gem at me "I mean you can go with an independent plumber, but with us you know you are going to get the job done right." OH REALLY DOCTOR?!?! The 29 year old with spiky hair and 4 years of plumbing experience is going to teach the 30 year plumbing veteran a thing or two about plumbing?? If I could give negative stars in this rating system I would.
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