Favinger Plumbing

Patrick D.
you are lucky Art had so much patience with you. First off if it is the main and you are on a septic system the first thing to do is start at the inspection port (inlet) of the tank. 90% of the time that is where the problem is. You always run a line from the tank back towards the house. If it means digging up the solid side of the tank then do it. Install a proper clean-out at the tank if needed. If the line is packed with soft material you can run that line for hours from the other direction and run the risk of breaking the inlet t inside the tank. So right there my fee starts at $233.00 for one hour. Add another $100-$150 if I have to excavate the inlet side of the tank. My bill would have been $383.50 plus tax (if there was a clean-out at the tank) but that would have also included me exposing the tank and inspecting the depth of the liquid, solid, and sludge layers within the tank. Yes it seems that his employee may not have been properly trained but the price was not to far off. The real injustice is that the re-occurrence of the same problem could have happened again and Art would be the one loosing money. Because of the past plumbers inability to properly provide you with great service you are now left with the misconception that you now know how to fix it. So now Art as well as others like me have to deal with people like you all the time. They really do not know what they are talking about and try to tell us how to clear a septic line from a main cleanout. All of this is because some other lazy plumber did not do his job correctly in the first place. Now Art knows all of this and certainly would have stood behind the re-occurrence of a blockage in your case at his own expense. He certainly is not going to tell you his employee dropped the ball. I trained Roto-Rooter and never walked for less then $233.00 on a main line w/o digging. And for you and others info..... all jobs are priced in 2 hour blocks. ($102-$133 per hour x two). You are being charged for 2 hours if the tools come off the truck. The technician should have an assessment of the job within 15 minutes upon arrival and inform you of the price up front. If the tech spends over an hour in your house he stops and informs you of the unseen problem. This is where good communication skills come in to play. The key is for him to spend no less than 45 minutes and no more then 1 hour and walk with away with a happy customer and say $268.00. Anything over one hour in front of the customer the price goes up accordingly. Once again Art can't argue that his guys may have short-cutted the job but it sounds like the previous plumbers did not do or know their job either. Art stands behind all his work and the price while it sounds a little off really is not. By the way Marv works based on the same pricing program. Your bill would have been about the same with him. You can not price a job without seeing it. Roto-Rooter quotes $133.50 for a main line over the phone (I got on to them for that) and that price is conceptually interpreted by the consumer as a value. It is then the technicians job to sale the customer an experience that leaves them satisfied and that value is never $133.50. Oh I just broke down the prices for you didn't I? Minus the use of the equipment that the tech has to charge that is pretty much it. The labor cost includes the overhead that the owner pays out for advertising, gas, office personnel, taxes, and insurance. How is that for honesty? If you are concerned about a plumber then ask for his name and verify his credentials with Labor and Industry. The same holds true for the contractor. Art Is a stand up guy within the community and has a reputation of being honest and fair.

So my main pipe was plugged. How did I know this? Well everything (water related) upstairs would make the downstairs toilet over flow (that’s a really good indication of a plug or a full septic). I had my septic emptied less than 2 years ago, so again I had a general idea what it was. Usually I would just go and rent the equipment myself (50 dollars or so) but was pressed for time as the weekend was approaching and my wife wanted to take a shower because she wasn't feeling well.

Usually I would call Roto-Rooter but had a few extra dollars and wanted to support a small local business, BIG MISTAKE. I called Favinger Plumbing and was met on the phone by a woman named Arianna. I explained my situation and asked for a ballpark quote. My flag should have gone up when she said she couldn't be sure what the price could be because it could be one of many issues. She asked if I knew where my main access was and I explained it was behind my washer that I had already disconnected in anticipation of them needing to use it.

She said someone would be out around 2-4pm. I agreed and went about my day. 3 hours later they show up and my wife explained everything to them and left them to their job. After a little less than an hour they explained they found the clog (big surprise). It was 12 feet down and they had cleared it. Then proceeded to hand my wife a bill for 423 something (that’s with tax included). My wife, not knowing that is ridiculous for what they had done, paid without batting an eye and left me the bill on the fridge. I get home and freaked out, as anyone who knows anything about paying for plumbing would. Unfortunately it was too late to call as it was Friday at 5 pm and they are not open on weekends…
I had to wait.

Then I call first thing Monday morning asking what I had just paid for, as nothing was itemized on the bill. Art, the guy I talked to had to get in contact with his plumber to see what the deal was. Obviously my bill was there but had nothing regarding itemized priced list (how professional) so he had to hear it from the horse’s mouth. So I called around for a while to other plumbers in the area (it’s hard to get a price quote knowing exactly what is wrong and still sounding like you needed help). The other plumber from another company said if it’s just a clog it would be 170 for an hour’s work and he’s out the door. That was around the ballpark I was expecting…. One person. Fair and fast. So I said I would call around for other quotes but keep him in mind.

40 minutes later Art from Favinger Plumbing called me back and began the biggest load of BS you would expect to hear. They threw thousands of dollars down my pipes, he said. They needed the camera to see where the plug was then auger it, then run the camera down it again to validate that the clog was gone. “This was a two person job, as I don’t want my guys to break their backs down the stairs,” even though had they just used the main access behind the washer that would not had been an issue as the main is on the other side of the bathroom that is ground floor with the garage they could/should have gone through to solution this problem. Art then asked how much it would take refund wise because he doesn't like to have bad business.

He didn’t offer me hush money and I want to make sure everyone who reads this understands that. I said 100 dollars off making my total 300 dollars with taxes (100 dollars more than his competition Marv’s quoted *Next time I will using Marv’s services). Art declined this offer as it was, “like putting a gun to his head,” and offered me half of that and told me I can write as many bad reviews as I wanted. Do yourself a favor and go with Marv’s Plumbing or anyone for that matter that will give you a honest quote and not overcharge for services that are unnecessary to tack onto the bill to validate you were right all along…..