Plumbing Disaster
A few years ago, my shower fixture was dripping. I, being a devout procrastinator, waited to do something about it until it became a trickle. When I called a plumbing company that my wife had used once before when I was out of town and told them what was going on and asked to have someone come out and give me a quote, fully expecting to be charged $50 for a diagnosis fee. The receptionist said that it would be $125 to fix the problem. We scheduled the appointment for the next day.
The plumber shows up on time. He takes the fixture apart and spends well over an hour fidgeting with it. He then tells me it’s going to be $400 to correct the problem. There was an issue with the way the hot water heater had been installed originally and the hot water was melting the pipe that was feeding it to my shower.
If they had come out and prepared a quote for the $400 repair, I may have had to pay $450. Instead I paid $525 for his time the day before and the actual repair. I will probably never use that plumbing company again because the receptionist prescribed a repair without their technician doing the proper diagnosis first.