Unscrupulous charges. We used Paul for a complete reno job on a project we're working on based on the recommendation of the ex-contractor. Although Paul seems like a nice guy, my biggest gripe with him is his pricing which seems to be arbitrary. On one of Pauls invoices (which unfortunately comes through under the contractors billing as a line item at the end of a month), my husband noticed a $5000 charge for Dumanovsky Plumbing. When my husband questioned Paul about it, Paul had no idea what it was or why we were charged that money. After looking into it, Paul called back and said his wife added this extra fee for "cost of living." I've heard a lot of cockamamie reasons for why people get charge for certain things but that had to be one of the most absurd excuses I've ever heard because HELLO - cost of living increases impact everyone. For you to pass that expense off to a client is completely unethical and morally wrong. Who is the plumber anyway? Paul or his wife? Why is his wife adding extra fees to a job? After trying to come to some sort of resolution, Paul has yet to address a refund on this ridiculous charge but instead seems to have swept it under the rug as we have not heard back from him.
Another reason I wouldn't recommend this company is that I also didn't love the job that Paul did. All of our vanities in our bathrooms were supposed to be floating. Paul however, made is so that you see the pipes underneath on some so now either we pay to have it fixed or have full length cabinets. When I asked Paul about this, he claimed that he didn't have drawings to go by which is not the truth because his friend the contractor always had drawings on site. Furthermore, when I asked him how exactly he knew where to set the drains if he didn't have drawings and measurements, he stated that the contractor told him where to do it. I know we had a lot of change orders but those change orders were for increasing the scope. Having floating cabinets has been the one thing that has NEVER changed on this project. I think as the homeowner, Paul owed it to us to at least inform us that he can't do floating vanities because of whatever reason and allow us to make whatever decisions we need to from there. Not let us know about it after the work was done so that we now have to pay more to fix it.
For anyone considering hiring Dumanovsky plumbing keep in mind that if you hire Paul through a contractor, you will be kept out of the loop in regards to decisions about your own home. In addition know that whether you hire him directly or through a contractor, you could end up with random, unjustified, inequitable charges that you never expected. Our experience with Dumanovsky plumbing has been quite disappointing to say the least and since Paul seems to have forgotten about our $5000, unless he addresses this situation soon, my husband will probably have to take this further up the CCB ladder. Finally thing I wanted to mention was that since Dumanovsky plumbing isn't a large professional company like Cornell's Plumbing, Apollo or others that we know of, when you hire Paul, he uses your property and time to teach his apprentice who I believe is also his teenage son. We didn't mind as tradesmen have to learn from someone's project but since I'm forced to write this review, I thought it worth mentioning as that situation isn't for everyone. read more