A neighbor recommended Gramman for the two jobs I needed done at my mother's house. Ro in the office was great to deal with on the phone and they were helpful with scheduling a time. Like a lot of services now, they have a $149.00 charge for the visit and estimate, which they waive if you elect to do the repair. The plumber arrived exactly when they said he would, which I appreciated. He looked at both jobs and then wrote up their estimate. Job # 1 - exterior hose bib/spigot replacement. The estimate was $427.26 (after their 20% "new customer discount" and after I elected to simplify the repair by just having a 10 dollar spigot installed instead of the existing extension pipe -spigot-drain combo). It was a lot higher than I expected, but having already lost a day's pay and $149.00 for the estimate, I couldn't see a choice other than authorizing it and being done. They took care of this one in under 25 minutes. Looks good.
Job #2 - leaking shower faucet. The plumber removed the faucet knob and assessed that the Moen cartridge would need to be replaced. The estimate for this fix would be $244.49, which included a calculated "second job" discount. It seemed about right. So he starts working on this but is unable to remove the old cartridge, which has become fused. "This is bad", he says, and heads back to the truck to recalculate his estimate. How bad? "We're going to have to either cut through the bathroom tile or through the wall in the adjacent room to remove the entire shower body and replace. I advise we go through the living room wall sheetrock before we get into tile work" The new estimate - $1,213.68 (and a hole which I'm responsible for repairing). Still hurting from what I agreed to pay for the hose spigot, and starting to feel like I've made a huge mistake, I tell them I'll need to think about it.
A friend, who just happened to do the same repair in his shower 2 weeks ago, says he'll take a look at it for me. After telling me that I got overcharged on the hose, he works on the shower for a while, pulls the fused cartridge using a tap and die and bolt and replaces it with the $20 new Moen cartridge. Shower is fixed, no tile was cut, living room wall is intact. I owe him big time.
I'm not a plumber. I wish I was. Should that hose bib have cost $427 bucks? For what it's worth, Angie's list will tell you it's a $300 job on the very high end. I can tell you it was 25 minutes of labor and a ten dollar part, but it's Nassau County and people need to make a living, I guess. I'm just so glad that I got a second opinion about that leaky faucet. read more