Be very careful if you ever have to use these guys, and avoid if possible. This is what happened to me.
My brothers and I are building a cabin for our mother (this is in 2015). We were doing all the work ourselves that we could, but the rules say a licensed contractor has to install the gas. The front desk lady at the codes office gave me a couple of names of contractors, and Mid Columbia Mobile Propane was the only one who answered the phone. I talked with Freddy, and he seemed great. When I talked about how we were doing the project on a shoestring budget and needed the minimum work possible to satisfy code, he smiled and promised to take care of me. We worked out the details of the job, and he arrived at a dollar value. It was higher than I expected, but I figured that is always the case with contractors, right? I gave the go-ahead and scheduled the work. His crew came out and from what I could tell they did a fine job; the system held pressure with no issues, and they even swept up before they left. I was pleased at a job well done.
Then the bill came, and it was almost twice the estimate. I called up Freddy, and all his smiles were gone. His stance: "that's what the job cost." My reply: "Maybe that's the case, but how come I don't find that out until the final bill arrived? What about the estimate? How could you be off by double?" His reply: "That's what the job cost."
So, we go back and forth a couple of times, me angry, him stonewalling. I can't afford the bill, and he just challenges me to find someone who could do the work more cheaply. I try to get across to him that if I had known it would be that much, I would have downsized the design; moved the tank closer, used an electric dryer, something, but was denied that option by his bad estimate, and now I'm stuck; the work has already been done.
I start going through the bill, trying to get him to explain what it was that ended up being twice as expensive as he expected. He just says over and over that "that's what it costs." I am more and more frustrated, so I start pricing out the things he billed for. Among others, I find that the black iron pipe and fittings he charged $200 for, I can get at Home Depot for $40. I know that contractors charge markup, and frankly I don't care; just include it in the estimate! I only got nit-picky because I'm desperate to avoid crashing the whole project because of this nonsense. Eventually I think I wore him down because he finally says "Look, it sounds like you are pricing this stuff online. If you replace the materials we used, I will knock it off the bill. I will still charge you for the labor, but if you bring me back the parts, any money you saved by going online is yours." So I did. It took a week or so for them to come in, but I was able to get the same parts as were installed for about a quarter as what I was billed, and that brought the total down to were I could (barely) manage it. The parts were dropped off, receipts printed, and I wrote it off as a lesson learned. On to sheetrock!
Two months later, I go into the codes office to schedule final inspection. Blah blah blah, normal stuff, "Oh, by the way, Mid Columbia Propane came in and pulled your gas permit. They say they didn't do the work. You are going to need to get another gas installer to certify the system."
My walls are textured and painted, appliances are installed, and I thought we were ready to pop a cold one and call it done, only to find that we will probably have to tear the walls back open to expose the gas lines. Assuming I can get someone willing to even consider certifying work they didn't do. Words fail me. Thanks, Freddy. Can I at least get the permit fee refunded? .
I truly hope that I am the only one who has had this bad of an experience with these folks, but I doubt it.
Short version: Avoid this company; they are bad at estimates and will screw you over if they can. read more
