John’s Plumbing

I am not sure most people have had truly wonderful experiences with plumbers so my expectations were pretty low. However they did not fail to surpass all of my negative expectations. I own several units in a condo building who uses John’s as their primary plumber. I usually use another company for certain needs but since this job would be aided by knowledge of the building I gave them a shot. The sink in the bathroom was not really draining and the toilet would not flush properly. The line had been rodded out multiple times in the last 7 years and the problem kept returning. I was fed up and wanted the piping in the wall replaced. I called and was told they can come out and rod the pipes for $ 135 per hour plus $ 55 for the machine to do it. I told them I didn’t want that and that I wanted the pipes replaced and to get me an estimate. They said they can do that when they are out rodding the line… at $ 135 an hour plus. When I said this was unacceptable they said they would send someone to look for free for an estimate. Per my tenants the person who came was late for the appointment. When he came in he barely looked at the toilet, did not even flush and just did a cursory look. I specifically asked for an estimate for new pipes. The next day I received an estimate of $ 550 dollars to rod out the pipes and to replace a part on the toilet. Knowing what little my father knows about plumbing, we could see that the piece was so rusted that it was welded into place and could not be replaced without breaking the toilet apart. So not only did they give me an estimate for a service I did not want, they suggested something that would be completely impossible to do. That being said had a trusted them and gone with their estimate, the problem would not have been fixed and it would have cost me 2−3X as much because I would have been beholden to them to replace the toilet when they broke it. Luckily I have learned from the words of PT Barnum.

I’m the office manager at the company I work for and we moved into a bigger space. We needed a waterline installed to connect our water filtration unit & coffee maker and that was done for us FOR FREE by my coffee vendor. They didn’t have the part to connect our water filter unit to the water line and the building engineers wouldn’t do it — they said it needed a plumber because if it wasn’t done right it could leak and flood the space. They gave me the name of the building plumber and so I called them. The plumber was an hour late, completed the job in 15 minutes and was out the door. All he had to do was connect the water unit pepe to the existing water line. I got a bill charging me for 2 hours. When I called and talked to the A/​R department she said the minimum was 1 hour, but she would talk to the owner. I Never heard back from her, and called back again, and the owner called me back and said his minimum was 2 hours. The owner would not work with me on adjusting this invoice. He wasn’t even sincere about it. He was just rude and said «this is what it is & that’s what you owe me». Which was shocking because I’ve never dealt with an owner that didn’t care about his PAYING customers. They’re usually nicer because they want to keep and make new customers via referrals especially in this struggling economy. He was acting like I was trying to rip him off when we all know plumbers are already rip offs with their premium prices. This place is definitely not customer friendly and WAY OVER PRICED. They can probably do the job, but they aren’t very nice here. I got better service from Good Plumbing and would have used them had my building authorized me to use a different plumber than theirs. AND i know for a fact Good Plumbing is cheaper. Do yourself a favor and find another plumber — don’t use John’s especially if you’re looking for Friendly service.