My experience was definitely not like the other reviews. I didn't get the owner, instead I got one of his employees. Here's the situation: I had a shower handle that just spun and didn't turn on the water. The WaterWorks technician came, quoted me around $260 for the job ... telling me that they had a minimum that had to be charged for every visit. I went ahead with the repair.
When he started working he had problems removing the old shower handle saying that it had seized and he needed to saw it off. Ok. He saws it off and the he tells me that I need to replace the cartridge inside and that was going to be $603 instead of the $260 or so that he quoted me. Ok. We go ahead with the job. Now here is where the comedy of errors starts. It would actually be laughable if it wasn't happening in my own home.
He finally starts getting down to work and then he finds that the two replacement handles ... supposedly new handles sealed in plastic bags are defective . One handle has a stripped screw and the other handle doesn't have a screw at all. He calls his boss... who I assume is Mike, gets disconnected from Mike and then calls his boss an "idi0t" for hanging up on him. Hmm... That's professional. He then tells me that he has to go back to the office to get the right handle. He disappears and comes back and tells me that he had to scrounge around and dust off some old handles that he found. Hmm.. My house is only 10 years old and why does he have to scrounge around for used parts? He starts working again. It doesn't work. He fiddles around some more. It doesn't work. He calls his boss who tells him to replace the cartridge. He does it and then it doesn't work again. He then tells me that this is the hardest job that he has ever done. Huh? Makes we wonder how long he has been working. Finally he fiddles around with the cartridge in the wall WHILE THE WATER IS ON... and the water bursts out of the wall in all directions. You know one of those classic black and white comedy sketches where the plumber is working and water just bursts out of the pipes? Yeah... it was like that. He blocks that water from flowing out of the bathtub with his body while I am literally flying down to the basement to shut off the master water supply. I come upstairs to find him soaked and asking for a towel.
He finally gets the thing in and working and puts on the old handle that he brought from the shop and tells me the job is done. When I go to test it I find that something isn't right. The old shower that I have rotates counter clockwise and gets hotter the more you turn. The handle stops at the bottom when you turn it clockwise and the water shuts off when the shower handle faces the down position. In his installation that water worked and stopped in the down position but the handle kept on turning clockwise and water would start flowing again when you passed the down position. Huh? What's up with that?!?! He tells me that's the way it is with this particular model. I show him another exact same shower faucet in my house and show him that shower handle locks at the bottom and will not turn any further clockwise when the water is off. He then takes off the handle of that other shower and finds that there is a groove in that handle that prevents it from turning any further. He's acting really surprised like he's never seen that before. Wait a minute. I've got a pretty generic Moen shower faucet and you're telling me you've never seen this handle before?!?! Huh? How long have you been working as a plumber?
So he leaves yet again to go and get the correct replacement handle. He comes back, installs it and it works. But wait... There is now a clicking sound come from the faucet when you turn the handle past a certain point. The shower handle is hitting this other metallic piece that extends out of the wall and that's what's making the clicking sound. He tells me that the clicking is a result of this metallic piece, that the piece isn't sold separately as a part, and that if I wanted to get rid of the clicking sound I would have to replace the whole shower fixture. I ask him if it can't be tightened. He tightens that metallic piece with a pair of pliers and the clicking sound is gone? Suddenly I don't need a new shower fixture
In the end it was 3+ hours later and $633. This guy might have been licensed but he definitely didn't have the experience that I expected. According to him it was the hardest thing he has ever worked on and that it was the first time he had ever seen the pipe explode water out like that. It's the laws of physics. If you play with the cartridge while the water is on, the pressure is going to cause the thing to blow out. It really makes me wonder if this guy really knew what he was doing and whether this whole issue really wasn't a minor repair that turned into a large one because of his inexperience.
Like I said, in the end the repair is completed and works ... for now, but I think I would go with another company the next time I need a pluming repair job done.
PS. I found them through their reviews on HomeStars.
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<b>Update:</b>
Roxanna and Mike were genuinely quite distressed when my review hit and contacted within hours of me submitting it. They immediately wanted to schedule an appointment so that Mike could come by and take a look at the work done. Mike and Jeremy came by today and I must say that I finally experienced the service that everyone else was raving about. Rather than taking any chances, Mike just replaced all the parts that had been previously installed. You could tell from his motions that he was an *experienced* plumber. Mike and Roxanna both apologized to me for the actions of their technician. Mike further explained to me that the technician who came to my house was relatively new to their company but had previous experience in commercial applications. This technician, to my understanding, is no longer employed by them.
I am impressed by their service enough to actually do a 180 and go from not recommending them to actually recommending them. As a small business owner myself, I know how hard it is to grow your business and still maintain quality. Sometimes things happen that you can't control. In writing my original review I wasn't out to tarnish the reputation of WaterWorks plumbing-- I was merely stating an account of what happened on my service call. Unfortunately, in that instance the quality I received wasn't up to their normal standards and they are to be commended for taking action and dealing with the issue head on. In my opinion that's how your business learns from it's mistakes and grows. Let's face it, nothing is perfect and occasionally something happens. In an ideal world things like this wouldn't happen and every service call would be perfect. But then in an ideal world my shower faucet wouldn't have broke and I wouldn't have even needed their services in the first place! However, as everyone knows, stuff happens and sometimes you get that blip that is out of the norm. I consider my first encounter to be a blip rather than the norm.
So yes, the first scenario described above happened. But It's a true reflection on the character of this company that they stood up to their high standard of workmanship and took accountability for the actions of their employee. So I will actually give them a call next time a plumbing issue arises in my home. But sorry Mike, no offence, but I hope that doesn't happen for a long long time...
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Arman
