Canadian Rooter

I'm glad everyone else has had positive experiences with Public Plumbing. Maybe mine is just an anomaly.

I needed a backflow valve installed in order to be able to renew my property insurance. The company I used for waterproofing suggested I call Walter. Walter and Naz visited with me to discuss the placement of the valve and the scope of the work. We located a perfect area in the basement storage closet. The cost was standard for this job- approx. $2300 or so. They started the work and soon ran into a problem. The pipe for this drain did not run to the street as they had assumed but connected with the neighbour's pipe. Furthermore, they said it was sloped the wrong way which would cause further issues. The only option, they said, was to put the valve outside- for an additional $6800! What option do I have except to rely on their expertise and hope I'm not getting shafted. It just seems incredibly expensive to me, especially considering a full perimeter waterproofing job cost me $20000. Don't get me wrong, I know they worked hard for a couple of days in freezing/ wet/ snowy weather. Furthermore, I now have these two giant plastic valves sitting in the middle of my driveway. They are sticking out 6" above the driveway which has sunk around the dig. They didn't give me any guidance or instruction on what to do with these. Am I supposed do anything? Is there any maintenance to do? I'd have to argue with their motto- 'Done right the first time'.

Finally, I had asked them to come to my home around the corner (the work above was for my rental property) to install a new outside water tap that has a hot/ cold faucet. They said no problem. That was in March. Haven't heard a word since mid April when they had to come back to add more gravel to the continually sinking dig hole. Funny how that is. I guess I'm only a valued customer when there's a big, over-inflated, pay day- little jobs are just a pain in the ass.

So, there you have it. Maybe I'm being unreasonable. I don't know. Maybe I expect too much. Someone is making a hell of a lot of money on these jobs and I'm pretty sure it isn't the poor buggers in the trench digging.