Our Plumber

I intensely dislike the head plumber working on our house. He might be the reason I have developed hypertension—I’ve had nothing but problems with him.

Back in July, Mr. Builder says I need to go pick out my plumbing fixtures. Ok. So like the good little girl I am, I do what he says.

I go to the plumbing supplier and work with a really nice sales rep. I’m there for several hours, but it’s not terribly painful. The rep looks at my floor plans and we go room by room. She shows me what is standard, then some upgrade options. Standard is perfectly fine for me, with the exception of my kitchen. Even though Lainy says I don’t cook, I have thought about the perfect kitchen for years, and there are a few little extras I would like. And the whirlpool tub for the master bath was a tiny upgrade—MSRP was more than I paid for my first car. But, as Holly says, this is my dream mansion, I can dream a little. I really just wanted to know how much something like that cost, it’s not like it was the one we ended up getting anyway. Sometimes Hubby forced me to do a reality check.

So the rep gives me a copy of everything we picked out, and I about go into cardiac arrest when I see the grand total. Not to worry, says the rep. This will go to the plumber, then he will fax the builder with the actual builder cost.

That’s fine. I’ve never seen retail prices on anything else, but builder’s price is what we’ve always paid.

Except that’s not what Plumber faxed to Builder; it was the same copy I had received. Plumber told Builder he was concerned because I had gone several thousand dollars over budget. No no no no no, I said. Those are retail prices, not builder. Builder talks to plumber, who says those are the prices he’s paying. Builder talks to Plumber again, Plumber says that is the cheapest he can get things, they can’t complete with warehouse sales like Home Depot or Lowe’s. Builder says if I don’t like the prices, that I should go to Lowe’s or Home Depot and pick out what I want.

At this point, I am slightly perturbed. I spent several hours of my time, and several hours of the rep’s time to pick out the things that I needed. Plumber is not being honest. Builder says he’s tired of dealing with it and there’s nothing else he can do, I need to go pick out what I want at Lowe’s or Home Depot.

Keep in mind that my original order included everything needed for the downstairs. When I was picking things out, I didn’t realize we were only roughing in the downstairs, not installing fixtures. So that was not a part of the final cost. The whirlpool was also not part of the cost. So the final total was much lower than the initial order.

However, that wasn’t the issue with me anymore. I was not going to pay retail price for something I knew was supposed to come at builder’s price.

So Hubby speaks to Plumber. Plumber finally faxes him a list of his actual cost. So that was a lie about the original prices being the prices he paid. And wasn’t it interesting that the prices of many of my upgrade items were still the original cost.

On top of that, Plumber is charging us a delivery fee. The supply company provides free delivery.

In the meantime, Builder and Plumber are both insisting we have to turn our order in if we are going with them.

Fine, I’m sick of it all, too. I told Hubby what to order, deleting anything for downstairs, the tub, a hot water dispenser and tank, water softener, and water filter.

That was back in September. The only item I have seen has been one bathtub.

Plumber comes back the other day. They are scheduling installation of everything else to start Wednesday, but he doesn’t have a kitchen faucet, garbage disposal, or a couple of other things. I go looking back at what he was supposed to order, and those were all included. He should have ordered them.

The latest thing I’ve been told to try and placate me is that the standard option items were part of the bid. Uh huh, sure. Whatevuh. So what would be the additional cost for the upgraded items I want, along with the items not included in the bid, hm? I haven’t seen that yet. Someone conveniently hasn’t had it to show to me. A faucet and disposal are standard items included in the bid, but are we going to be paying the difference between the cost of the standard faucet and what I chose, or the full price of what I chose? And would that be the difference between the retail prices, or the builder prices?

Hubby had told me a while back that Builder wasn’t having much luck with plumbers and had switched several times. I said it looked to me like he needed to keep searching. What I have a difficult time understanding is that this is the builder’s business. If he continues with this plumbing contractor, his other customers are being taken for a ride.

Yeah well, what do I know? I’m just a customer, and evidently the customer isn’t right about this one.

Flo