Overhead Door Company of Waterloo, Inc.
I needed a new weather seal on my garage door and was having a few problems with my door not always closing so contacted this company for help. Since I live in a smaller town outside of Waterloo, they planned their visit at a time when they had other jobs in this area, which makes sense. The service man came and found that the photo eyes were aligned, but not as accurately as they should be. This was a 2 minute job to fix that required no tools. He also looked at my seal and told me that he didn't have that particular one with him so would need to bring it on his next trip. Because I work out of town, I asked him to please give me an idea of when he was going to come. He asked if a day's notice was sufficient and I agreed. He left, and after several days I hadn't heard from them so called the company. I was told that he was in the area on THAT day and would be at my house sometime that day. I told her that he had promised me a day's notice so that I could arrange my schedule. She got in touch with him and he called me, giving me only an hour's notice. When he got there, he realized that he had brought the wrong color weatherseal, but he used it anyway. It took about 15 minutes to put it on, something that I could have also done by myself if I had the weather seal. I asked him what the bill would be, and he simply didn't know. All he'd say was that the weatherseal would be $1, $2, or $3 per foot and he didn't know otherwise. He laughed and said it would be less than $1000.00. I didn't feel tha was a very knowledgeable or professional response. When I got the bill, I was astounded. The original bill was for $185.11. The weatherseal was $3 per foot and was $48.00. There was a $20 truck and equipment fee (which I assumed covered the expense of driving out of town; please note that on both occasions, he had other jobs to do in this area and neither trip was made just to do my work). And there was a 1.5 hour labor fee at $70.00 per hour. I understand the cost of the weatherseal, although it is high priced. I also understand the truck and equipment fee. But I was floored at the $105.00 labor charge for a 15 minute job. I called the manager and asked about the labor charge, assuming that the service man had probably written 15, meaning 15 minutes, but it was misinterpreted as 1.5, meaning 1.5 hours. That was not the case. The manager agreed to drop the labor charge down to 1 hour, which lowered my bill by about $35.00 plus tax. However, I still had to pay almost $150.00 for a very easy, 15 minute job that I could have done myself had I had the weatherseal. I'm very disappointed in the expense. The manager did explain that they had to charge at least a 1 hour labor charge for all jobs. My thoughts are that the labor should be more reflective of the labor that they did, where more difficult jobs should have higher labor charges and easier jobs like this one should not automatically be charged at least an hour of labor
DeAnn A.
