AARP PLUMBING INC

Our water heater failed (bottom fell out, water flooded basement) on a Friday morning. We wanted to replace it with a tankless unit (after spending a few months doing considerable research.) That morning I called several plumbers, trying to find one who knew something about tankless units and wasn't afraid of putting one in. My call to AARP was returned promptly, and I spoke with Brad about installing a tankless unit. He seemed to know them well, and said he had a crew that could come out that day. He said the tankless units typically ran $2500 installed. I felt comfortable and was pleased that it would be taken care of same-day. The crew did show up that afternoon, and quickly removed the old broken unit from the basement. When they went to the truck to get the new unit, however, they pulled out a standard (and very inefficient) 40-gal unit. When we told the crew that we had discussed a tankless unit with Brad, they said he hadn't said anything about that. So I called Brad. He said he didn't know I actually wanted to go with a tankless, and proceeded with some discussion of the pitfalls of tankless units. Being Friday afternoon, he offered to let the crew install the standard unit, and if we decided we did still want the tankless unit, he'd be able to order it over the weekend and swap out the standard unit for the tankless unit the next week, applying the cost of the standard unit toward the cost of the tankless unit. Unfortunately we paid them for the standard unit, thinking we'd have a tankless by middle of the next week. I emailed him Monday to see if he had ordered the unit, and to get a final cost. A week later I emailed again and he finally responded with specs for a unit he recommended. We responded right away saying that we did, indeed, want to go ahead, but needed the cost. Again some days later he emailed back with a new proposal for $4500 for the tankless unit, installed. We were completely taken aback, as the original cost estimate was almost half that. I called and left a message, and finally a few days later talked with Brad again to set up a time for him to come out to our house personally to see if we could go over why the installation would be so expensive. He promised to call back the following Monday (this was a month after the initial installation). He never called, and we still have the standard unit in the basement. We do have hot water, but are not happy about the water heater that's making it.