LAWRENCE N PETERSON PLUMBING & HEATING

Larry was recommended by a large plumbing supply chain for a leaking shower fixture. When we first met, He asked me to take down the tile so us to better investigate the problem. I did that and then had him come back to look at the problem. He came back looked at the exposed plumbing and told me I needed a new shower valve. I then ordered what he requested and attempted to schedule the install with Larry. Unfortunately, Larry responded with “I’m not available until a few weeks out. You didn’t have the shower valve when I stopped by.” So now, I have a large wall opening with exposed plumbing.... no shower and no plumber! I did everything he asked and in the end, I have no shower and no plumber. Disappointed to say the least. Poor communication. Cannot speak to the quality of his work since he never actually started anything.... just a word of caution when dealing with people who are not true to their word.

We purchased our home and, because it had been destroyed by the previous owner, it was necessary to remodel/rebuild the 'guts' of the entire home. We were referred to Larry Peterson by a family member, who had previously hired him for numerous commercial jobs. He was to complete all of the plumbing work in the home. This includes, but is not limited to complete plumbing of two full bathrooms, kitchen plus all appliances, a laundry room (washer/dryer), new furnace, new hot water heater, exterior sillcocks (spigots), etc.. Our first meeting and walk-thru (April 2010) with Larry was fine and we agreed on the necessary work to be performed. The quote [$8550] seemed reasonable to do the entire house and we gave him the "go-ahead". Though he provided a quote, we did not sign a contract with him which become an issue later on. Larry's work schedule throughout the job was difficult to predict. In general, he would come and go as he pleased which, for the most part was not a major issue for us since we weren't living in the home. Timeliness of the work performed was poor. The major difficulty though came when we needed to communicate certain specs and/or requirements as to where, and where not to, place things. He never answered his phone and rarely returned messages. After asking him directly, "what is the best way to communicate with you?", he replied that he doesn't answer his cell phone and works only through text messaging. This was a big red flag, as it should be to all potential clients, and ended up causing a number of issues where pipes were plumbed to/thru places they shouldn't have been, resulting in delays, work-arounds for other contractors, and increased cost, time, and stress. This behavior of not returning voicemails and texts continued throughout the project and became more and more difficult to deal with as other contractors began their work. As he was a recommendation from our close family member though, we decided to stick it out with Larry despite these continuing issues. As mentioned previously, Larry's work began in the April/May timeframe. As the months passed, and the weather became drastically cooler (Sept/Oct), we became concerned that the heat (gas furnace) and hot water (gas water heater) had not yet been connected. Since we live in MA, we expressed our concern to Larry, via phone messages and texts, that we had new cabinets and other new items inside the house that we were concerned would be affected by the potential freezing temperatures. We urged that he please hook up the furnace and hot water heater immediately since the October evenings were frequently approaching freezing temperatures. Mind you, we are already ~5months into the job and the new furnace had been sitting in the basement since June. It was at this point we actually received a call from him saying that he needed to be paid. This was news to us since we had not yet seen any bill. Well, his bill was mailed to the address of our home under construction which had no mailbox and therefore no bill was ever delivered. After about another week or so, we received a new copy of Larry's invoice for work done to date ($6700). This seemed awefully high since it was for 78% of the total job cost yet there remained a significant amount of work to be performed. For example, all gas hookups/exhaust remained (furnace, water heater, dryer, gas range, outside grill) as well as all final water hookups (2 full bathrooms, kitchen sink, refridgerator, washer, water heater, exterior sillcocks), etc.. This was very concerning since we did not have a signed contract with him and we were convinced that we would receive a large invoice, well above the $8550 we were originally quoted, once he completed the job. To remedy this situation we asked that Larry write up a quick contract stating what work remained to be done and the total cost of that work. To this Larry replied "I don't do contracts.". With this in mind, and since we hadn't seen him in person in a while (~4+ weeks) we asked to at least meet with him at our home to ensure we were in agreement on the work remaining and the total cost of that work. At that time we would give him his payment of $6700. This conversation resulted in Larry becoming irate, accusing us of trying avoid payment and also trying to "strong arm him". He stated that he would not come to the house to speak directly with us as well as pickup a check, would not put anything in writing, and that we would hear from his lawyers if he did not receive our payment within 3 days. Needless to say, this was very upsetting. Oddly enough, Larry contacted our mutual acquaintance, with whom he'd done jobs for previously, to express that he would finish the job for the agreed upon price once he received his payment. After much deliberation, we relented and sent him a check for the full amount ($6700). At that point Larry cashed his check and was never to be heard from again. With Larry's departure, it required that we hire another plumber to finish the work and get our house up and running before the evening frost caused any damage. We eventually did find another plumber who was wonderful. He was very straight forward, honest, and did the job quickly and effectively. Absolutely nothing like our experience with Larry Peterson. So, that is our painful experience with Lawrence N. Peterson Plumbing & Heating (Gloucester, MA). Needless to say, we would never hire Larry to do any job again. Our family member who referred us will also never work with Larry again. He is impossible to deal with and I would suggest to anyone looking for a reliable, straight forward, honest plumber to look elsewhere.

We met Larry through our General Contractor who then hired Larry to handle the plumbing when we completely remodeled a full bath. We had problems with the GC from the begnning, but Larry remained professional. He made solid recommendations that were appropriate with what we were hoping to accomplish. Our home is almost 90 yrs old and not much was up to code. We had so many problems with our GC, that we had to fire him before the job was completed - Larry agreed to finish the job for us so that we would have a functioning bath instead of waiting to resolve our problem with the GC. The GC never paid Larry for the work that he had completed prior to us firing him, but he was still agreeable to help us out. The reason for the low amount on the cost, is that in total, his costs were closer to $8K for the complete job, but he only charged us $500 to complete the job and would go after the GC himself. Larry is a competent plumber and a nice guy who came to our home on weekends to move the project along.