JA Truesdale Plumbing

At first, I was impressed by Joe's responsiveness, willingness to explain things, eagerness to please his customers, and the way he talked about the quality of plumbing work done previously on the house. He gave a good bid, and assured me the work could be finished in a week or a little more, so I hired him. A few bumps in the process (like finding water when digging that required adding a sump pump to the project) were understandable, but a month later, his workers were still in process on the plumbing itself, and the entire process took over 2 months. After the first week of work, the plumbers became increasingly slow and less responsive. Sometimes I'd be told as a plumber was leaving that they'd be back the next morning, and then no one would show up for a couple days or more. I'd call to ask what was happening, and would be told they'd gotten busy on another job, but that they'd be back the next day. Sometimes that happened, sometimes it was longer. A few times Joe failed to show up for appointments we had set, and didn't even call. When concrete was poured to fill in the trench for the pipe under the basement floor from the stack to outside the house, it was extremely rough and bumpy, a half-inch below the level of the trench in some places, over an inch higher in others. Cement over the plumbing for the roughed-in bathroom was similar. I called Joe that night to let him know the state of the concrete, so it could be knocked down before hardening. He assured me they'd be back the next morning to take care of it. When they didn't come the next morning, I called that afternoon, was assured they'd be there, and they didn't come... I called daily for the next few days, and no one came. When one of Joe's plumbers did show up to "finish up," I talked with him in person about the concrete, and showed him the problem areas (most of it). He and Joe both assured me they'd grind it down. About a week later, nothing had been done, and I was calling again, and showing Joe in person what needed to be done. Finally, they worked on it a bit more. It was never very well done, but at least they leveled it out more. However, the quality of work was dismally disappointing, and the process of repeated conversations to get them to finally do anything was increasingly frustrating. Meanwhile, there were multiple other loose ends and finishing touches that took far too long to get finished up, and the plumbers kept forgetting details that they had agreed to take care of. A few other mistakes were made as well. For example, when installing the sump pump that was added to the job, they cut the hole for the drainage pipe to leave the house in the wrong place and had PVC pipe trailing along the ground outside. I had to remind Joe of where we had agreed it would go. He did agree to have his guy re-route the pipe once it left the house so that it was hidden under the back porch, but it should never have been put in the wrong place to begin with. There were also problems with the way the plumbers interacted with the city in the permit process. Joe did get a permit at the outset of the project, but never added the sump pump to the permit when we added it to the job, even though he said he would. When the entire project was finally finished, Joe told me the inspection had been completed. However, when I was at the permit office a week or two later for something else, I decided I'd double-check to make sure, and the city told me final inspection had never occurred. I also found out at that point that the sump pump had never been added to the permit. Finally, I made an appointment myself for final inspection, at which point, the inspector found several items the plumbers had not completed to code and had to come back and fix. Finally, the inspection was passed. One other disappointing thing: When I gave Joe my final check on a Thursday evening (before final inspection had been passed and he was actually finished), he agreed he would wait until Monday to deposit it (to give time for a transfer to be made to cover the check). The next morning (Friday), I saw the check had already hit my account. When I called him the following day (Sat), instead of apologizing, he tried to tell me he hadn't deposited the check until later Friday night after the bank had closed. When I told him I'd seen the check hit my account earlier in the day, instead of apologizing, he became angry and defensive. He did finally agree to pay the bank fee (only $10), but never did. I wouldn't have minded an honest mistake, but after such a long, trying experience working with him, catching him in an overt lie was disappointing, and made me question how honest earlier mistakes may have actually been.