Benjamin Franklin Plumbing

Plumber Ed showed up at the agreed upon time. Ed was very friendly from the start. He took the time to explain to me my options in detail. Not only did he replace my subpump but he went out of his way to change my setup so the system would work better. He was very detailed and very informative. Also checked my water quality which was greatly appreciated. Overall I was thrilled with his professionalism. I was ok with the price because the company's website provided a coupon other wise it would have been $54 more and that did not include the service fee of $76. I am also pleased the the coverage plans they offer.

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Ed from Benjamin Franklin came out to my house the following Wednesday after a quote given the previous Friday.  He was very friendly, professional, thorough in all of the services performed.  Ed installed a new OSMOSIS system for drinking water in the kitchen and had to run new pipes for my new ice maker.  He also repaired  and inspected an old toilet.  I need to have both toilets replaced in my home as well as a new bathtub and Ed quoted me a reasonable price. 

I am using this company again and would highly recommend them!

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First off don't fall for the special they advertise on Angie's List, It won't save you anything it will only cost you more! They told me that to guarantee their work they had to replace the shutoff valves under the kitchen faucet that needed replaced even though they were less than 10 years old.  Then they replaced some washers in a spare bathroom faucet. I had a slow drain in another bathroom that the serviceman looked at and said he could not get the drain stopper out of because it was too old (didn't know how) only other option was to replace the entire sink, faucet everything. Well like a sucker ,I bought the biological drain opener they sell for $50 a gallon. All told my "great deal" of $79 for $200 worth of service was a bad deal.

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Good news and bad news.  The guy that came was extremely knowledgeable and did a great job.  However, I feel like I was taken advantage of by the company.  I am single, I'm a woman, and I think I was ripped off royally.  Even though the big deal was a full house plumbing inspection.  Which I'm in this house twenty three years and you know, I didn't have a problem with the inspection.  He was trying to tell me that there were problems I didn't have.  He tried to tell me my water heater was leaking at the bottom and it wasn't.  He tried to tell me my outside spigot was leaking and needed to be replaced and he wanted to charge $250 for that and he said the one in the back should also be replaced, that was, so that would have been $500.   The water heater he quoted me was over $4500.  I ended up replacing three toilets which I knew I had a problem with.  The question he asked me was do you plan to stay in this house or do you plan to sell it soon?  I said, well I'd like to stay.  So I think with that, and again, I should have asked more questions like what are my options?, how much are they?, I didn't.  He replace, you know the comfort height of the higher ones, he said good choice.  He ended up installing three toilets for two thousand dollars.  Did a great job.  I was really worried, I was like oh my god do I need to replace my water heater blah, blah, blah. I called another plumbing company and they said where's the leak?  I said the only thing he said, he's saying at the bottom.  He said is there water coming out of the bottom?  I said no.  I said what about my outdoor spigot?, I'm worried about that freezing.  He said this is what you do, I said when I first looked out there it was dripping but the guy just checked it, you know, maybe he let it drip.  He said this is what you do, he said go put like a glass container, something that won't blow away, put it under your spigot outside, leave it there for 24 hours.  If there's anything in that container in 24 hours, yeah you have a leak.  If you don't it's fine.  It worked well and needless to say there was no leak.  The guy was very good and I think the company did a good job, I don't know if they knew my age, I'm 61, the guy that came out was like my age and he seemed very personable, very sincere, very professional but I think I got ripped off.  They came out December 29th.  I would tell others just beware.  I would dissuade them from using them.  The person that did the service was very professional, did a great job.  However the whole deal with not giving me options in terms of cost and just, I don't know, I assumed the wrong condition, I think he was trying to make extra money and offered services that I did not need.   The guy did good work.  I would never use this provider for services in the future.

The service provider was on time and pleasant to work with.  There was a link at the washing machine, kitchen sink and bathroom.  They repaired the leaks however their service fee was high given the length of time it took to repair the 3 leaks.

Technician showed up at the scheduled time. Drained hot water tank and checked anode rod. My heater is approximately 11 years old and has probably never had this service done. The anode was completely gone. Quoted price of $289.00 to replace anode. Given the age of the heater and the fact that this was the original anode I opted not to have this service done. Spoke with the technician about the installation of a tank-less water heater.

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Again the tech. Steven was very professional, he did nothing wrong.  He was trained very well by the company.  Very nice young guy.  Again, I gave my approval with my instials under yes block, no do-overs here, but learned a HUGE lesson in my old age.

The tech. Steven M was very professional, no problem with him at all.  He did his job well. 

Ordered the Big Deal thru Angie's List. $79.00 for $200.00 of labor, no parts included in this deal.  I had 2 faucets here that were purchased a while back & never having used Angie's List before, saw this offer on an e-mail from them.  Thought this would be a good way to get them installed for a small amt. of money, since after all it was the Big Deal with Angie's List.  Apt. came quickly, them came quickly, no problem with that.  The way they work is explore other things re: plumbing in our case.  They come up with 3 options for me.  Mind you only wanted those 2 faucets installed.  So figured if there's any cost it will be minimal.  NOT  SO.  This company the way they do their business is very expensive.  Now I must say, I'm very upset that I left this happen, wife is not happy at all either, but I did give my permission with my initials to do this.  I still can't believe I left this happen. Steven did tighten a screw under our kitchen sink for the faucet which had come loose, took 3 mins. he didn't charge for that, thank God.  OK, my receipt which I received about an hr. or so after tech. left premises via e-mail. Did have the proposal with the 3 options of other work including the faucets installed.  One was for $1768.00 which included 8 emergency shut off vales, Option 2 was for $1,180.60 with 4 emergency shut off valves (mind you except for 4 under the vanity where the faucets would be installed, were for the kitchen & the downstairs bath, which was never mentioned by me, just the install of the 2 faucets in upstairs bathroom.  The 3rd option, was no emergency valves (nowhere), just the installation of the 2 faucets for $592.00, again no parts, just the install. of the 2 faucets.  I saw them & thought I can't afford those options, so said yes to the bottom (last option).  For not more than 2 hrs. labor, that's $592.00.  OK, then from that, since I accepted an option, they waived their Service Fee/Dispatch Fee of $76.00.  OK, take that off then, They now deducted the Angie's List special of $200.00 off the bill, which leaves the total bill of $392.40 to install 2 faucets in not more than 2 hours it was.  That's close to $200.00 per hour.  They do their work by set fees, which was told sometimes works out better for customer, sometimes not.  Their set price is amazingly HIGH.  Again, no materials from this company, just labor involved in this.  I did approve it & I could kick myself if I only could.  My wife is not happy at all.  Too bad I am so down with a cold, but I can't believe I left him do that.  I have no one to blame by myself, but really needed to let you all know, please beware when you agree to something with this company.  They do things differently with so-called options before you see your original only thing to do at the bottom, the last option.  Please don't do what I did.  This is absolutely awful pricing.  With the $200.00 from Angies List big deal this still cost me $392.40.  My gosh.  I'll never get over that I left this happen.  This is just meant for an FYI for anyone who uses this company, please be on your guard.  Know what money you will be responsible for & give it some thought, it might be alot more than you planned on...  Everything is very professional with this company except the PRICE, which is NOT...

It went extremely well!! Derrick M was our technician and he did an outstanding job. He didn't let an uncooperative faucet stop him! He was professional and efficient and explained what he was doing. Excellent plumber!! This is the second time we've used Ben Franklin Plumbing and will continue to use them for all our plumbing needs! Extremely pleased!!

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I have nothing but high praise for the service tech Ed who came out on-site and was very professional, courteous and informative about the work needed and overall the services offered by the company. I was a bit dismayed though by the other customer service I received prior. I was told the $76 service fee was waived if work was done. I'm a bit iffy about the service fee in general as other contractors I've worked with didn't charge such a fee. Also when the tech arrived he did explain the tiered pricing and my replacement of a gas valve + shutoff apparently fell into the tier 3 pricing which was $348. I went ahead and agreed to the scope of work but now that I'm looking over the invoice and realizing the work itself took probably 25 minutes while going over everything and making sure the gas was turned back on and tested took about another 20. Going over the invoice, paying and then getting a service plan probably took about another 25-30 minutes.  In order to get my bill down, I had to use a coupon to waive the service fee (I was told it was waived in general if work was done) another $50 off coupon and then another 15% discount to get my bill from $348 to $252.  I did mention an angies list coupon for $79 for 200 but I was told this was a better route getting the fee coupon and the $50 off. I think the price overall for the job was extremely high given that all he did was remove 2 small sections of pipe and then attached a new valve and hooked up. I still have the basic maintenance plan ( in order to get the 15%) off but I might end up just cancelling it due to the high pricing of what was done and I really will research other providers again in the future that are more cost competitive. I had another plumber in before this who replaced two lines for the washing machine, two shut offs in the bathroom and the toilet for $213 and that was about 2/hr of work.
Again this is not about the tech he did a great job it was just the very high cost of the work and I needed this done as I'm trying to renovate my kitchen and so I just bit the bullet and paid it..plus if I didn't have the work done I still would have been charged the $76 fee.

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The bill would be almost $900 to replace 2 faucets.  We said no way, then we still had to pay $97 for 10 min work $147 - $50 credit.  We were out $35 for service call plus $97, and because of the $900 estimate we said no to the future work.  My husband called Moen, who manufactured the faucet.  They told him to clean the faucet tube and flush it before inserting the new cartridge.  He did as instructed, and the leak was fixed in 10 minutes.

The plumber was very thorough in his inspection and asked if I had any issues or concerns with the plumbing?

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