Stemmle Plumbing Repair Inc

DO NOT USE THEM FOR EMERGENCY SERVICE!! We had a plumbing emergency and they had to come out THREE separate times over the next 12 hours due to negligence on the part of the technician. Even though it wasn't fixed until the next day they still charged us almost $200 just for an emergency fee. We attempted contacting the owner to ask them to make it right, but they just ignored us and never called us back. We continued to call until we finally got through and they refused to do anything to satisfy us. We will be spreading the word about this negligent work as well as failure to stand behind their service.

Problem resolved.

Very professional from start to finish. Prompt service (less than 24 hrs from call), I received a call from the technician while he was assessing the work with a diagnosis, proposed plan, and estimate.

The great folks at Stemmle Plumbing were fast, efficient, and highly skilled in helping me through a very difficult septic situation. In addition to fixing the problem, they helped me navigate my way through very confusing county policies. They had my back every step of the way and likely saved me up to $10,000 dollars in the repair of my septic system. They were on time, thorough, and fast to respond. I recommend them to anyone seeking excellent service in the Greater Richmond area!

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I contacted this company this morning to make an appointment to install a tube. The last service they provided me, was done by one of their trainees because the rest of the staff were in training. He over priced it over $1000.00 just to install piping, connecting from the base of the sink, to the sink itself. I stated I was not going to pay that and they lowered the price. Today I spoke with Amanda, and she put me on hold, in the middle of scheduling and Tonya was rude, and non apologetic. You get farther through kindness, in any customer service position. FYI.

They did an excellent job. They have a really good pricing system.

unknown

They came promptly when called, described the proposed costs in detail and did the job that day. I was very satisfied.

Plumber seemed confused on current code and was on the phone for some time speaking with another regarding what was needed.  In the end the following was decided by the technician:
 1.  A new vent was needed to be installed to meet code.
 2.  A vehicle barrier was needed to be installed for code.
 3.  The price could go up if additional personnel or equipment was needed.
 In the end I installed the heater and had it inspected by the county.  The inspector's words, "You did a fine job".   My costs including the permit and all material was approximately $600.  Time for the installation about an hour.  According to a retired plumber a professional should be able to install a heater in about a half an hour.  In my research a quality heater runs $400 to
$600.  Even if the heater costs $1000 with parts - which I found is about $50 Stemmle was charging about $3000/hour for labor!  The technician did say they weren't the cheapest but they would do it right and to code.  Really?  Read on.  
 We did not have them replace the heater for the following reasons:
 1.  The price was ridiculously high for what amounts to 30 minutes of work.  The heater being easily accessible.  Their price was hundreds above the next closest.  In their defense the other quotes were over the phone.
 2.  They charged $79 for the house call which was not mentioned when we made the appointment.  My wife clearly stated that this was not an emergency. The receptionist - Vicky could be heard backpedaling when the technician called her about the confusion.
 In addition per the county inspector:
  1.  A vehicle barrier was not required.
 2.  The exhaust vent did not require replacement.  I simply rotated the existing one about 45°  
So much for Stemmle doing things to code.
 
Probably the most disconcerting issue was the $79 charge for the quote.  It raised a question of integrity within the company should we have had an issue down the road.  Also there is no need to charge such an unreasonable amount for a quote.  The companies that gave quotes for our roof job didn't charge neither did those for the siding. 
When I asked about the charge the technician stated it was due to the time to come by.  Perhaps, however the above mentioned contractors gave their time without charging.  Perhaps plumbers are special.  Perhaps their time is so much more valuable.  Or perhaps it had something to do with the fact that he drove up in a Mercedes-Benz. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Bought an old house that was flipped and was hoodwinked by the seller's 'inspection' of the septic system.  They just did a walk-over and determined the septic tank did not need to be pumped.  That was true because the house had not been inhabited for about 3 years.  Anyway, 3 days after we moved into the house, the system backed up.
Stemmle took the correct approach (which, in hindsight, proved wrong) by rooting the line from the house to the septic tank.  The system backed up again.  They were very responsive when we had to have the septic tank pumped.
They then started exploring the outlet line from the septic tank to the Distribution box.  They rooted and camera-ed as far as they could, but the outlet line was just too compacted.
Bottom line:  The outlet line to the D-box (about 100 feet) had to be excavated and replaced.  The D-box itself was basically disintegrated and had to be replaced.  About the first 10-25 feet of each of the header lines leading to the drain field needed to be replaced.  Fortunately, my story ends there.  I did not have to replace my drain field and 4 weeks later - all seems to be working well. 
What I liked about Stemmle:  I liked that they tried to address the problem with the least invasive (i.e. least expensive) approaches first.  As it became evident that my particular issue required a more aggressive resolution (excavation), they actually credited me some of the previous work they had done and applied that credit to the big job of replacing the outlet line, D-box and header lines.
Everyone I worked with at Stemmle was professional and seemed to be genuinely interested in resolving my issue at as little cost to me as possible.  Nobody wants to spend money on this stuff, and it's not cheap when you start talking about excavating septic lines.  But I feel good that I chose Stemmle and would recommend them to anyone going through a similar h***.

unknown

So spring has arrived and we have called twice and they tell us that someone will call us back.  No one ever calls us back.  We are VERY disappointed in their service as we have used them for many years.  We will not ever use them again.  It was absurd to pay $198 for someone to come out and do nothing but tell us what we already knew.  We had hoped it would be taken off our bill when the work was performed.  Sadly, this will not be the case.  Just to add - this was at my mother's house and she had used them for years as well.

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They were super helpful and gave us a lot of good information and advice about what needed to be fixed and what didn’t need to be fixed. Ryan was the plumber that helped us. They have good turnaround time to come out and look at any issues.

This was the first time that I used them. I would never use this company again.

unknown

Stemmle was great -- my landscaper had recommended them and I gave him a thanks, as well. We had a water line break in our front yard and the County of Henrico confirmed that was where the water was coming from (we had drainage issues, so we thought it was natural drainage due to some improvements we had made). It was a small, but steady leak, which was running down our driveway.
Stemmle gave 3 options on an estimate visit 1.) Dig where the leak is and see what is there... $400 2.) Replace the water line 3) Install a lining in the water line -- If I chose option 2 or 3, they would then decrease those quotes by the $400 ... They also seemed very knowledgeable and explained to me the water line system at my house (what do I know, I am a fairly new homeowner :)).
They came out promptly when the appointment was set for and dug in the spot where the leak was coming from. We discovered that a previous owner had a cheap repair done and that gave in... Verizon had just dug nearby and perhaps vibrations nearby caused the leak to occur... I am very thankful for Stemmle coming by and helping me with this stressful issue... I was afraid that I would have to spend a lot of money to fix this issue, but I felt very at comfort during their visit. I will definitely use them for future plumbing needs!

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The repairman showed us that the company who had previously  pumped our tank had not actually been cleaning our primary tank for many years, but had instead been pumping our secondary tank.  The Stemmel serviceman pumped our primary and secondary tanks, identified an issue with our primary tank and  swiftly repaired the problem.  Very pleased with their professionalism.

unknown

Everything went fine for the actual job but they were supposed to contact us later on to let us know like the details of the video and we never heard on that.  My husband said we had to e-mail them or called them but we never heard from them.  There's nothing that stood out good or bad other than not contacting us.  He didn't get his money worth because they didn't contacted him in his office.

36 hours after my call, tech arrived on time, diagnosed problem, left to get pump, returned within two hours and installed new pump.