Michael & Son Charlottesville

My mother died in 2016 and to honor her, we decided to keep her home and renovate it. We call it the Holy Ghost house, because she sends angels or messengers to the house to expose contractors with questionable, dishonest, and overall lack of integrity business practices. This has been a challenging process even if I hired well-known companies like Michael and Son. Michael and Son over has been paid ten thousand dollars for a tankless water heat and a re-piping. And I have made a big mistake. Below is a list of the issues I’ve had with Michael and Son Ruckersville VA location. First, they destroyed the new duct work underneath the house. It cost me over $1500 to repair. The damage was reported to me by another company. They reimburse me, because they got caught, not because they are a company with integrity. Second, I was told to by my bathroom and kitchen fixtures from Noland or Ferguson, which I did. The plumber didn’t tell me that I needed to buy a specific fixture for the shower control because brands are not interchangeable. Moen wouldn’t work with Delta. I not only brought the fixtures I wanted but brought the internal part which controlled the fixture. It was at the home before the plumber installed the internal wall unit. Now only way for me to get what l wanted was to rip out the walls. So, not only I’m stuck with fixtures I don’t want, because they don’t have the upgraded functionality I wanted. And I’m out of $115.00 restocking fee. Third, the plumber doesn’t appear to take pride in his work. The fixture he installed is not flushed. Forth, there’s a mess sitting in my front and backyard. I had to call to make sure they were going to pick it up, because I didn’t want to pay to have it removed. Fifth, the manager never called me back, when I wanted to discuss issues. I had to drive from Northern VA to the Ruckersville location to talk to him and to make sure he existed. Six, when I told the corporate customer service desk of my issues, they said a customer relation representative would call me, because they didn’t want me to feel this way about their company. I’m still waiting for that call or a voicemail to call someone back. Seven, I’m having issues with red clay and/or iron in my water. They told me that I had a well issue. So, I called a well company that happen to send me a master plumber. He noticed my new hot water tank condensation pipe was broken. He said, there should be a pipe with threads on it which should drain outside. No wonder my wall and floor are wet. They also turned off the filter to bypass to address my pressure and red water issue. I’m assuming all of the dirt is now flowing through my new hot water tank. Again, they broke something and didn’t bother to fix it. Eight, they failed the building inspection 3 times. Nine, the electrician discovered a water leak underneath the house. They said, they fixed it. Ten, new shower water temperature is either hot or cold. No warm Eleven, they didn’t honor the financing terms agreed upon. Michael and Son’s customer service said there was nothing they could do. The un-budgeted extra monthly payment is causing a financial burden. They are not finished with the work at my mom’s house; but when they are done, I will have another plumber to inspect their work, because I no longer trust them. I hope they will correct what they have broken and get the rest of the work done right.

A little confusion in scheduling, but resolved quickly. Distance to job site was further than expected, but once there, work was performed promptly.

Excellent. The technicians showed up on time as promised, were very professional, inspected our system, found no problems, then pumped out the tank as we had requested. Price was a little high compared with other local providers we contacted, but perhaps it was worth it for such a hassle free appointment and service call.

Let me open by saying the electrician was nice. He should go into business for himself and charge a reasonable rate for service. The payment structure for Michael and Sons is just absolutely ridiculous. I was told it was $29 to come out, and they would give me an estimate before doing any work. The technician arrived, began trouble shooting (about 15 minutes), then he came back with this quote: $29 service call, $201 for trouble shooting, (already done), and another $201 to replace a GFIC plug. For a total of $431... for a less than 30 minute visit. I paid the $230 - deed was done, but the other $201 for a GFI replacement? A $2.50 part that will take less than 5 minutes to install? That's just ridiculous. I won't hire them again.

Unfortunately, the Michael & Son team has provided sub-standard service across a number of areas. Several but not all of these include: 1. waiting over 8 days for service, this was extended to 10 without warning or explanation when the initial appointment was cancelled by Michael & son without explantion. This at a time when the weather was well be low freezing and I had no heat in the house. 2. stating on there initial service invoice that the service call was an emergency and so outside the bounds of VA consuer protection laws when it was treated by Michael & Son as anything but an emergency - not fast, not outside normal hours, cancelled by them, etc. 3. required several more days with no communication to schedule the actual fix despite an immediate email reply selecting the service options suggested - perhaps this was because I did not select the most expensive, perhaps not interested, perhaps simply poor service. 4. the subsequent repair service was again cancelled by Michael & Son not once but twice again with no explanation but subsequently determined to be due to failure to place initial parts order as needed. 5. failure by service manager in ruckersville to provide anything like a courteous explanation - the man was civil, but arrogant, uncommunicative, bureaucratic, and failed to follow through on his statement that the service would be addressed. Never provided any follow-on explantion for the previous failure, never even apologized - all of this without heat in the run up to the holidays. 6. costs were excessive for the work quoted and performed and lacked all bu the most cursory breakdown. no explanation of how the initial problem developed and what could be done to prevent it from repeating. 7. essentially blamed me the customer for having a 2004 Buderus boiler that was only 87% efficient instead of a new 98% efficient boiler - this was stated as one of the reasons for the serice failures delineated above. 8. made us feel captive through their repeated service failures - we are overseas on U.S. Government assignment - and had no recourse without substantial further delays from any other service provider. It appears that our technician performed skilled work once it finally occurred and given my personal absence I cannot say that he bears personal responsibility for Michael & Son's corporate failures. We feel let down and fully dis-satisfied by the repeated failures of Michael & Son - the company did not exceed expectations, they did not even meet expectations, instead they failed them repeatedly. Truly disappointing in every way.

I would use them again.

unknown

It didn't happen. The women who took the appointment shouldn't have made it. She made it for a quote but we already had the quote and never asked for a quote. A manager was supposed to call weeks ago to talk to us about this problem but they have never called.

Our propane hot water heater went kaput after a brief vacation. It's time was due and we were planning to replace it anyway. Not having as much time to research local plumbers as I would have liked but knowing what we needed and the challenges of the installation, I recalled Michael & Son were located nearby. Called on a Sunday afternoon and by Monday night it was all taken care of at a reasonable price. Ronnie L. was very courteous and professional and did a terrific job. Hats off and Ronnie and Michael and Son.

unknown

I just wanted to let everyone know how impressed I am with all of the Michael and Son technicians with whom I have had the pleasure of working for the last couple of months while we have been making improvements to our newly purchased home in Fishersville, Virginia. Kevin and Nate (from Richmond)--the technicians who performed the encapsulation of the crawlspace. What awesome attitudes! Such a pleasure to meet professional, intelligent young men who take their job seriously and wish for the customer's 100% satisfaction. Robert Rhoades--Replaced well pump and tank. Excellent, knowledgeable, and kind. Ricky Keyton--Assessed the plumbing needs of the house and barn and replaced whole house filter. Super nice, knowledgeable and helpful. Joey and Derek--Electricians who replaced fire/CO2 alarms. Super nice, knowledgeable, sweet! Brian--the HVAC guy. Very knowledgeable, helpful! Allen--the HVAC cleaner from Harrisonburg. Super guy. Hard worker! If one is going to spend the kind of money we did (+ or - $12K), it certainly helps to have the technicians be so friendly and willing to serve the customer's needs. It takes an informed employer to find workers like Nate, Kevin, Robert, Ricky, Joey, Derek, Brian, and Allen. Congratulations! Michael and Son has exceeded my expectations--again! You have a customer for life!

Unfortunately our experience with this company was not positive at all. We noticed some wet stains on our basement ceiling and called this company. I made sure over the phone that their technicians had cameras as I had read online that the water could be from a number of sources such as condensation or roofing problems and not necessarily a plumbing issue. I was assured over the phone that the technician did have a camera and that the inspection would cost no more than $29. He arrived half an hour earlier than we were told without calling, and without a camera! As soon as he saw the ceiling, he said there was a pipe leaking and he could tell that from experience, because we had Quest pipes and the whole house needed to be re-piped (for that, he quoted us a 'discounted' price of $18000.00!) I asked if there might be other reasons for the wet spots and how he could be so sure without first using a camera to look at the pipes. He first said he had no cameras and then said he did have a camera but would charge $364 to use it! He kept insisting that the problem was the pipes and he must cut the sheet rock to replace them. I told him there was no way I would let him cut the ceiling unless I saw water coming out of the pipes in his camera, as agreed with their customer service. A camera inspection was the whole reason we agreed for the company to come. Luckily I had recorded the tel conversation with their customer service about the camera and had to play it for him so he would believe me! As it turned out, the issue was not plumbing at all and water from all the recent snow had found its way under the ceiling. The wet stains disappeared after a few days, and as for the whole house re-pipe, another company with much higher customer ranking (Fluvanna Plumbing) quoted me $7700 including replacing the whole shower! The only reason for not giving them an F rating is because at least their technician had the decency to not charge us the usual $29 after listening to the recorded conversation about the camera.

Called on Sunday. Answering service scheduled service call next day. Charlie, one of their plumbers called and showed up on time. He was very professional, quickly identified the obvious problem, and his repair and cleanup work was excellent. Here is the rub. Their pricing is outrageous. Charlie spent about 3.5 hours on this job but one hour was spent replacing either a part or tool that he broke so he had to leave and return. He spent about 2.5 hours replacing the pump.. He lives nearby so lets make it 3 hours including time to travel. The motor used was high quality and is available at Lowes for less than $400.00. I had to persist to get the price reduced by $100.00 for their ad on Angies list. So, without the discount, that leaves about $1200 for labor or $400/hour. That is outrageous. I have run a high-end engineering development and services business so I know the overhead, employee benefits, capital investment costs etc to run a business. Typically, a billable hour of labor costs appx. 2 to 2.5 times the hourly salary including 15% profit. Doing the math, at $400/hr would indicate an hourly wage of $175-200/hr. I know plumbers are expensive but their price is a rip-off. Its no wonder they don't price jobs by the hour. I only let them get away with this because the sump pump supports a bathroom in our basement where our daughter lives and the toilet, sink, and shower had backed up and was anxious to get it repaired. No clogs to find and fix, just a sump pump to replace. Never again.

Called on thanksgiving to check pricing to unclog the pipe-would not quote over the phone . I already knew what needed to be done. Rep arrived and confirmed my diagnosis and gave a price of $365 + $29 travel fee to unclog the pipe. If it had not been a Friday I would not have agreed to the service knowing I would not get anyone else to the house before Monday. The Whole visit took 30 minutes at the most. I feel like the company took advantage of the situation. Don't fall for the $29 visit fee. They make it up in service fee!!

Their quality was okay. It was good. It was not a very good experience. Everything was fine. It is just that things did not go right.

Aaron was extremely friendly and courteous, following the company's custom of wearing booties in the house and putting down his own doormat. He was very knowledgeable and experienced and was able to give us advice about the house. He did some things free of charge. We took his advice and purchased the Home Care plan, but we didn't feel like he was giving us a hard sell. It seemed a reasonable amount of money for the services provided. We feel confident about the work that was done and will definitely use the company again based on this one experience. We'll ask for Aaron-- he's great!

Master Plumber Ronnie Lucas showed up to diagnose the problem with in four hours of my calling the company. He is professional, prompt, honest and very knowledgable. He gave us a few options and the projected cost to complete the repairs. We set a time for Friday morning Ronnie arrived at the agreed to time (actually was a little early) and got to work. Part way through the job he discovered that everything he thought he was going to have to do ended up not being necessary so he gave us the option of just doing what was necessary which saved over $300.00 off the job. All in all the entire experience was beyond our expectations.

They did a wonderful job. I highly recommend them. The workmanship was of a very high standard and the technicians were very knowledgeable, polite and and hard working We are very pleased with the work done and the folks doing it.

The plumber was polite but threatened us with the fact that our Pressure Reduction Valve had gone bad and that would destroy our other plumbing including appliances. He pushed their Service Agreement on us several times but we have one with our HVAC people. We had used them on a previous job to fix a sink leak but now believe they overcharged for that job too.When reviewing on-line - they charged us over $900 for the PRV (valve) and I found none out there by Watts for that price that look like the small version they installed. The closest match I found was for perhaps $150. I also priced out the rest of the replacement parts and it appears they are operating a scam because these parts no way are that expensive - even adding 20% and labor. I will be reporting them not just to the BBB, but also call our State Corporation Commission this is bait and switch and not acceptable.

They have done work for us on a couple of occasions. We have been very pleased, and they have been prompt. You can get them scheduled very quickly, and the things that they have done have worked. I don't think they are the cheapest guys in the ball park, but they do very good work. They are polite and neat.

It turned out really well. they did the job as scheduled and on time. Everything works well, and they were pleasant to work with.

They could not repair the issue, but gave us some ideas of what we could pursue.

They had thought the duct work would need cleaning but upon further inspection they said it was not necessary, I appreciated them being honest about this. They are knowledgeable, thorough and very responsive. I have purchased a service maintenance package with them and will continue to use them future.

Everything looked professional and great.

We want to have two additional electrical outlets installed in our garage, currently serving as a workshop/office. A Michael & Son representative came out within the window we had requested, calling 30 minutes ahead to let us know he was on his way. He was very careful to put covers over his shoes before entering, took the information for what we wanted, discussed some of the options, and gave us a thorough estimate of the costs right then. He was friendly, thorough, and professional.