Paying a plumber who didn't complete job?
November 5, 2015 4:23 PM Subscribe
A plumber has been here all day to work on a toilet and shower that backs up. He pulled a few things out of the pipes, but hasn't succeeded at restoring the flow (still backs up a bit).
Is it proper for him to still charge me $350 without succeeding at fixing the problem? What's the protocol for plumber/client here?
Thank you!
You are paying for his time, not a guaranteed outcome.
posted by DarlingBri at 4:50 PM on November 5, 2015 [32 favorites]
posted by DarlingBri at 4:50 PM on November 5, 2015 [32 favorites]
You owe the man for the time and labor he has expended and possibly for certain supplies. Whether you allow him to return to continue work until the problem is resolved or hire someone else is a different matter.
But seriously, you hired a skilled laborer for a task and the man worked all day on the task, demonstrating progress. You should get a very clear answer from him why it has not been resolved, what he thinks is necessary to resolve the issue and whether he thinks he can handle it. Then you can decide whether to have him continue work or hire someone else.
But, seriously, the man worked for you all day, why wouldn't it be necessary, proper and expected to pay him for his time?
posted by crush-onastick at 4:56 PM on November 5, 2015 [14 favorites]
But seriously, you hired a skilled laborer for a task and the man worked all day on the task, demonstrating progress. You should get a very clear answer from him why it has not been resolved, what he thinks is necessary to resolve the issue and whether he thinks he can handle it. Then you can decide whether to have him continue work or hire someone else.
But, seriously, the man worked for you all day, why wouldn't it be necessary, proper and expected to pay him for his time?
posted by crush-onastick at 4:56 PM on November 5, 2015 [14 favorites]
If you hire someone else, you pay this guy now. If you're going to let him to continue work, you can pay him when the job is complete, but you'll still owe him the money for the work he does on the days before the problem is resolved entirely.
posted by crush-onastick at 4:58 PM on November 5, 2015 [12 favorites]
posted by crush-onastick at 4:58 PM on November 5, 2015 [12 favorites]
I would tell him he hasn't finished the job and ask him why the water flow still isn't working properly. Tell him $350 is a lot of money for an incomplete repair and you need it fixed because it's going to keep causing you problems.
If you agreed on a rate beforehand, it will be hard to get out of paying it. I think your best course of negotiation is trying to get him to finish the job for the $350. If he has to do any additional work, you should make sure you know what additional cost he is going to slap on, if any.
posted by AppleTurnover at 4:58 PM on November 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
If you agreed on a rate beforehand, it will be hard to get out of paying it. I think your best course of negotiation is trying to get him to finish the job for the $350. If he has to do any additional work, you should make sure you know what additional cost he is going to slap on, if any.
posted by AppleTurnover at 4:58 PM on November 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
You definitely owe him the $350. Whether he owes you a completely unclogged drain before you pay up depends on the terms of your agreement. Did you hire him to unclog a drain for a flat rate of $350 (fairly unusual but not unheard of), or did you hire him to work on unclogging it at some hourly rate (much more common)? He's probably no more thrilled than you are at how long this is taking, since he's probably angering any other customers he had scheduled for the day in addition to making you unlikely to call him in the future.
posted by contraption at 5:12 PM on November 5, 2015
posted by contraption at 5:12 PM on November 5, 2015
You need to pay him for the hours he worked. The only case where you could ethically get out of paying him is if he was grossly negligent- i.e. he spent all day outside smoking, or he misrepresented himself as a plumber. It sounds like he worked hard, made incremental progress, but you problem is either more complicated or multifactoral.
posted by fermezporte at 5:18 PM on November 5, 2015
posted by fermezporte at 5:18 PM on November 5, 2015
Response by poster: Yep... agreed. My bad for not clearly communicating expectations/securing agreement up front.
I let him write me an invoice for work done, which I signed ($400), and told him I'd pay in full when he returns. That seems reasonable to all. He reluctantly agreed and left.
Thanks for helping me think thru how to handle this.
posted by phreckles at 5:19 PM on November 5, 2015
I let him write me an invoice for work done, which I signed ($400), and told him I'd pay in full when he returns. That seems reasonable to all. He reluctantly agreed and left.
Thanks for helping me think thru how to handle this.
posted by phreckles at 5:19 PM on November 5, 2015
What has he been pulling out? Has he run a camera snake down to see what the real problem is?
It's quite likely you have tree roots or some other problem along the line between your house and the sewer main. I would get him to focus on diagnosing that, which can be done very quickly with the camera, unless there's other things blocking the way that have to be cleared first.
If he hasn't done this, or can't, or won't, I'd pay him and then call someone who can and will. There's no point paying him to pull out, for example, chunks of root if the real solution is to dig up the yard and replace a pipe.
posted by jeffamaphone at 5:21 PM on November 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's quite likely you have tree roots or some other problem along the line between your house and the sewer main. I would get him to focus on diagnosing that, which can be done very quickly with the camera, unless there's other things blocking the way that have to be cleared first.
If he hasn't done this, or can't, or won't, I'd pay him and then call someone who can and will. There's no point paying him to pull out, for example, chunks of root if the real solution is to dig up the yard and replace a pipe.
posted by jeffamaphone at 5:21 PM on November 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
I would try to get him to determine where the blockage is. Because*:
If you live in a house and the blockage is beyond your property line, you may be able to recoup the cost from the city. Ditto if you live in a condo and the blockage is in a common pipe or the building main.
*Depending on your city and/or condo bylaws, of course.
posted by CKmtl at 5:35 PM on November 5, 2015
If you live in a house and the blockage is beyond your property line, you may be able to recoup the cost from the city. Ditto if you live in a condo and the blockage is in a common pipe or the building main.
*Depending on your city and/or condo bylaws, of course.
posted by CKmtl at 5:35 PM on November 5, 2015
why wouldn't it be necessary, proper and expected to pay him for his time?
A few years ago I hired a plumber to do a job on a water softener that (it turned out; I didn't know plumbers aren't water softener fixers, at the time) he couldn't actually do. He misdiagnosed the problem, did "$250" worth of completely unnecessary labour, and, $100 more later, left the appliance in worse shape than it was when he started. He also smelled of booze and was very unpleasant when given an opportunity to actually, finally, fix the thing. He didn't manage to fix it; a neighbour later helped me and fixed it with a $40 part that he showed me how to install it in +/- 20 minutes.
I complained to the BBB and the Ontario College of Trades and on the FB group that had generated a recommendation for this idiot, but the $350 I was billed by a shit plumber was quite gone.
In re. "left reluctantly," I find that odd. I've got an old house and have had lots of tradespeople in and out, and have never, apart from the screw-up described above, been asked to pay for a job before it was done. I might try to get somebody else in to assess things ASAP and consider the second opinion money well spent on what could spiral into a big job.
You are paying for his time, not a guaranteed outcome is correct, but you're also paying him because he knows how to do a job and isn't just flailing about making guesses; you could do that on your own for $0/hr.
(Now I fear I sound like a person who is down on plumbers in general. No. The usual guy here charges an outrageous $90/hr but gets in and out really quickly. Notable, especially in retrospect: one can find this guy not through ads but by asking around town for recommendations.)
posted by kmennie at 5:37 PM on November 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
A few years ago I hired a plumber to do a job on a water softener that (it turned out; I didn't know plumbers aren't water softener fixers, at the time) he couldn't actually do. He misdiagnosed the problem, did "$250" worth of completely unnecessary labour, and, $100 more later, left the appliance in worse shape than it was when he started. He also smelled of booze and was very unpleasant when given an opportunity to actually, finally, fix the thing. He didn't manage to fix it; a neighbour later helped me and fixed it with a $40 part that he showed me how to install it in +/- 20 minutes.
I complained to the BBB and the Ontario College of Trades and on the FB group that had generated a recommendation for this idiot, but the $350 I was billed by a shit plumber was quite gone.
In re. "left reluctantly," I find that odd. I've got an old house and have had lots of tradespeople in and out, and have never, apart from the screw-up described above, been asked to pay for a job before it was done. I might try to get somebody else in to assess things ASAP and consider the second opinion money well spent on what could spiral into a big job.
You are paying for his time, not a guaranteed outcome is correct, but you're also paying him because he knows how to do a job and isn't just flailing about making guesses; you could do that on your own for $0/hr.
(Now I fear I sound like a person who is down on plumbers in general. No. The usual guy here charges an outrageous $90/hr but gets in and out really quickly. Notable, especially in retrospect: one can find this guy not through ads but by asking around town for recommendations.)
posted by kmennie at 5:37 PM on November 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Jeff, he's going to come back next week after we let the pipe dry out with his camera snake. That's going to be our next focus.
It's a complicated job for sure.
posted by phreckles at 5:58 PM on November 5, 2015
It's a complicated job for sure.
posted by phreckles at 5:58 PM on November 5, 2015
I'm a massage therapist and I get paid hourly for work performed. I don't guarantee results, only best faith effort. This is the industry standard, same as it us for plumbers.
If someone questioned paying me because I hadn't entirely fixed the problem they came in with (thankfully no one has ever done this!), I would take them to small claims court, and would tell all my peers privately what a shitty client they were and to avoid them.
This man spent his time and labor as agreed and you owe him. Period. If you have some reason to believe he didn't do a good job and should have actually fixed it by now (do you in fact have such a reason?), you address that by not re-hiring him and perhaps by reviewing him negatively on yelp and similar sites, not by failing to pay him as agreed.
posted by mysterious_stranger at 7:45 PM on November 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
If someone questioned paying me because I hadn't entirely fixed the problem they came in with (thankfully no one has ever done this!), I would take them to small claims court, and would tell all my peers privately what a shitty client they were and to avoid them.
This man spent his time and labor as agreed and you owe him. Period. If you have some reason to believe he didn't do a good job and should have actually fixed it by now (do you in fact have such a reason?), you address that by not re-hiring him and perhaps by reviewing him negatively on yelp and similar sites, not by failing to pay him as agreed.
posted by mysterious_stranger at 7:45 PM on November 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
Did he tell you he would fix the problem?
Or did he tell you his hourly rate and you said he could get started?
How you set things up would impact what I think you should do.
posted by andoatnp at 8:23 PM on November 5, 2015
Or did he tell you his hourly rate and you said he could get started?
How you set things up would impact what I think you should do.
posted by andoatnp at 8:23 PM on November 5, 2015
Sure he's deserving of being paid for his time, but you as the customer are deserving of a satisfactory outcome too.
What if he came in and charged for 1000 hours of work but didn't complete the task? Is that still justified?
You have every right to expect a skilled worker to actually show some skill while they are charging you hourly.
posted by eas98 at 7:07 AM on November 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
What if he came in and charged for 1000 hours of work but didn't complete the task? Is that still justified?
You have every right to expect a skilled worker to actually show some skill while they are charging you hourly.
posted by eas98 at 7:07 AM on November 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: In similar situations, I always pay for the hours/the full invoice, but I don't ever pay until the job is complete. Too many times tradies never came back if I paid them before the job was finished. 'Live n learn' has been my subcontracting mantra.
posted by honey-barbara at 7:10 AM on November 6, 2015
posted by honey-barbara at 7:10 AM on November 6, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
Just be direct. Tell him the pipe is still backing up and that it needs to run smoothly and drain completely. Tell him to bring in an additional plumber if he's not certain of the problem. Only tell him you won't pay him if he refuses these requests; you don't need things to get heated or go sideways, which is possible when you bring up cash. Be polite, direct and clear, and totally unemotional. He'll get the message.
posted by TryTheTilapia at 4:36 PM on November 5, 2015 [1 favorite]