plumber recommedations? general handypersons? floor guys?

[cazzia.livejournal.com]

Hello all - I'll be buying a place in Davis in the next few weeks and have a long list of things I need to have done (new water heater and gas furnace, misc other plumbing tasks, misc carpentry, cleaning, painting, floor sanding, etc).  Have found a few good local people, but thought you all may have recommendations.  Looking particularly for plumbers.

Thank you!

ps I did check the tags and there didn't seem to be anything relevant in the archives...

[UPDATE: thanks for the plumber advice, everyone.  Now, how about floor guys? Anyone have recommendations for good sanders/refinishers? Anyone used PNT Hardwood (I found on Craig's list...)? Thanks!]

Comments

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

LJ is being weird so I can't tell whether it posted my reply. ???? Here it is again just in case.

It's a pretty long story but to sum up: I was trying to get an estimate on a big job (furnace replacement, including removal of oil tank, converting to gas heat, and asbestos removal). The Winters guy repeatedly failed to show up for appointments to look at the job, plus failed to respond to any of my increasingly desperate phone messages (I had a deadline for getting the estimate, which he knew). Eventually, after calling the office and speaking to his supervisor and getting the runaround for a week or two, I finally found out that the guy I had been dealing with was one of their plumbers -- i.e., he was not qualified or authorized to do estimates. But rather than say "This isn't my area, I'll refer you to one of our estimators," he kept telling me that he just needed a little more info in order to put together my estimate. And then when he got caught out by his bosses, he simply bailed.

To compound matters, when I got hold of the company's owner to complain about all this, he was not at all apologetic. And wound up telling me flat-out that they didn't want the job (strongly implying that it was because he thought I was the bitchy, never-satisfied type).

Incidentally, around the same time, my mom signed a service contract with Winters -- their deal where you pay a certain amount and then you're entitled to their services on short notice, or whatever -- and she has been nothing but dissatisfied with it ever since. They've come late for her appointments, failed to finish jobs, said they needed another part and then simply disappeared for weeks at a time...and the last time she had them over, they quoted her $300 to fix a little leak in her washing machine. She ended up hiring a friend's plumber who did it for $90.