Plumbing - Quality vs Price
Hello, Steve here. I want to tell you a quick plumbing [http://plumbinginfo.org/] story about an experience I had a while ago.
A couple of years ago, I was called out to a home that had a plumbing emergency. Their sewer main was backed up which was causing their toilet to flush into their bathtub. The lady of the house met me at the front door and took me inside her home to see the problem. She did not have a cleanout to service the line (and was not ready to get one installed), so I had to remove the toilet to be able to clear her sewer line.
She agreed, so I got to work right away. Now let me stop here for just a second and describe her home. It was nothing fancy, but it was very well kept. Floors, walls, fixtures - everything was immaculately clean. She obviously took great care to keep it so.
Noticing this right off, I also took great care to not create a mess in her bathroom. It was not easy, but I covered the entire bathroom with plastic, was very careful with the toilet and my drain cleaning machine, and wore disposable booties over my work boots. Despite all these measures, I still took 30 minutes to clean up the bathroom when I was done. I finished cleaning up and brought my customer into the bathroom to see the results of my work. She was happy that her toilet was working again, and seemed to appreciate the clean-up effort.
Fast forward about a year and a half later...
I got called out one afternoon to this same house. The dispatcher told me that they were experiencing another sewer main back-up. This time when I met with the homeowner, she had a story to tell me. It seems that the sewer line actually backed up two months ago. Although she was happy with my previous work, she was a little tight on funds, so she decided to go with one of those plumbing companies that advertise having super low rates.
The plumber came out and did what appeared to be the same job that I did, but with a couple of distinct differences. The first was that he made an absolute MESS of the bathroom, and left it that way! The way she described the condition of the bathroom was unlike anything I had ever heard before. Sewage was splashed all over the walls, sink, toilet, etc.
It turns out that she suffered from OCD, and had a fear of germs. She spent days cleaning and disinfecting that bathroom and weeks wondering if she should clean it again. Every time she went into that bathroom, she feared contracting a disease. To make matters worse, the sewer line backed up only two months later and she was facing the entire ordeal again!
The moral of this story is simple: When it comes to your home, you should never sacrifice quality in the name of saving a few dollars. You will almost always wind up spending more in the long run, and you never know what the consequences are going to be until it is too late.
Thanks for reading,
Steve
A couple of years ago, I was called out to a home that had a plumbing emergency. Their sewer main was backed up which was causing their toilet to flush into their bathtub. The lady of the house met me at the front door and took me inside her home to see the problem. She did not have a cleanout to service the line (and was not ready to get one installed), so I had to remove the toilet to be able to clear her sewer line.
She agreed, so I got to work right away. Now let me stop here for just a second and describe her home. It was nothing fancy, but it was very well kept. Floors, walls, fixtures - everything was immaculately clean. She obviously took great care to keep it so.
Noticing this right off, I also took great care to not create a mess in her bathroom. It was not easy, but I covered the entire bathroom with plastic, was very careful with the toilet and my drain cleaning machine, and wore disposable booties over my work boots. Despite all these measures, I still took 30 minutes to clean up the bathroom when I was done. I finished cleaning up and brought my customer into the bathroom to see the results of my work. She was happy that her toilet was working again, and seemed to appreciate the clean-up effort.
Fast forward about a year and a half later...
I got called out one afternoon to this same house. The dispatcher told me that they were experiencing another sewer main back-up. This time when I met with the homeowner, she had a story to tell me. It seems that the sewer line actually backed up two months ago. Although she was happy with my previous work, she was a little tight on funds, so she decided to go with one of those plumbing companies that advertise having super low rates.
The plumber came out and did what appeared to be the same job that I did, but with a couple of distinct differences. The first was that he made an absolute MESS of the bathroom, and left it that way! The way she described the condition of the bathroom was unlike anything I had ever heard before. Sewage was splashed all over the walls, sink, toilet, etc.
It turns out that she suffered from OCD, and had a fear of germs. She spent days cleaning and disinfecting that bathroom and weeks wondering if she should clean it again. Every time she went into that bathroom, she feared contracting a disease. To make matters worse, the sewer line backed up only two months later and she was facing the entire ordeal again!
The moral of this story is simple: When it comes to your home, you should never sacrifice quality in the name of saving a few dollars. You will almost always wind up spending more in the long run, and you never know what the consequences are going to be until it is too late.
Thanks for reading,
Steve
