The Cynical Plumber

Once again over and over it never fails. They call and want a free estimate. So I say ok what’s the problem I can give you a price over the phone. Then they say I need someone out for free to take a look at it. Well I’m sorry at this point you obviously do not know what is wrong. If you did you would not have called in the first place. I mean really do you think we just ride around for free all day. It’s ridiculous. People like you are stealing valuable oxygen that someone needs to breathe.

I guess people think that we get up every morning and try to ride all over town telling people how much something cost for free. When you go to the doctor does he inspect you for free ? I think not! If he did he would be homeless for sure. I think people do not realize that a service charge is to eliminate the craigslist consumer and or the guy who wants you to tell him how to fix the problem his self. How ridiculous is that? I see it almost everyday. Or how about the guy that calls and says “I just lost my job and I don’t have any money can you fix my problem for free” Come on people this is not subsidized plumbing. I think maybe if your lucky maybe Obama will pass a bill that allows for all people that make less than $20,000 a year to receive a free plumbing voucher up to $300. Yeah then I might ride around and pick up vouchers all day. For all of you idiots who want something for nothing you know what you can do don’t you? If you know the problem we can price it over the phone. If you don’t know the problem then obviously it is not an estimate.Then it becomes a diagnosis. That means you are going to pay the plumber for his time.

I have to say that it really has become annoying dealing with some people.

We had a guy call us on the 26th of December wanting a free estimate.

The man said that his wife was there and that she would meet us there.

Upon arrival I discover that these people obviously had just moved in because their was stuff strewn throughout the house.

The lady says that they had the county out to turn the water on but nothing was coming on inside.

So I look around a little bit and discover that the main service line valve was off.

I turned it on and went to the water heaters to turn the valve on the heaters as well.

This was a really big house so it took a good fifteen minutes to get the water up and running and all of the air out of the system.

After I do all of this the man calls his wife and she hands me her phone to talk to him.

He says thank you for doing that but I only requested an estimate.

I told him that his wife had instructed me to do so and gave her the phone back.

I immediately ran down stairs cut off the water and turned the heaters off and opened a back hose bib on the house to drain the system.

It’s funny because she followed me looking and trying to see what I had done.

I explained to her that I was just reversing the work that I had done and that I do not diagnose problems and work for free.

Some people have a lot of nerve calling us out and trying to take advantage of our kindness.

Their is absolutely nothing wrong with trying to be thrifty.In fact we should always try to save when we can. But never skimp on your plumbing. We had a guy in Kennesaw call us who had just purchased a used water heater on craigslist. Never I mean by all means never buy a used water heater especially on craigslist. Your asking for trouble. Anyway this guy goes to home depot buys flex connectors a valve and a new wrench set only to find out the heater has a hole in the tank. What makes it so funny is he tried to patch the whole with JB weld. Oh man the trouble this dude went through was amazing to me he had removed the jacket from the heater and tried to patch up under the burner assembly with epoxy. I told him the heater was no good and he wasn’t buying it. This man was hell bent he was going to find someone that could fix that water heater for him. Some people just can’t be told they can’t do something.

We had a lady in Roswell call us out to replace her garbage disposal. She said that it was new but it just didn’t seem to work that well anymore. Her house was very filthy and I  really had to hold my breath as I  walked in the door. I looked at it and gave her a price, she said ok so we started to replace it. As I am removing the old unit she asks me if it was ok to put diapers in a garbage disposal. Now look I have seen a lot doing this kind of work but oh my God that’s gross. I told her absolutely not and asked her had she done that with this one. Of course she said no. Well I will have you know that it was packed full of diapers and I couldn’t believe it. It stunk so bad I almost puked. Some people are just stupid

This is classic. This has to be in the top ten of the most outrageous things you can tell a plumber. Never no matter what you do tell a plumber that. Number one if your husband knew how to fix it. He would have fixed it a long time ago. Number two you are trying to discount the work by saying that your husband could do it as if he has a clue. Come on if he had a clue you would not have spent $50 bucks on tools and parts he can’t use or will never use again.From double p-traps to 1lb of solder that went no where except on the floor.Usually the kind of people that do this are engineers by trade. Then when we show up and give a price they say “That’s outrageous”. I see on a daily basis the works of these people and some of it should be in the book of what never to let your husband do that he told you he could but didn’t have time. When these people call my schedule is full. I see them coming a mile away.

Racial profiling is wrong and I don’t want to do that so what I will do is “ethnic profiling”. In my years operating my business I have come to learn this phrase is associated with a certain group of people. At first I thought it was an individual thing however my research has shown that over and over again Hindu’s do not want to pay for plumbing. It may be because in India they spray their ass with a kitchen sink sprayer attachment and then drip dry or it may be because they are just cheap. I think it’s both. I hesitated about writing this but then I thought well if I lose the Hindu’s business then maybe I could save a couple of hundred on gas annually right their. I mean in these lean times we have to cut our costs wherever we can. So if you live in Atlanta and you are Hindu please refrain from calling Davis Plumbing and thank you for not wasting anymore of my time. You see the good thing about the United States is we have choices. I choose not to deal with Hindu’s anymore from this day forward.

In the plumbing business you can’t take anything too seriously because if you do you will have a heart attack. The stress level is always high because your always dealing with someones emergency problem. One thing that we run across a lot of is tampons and maxi-pads. I don’t care how many times you tell them not to do it they will anyway. If you have a whole lot of luck you might be ok. If you have several women in the house your going down eventually sir. I have pulled Madusa’s head out of sewer lines. If you have a sewage ejector pump and you have women using that bathroom get ready to fork over a nice chunk to replace that pump. The first sign of a tampon being the problem is no eye contact with the plumber. “Well I don’t know it was working fine yesterday” In the bathroom is a trashcan full of wrappers. We call them FHP’S (feminine hygiene products).

Well I guess some people love cats and that’s ok. I had one customer in Alpharetta that called and she had a kitchen sink stopped up. So we come out and their were like 10 cats in the house. Now she fit your typical cat lover profile. No man in the house, Coke bottle glasses, and severely obese and horribly nasty. I shouldn’t talk about people like that. Oh well who cares I don’t. Anyway the dipshit had dumped all of her kitty litter in the kitchen sink and then added liquid plumber to the mix. Before we could clear the blockage we had to get all of the water out of the pipes and it was really nasty. I actually ended up with ring worm a few days later. Could have been from me not bathing but I think it was the cat litter that did it. I charged her a couple of hundred bucks and she was happy. I didn’t even mention the cat litter I figured hell maybe she’ll do it again and call us back.