[Summit] plumber recommendations

[Bresler E]

Part of a job I had included responsibility for a building. I used GEM in an
emergency. It's true it seemed expensive but they came in 45 minutes, on a
winter Sunday afternoon, and not having the particular (and unusual
industrial) part we needed, were able to find another way to keep us us
going overnight till we could get the part Monday.
So no frozen pipes, no "what do we do since we can't use this building"
crisis.
He was polite, and explained the problem to me clearly, and did NOT "speak
down" to me or any off the other unfortunate stuff that some workman do when
explaining things to a woman--- like maybe trying to sell us a whole new
furnace when only part of the pilot light system was broken.
None of the other places even returned my calls till Monday morning, except
one, who couldn't come.
GEM did warn me another component needed to be replaced soon.  We got a
second opinion, and when we took it off to replace it, it was indeed on it's
"last legs."
Sometimes the extra money is worth it.

Elianna Bresler

On 9/29/06, John Bazik <jsb at cs.brown.edu> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Sep 29, 2006 at 07:50:06AM -0700, Amanda Woodward wrote:
> > I would add a caution with GEM - they have a $65 (?) quote fee, but
> > it turns out that all of their jobs have a fixed price.  They should be
> > able to tell you over the phone what the price is because they look it
> > up in a book once they get to your house - admitting after they 'size'
> > the job that the price is fixed.  Insist on a quote over the phone.
> > For nonvariable work this is ok, but for things like running new pipe
> > that is based on the length of the run it is not to your advantage
> > (this happened to me when we installed a gas stove - I went with someone
> > else to do the work and did not pay the quote fee).  As Coryndon said,
> > 'good in a pinch'.
>
> They're very up-front about their fixed pricing.  But, at least when
> I called recently, they absolutely refuse to quote over the phone.
>
> John
>
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