We had a plumber come in today to replace the toilet in our master bathroom. He was from the same company that does a lot of the plumbing work for our condo association, so I figured they’d be reasonably professional about it. I left him alone to get the job done while I worked on the computer.
When he finished, I went in to check the work, and he had installed the wrong toilet. I had picked one out from a Consumer Reports review, but they’d given him something completely different to install. Furthermore, they wanted about 20% more than their original estimate.
So you know what my wife and I did to those incompetant, greedy bastards?
We paid them. Yeah, that’s right, you heard me.
It made sense at the time. My wife was busy, I was busy, and aren’t all cheap toilets about the same? You’ve go to pick your fights, and this just didn’t seem worth it.
Naturally, for the last four hours, I’ve been pissed off about it. And for the next month I’ll probably get pissed off all over again every time I take a crap.
They’d done all the work already, and I hadn’t paid them yet, so I pretty much held all the cards. I should have told them I’d pay them for taking out the old toilet (which is the bulk of the labor) but that they were out of luck on the toilet they’d brought.
Sigh. Actually, I’m getting over it already. That’s because I found something else to worry about: If I don’t have the motivation to stand up to a plumbing outfit that’s trying to pull a fast one, what am I going to do when The Man comes knocking?
Despite my interest in crime and criminal defense, I’ve never been the target of a police investigation. I’ve lived a virtuous life, and the issue has never come up. Which is no guarantee it won’t.
I know what I’m supposed to do when the police come around asking uncomfortable questions. But will I?
Or will I take the “easy way out”?
I agree that you should have told them just to take the toilet back and if they wouldn’t install the other one at the price they quoted you then you should have gone to someone else. Since the labor cost is the same no matter what style of toilet you buy, the 20% extra was the difference in price of the two toilets. Personally to keep a customer happy, I would have let the difference slide.
Next time, to ensure that you are going to receive the correct toilet, why not go ahead and purchase it either online at a place like PlumberSurplus.com or at one of the big box stores. Even better, if you have a plumbing supply house in your area they will usually have a nice showroom of a wide variety of fixtures. You will be able to see the different styles and manufacturers side by side plus you can flush them and see how they work (most plumbing supply house showrooms are plumbed in so all fixtures work). HD Supply or Ferguson’s are some national chains but there are plenty of smaller independent stores as well.
This will also save you money if the plumber was charging you for time to pick up the toilet as well.
Thanks for your comment. Based on the reviews I read, I was interested in a Gerber Ultraflush, which is a pressurized toilet. None of the big boxes around here seem to carry Gerber (nor, apparently, does PlumberSurplus.com). However, the person my wife spoke to assured her that they installed Gerber products all the time. It seemed easier to let them pick it up than to keep hunting for one myself. I’ll know better next time.
The lesson for me, I think, is that I should have hired the plumbers only to take out the old toilet. That’s the hard part, especially if there are broken bolts, leaky valves, etc. Once it’s down to a supply valve, a clean hole in the floor, and a pair of mounting bolts, I can install a new toilet myself. I think I even have a left-over wax gasket from the last one I did.
The Gerber Ultraflush is a good choice. Any pressure assist is a good buy and that particular Gerber model is a lot more affordable than other pressure assist brands. So I guess they installed a regular tank toilet?
Thats why I recommend a good relationship with a plumbing supply house. They have the people to answer any question you might have, usually have the product you are looking for in stock, and if something is wrong you can take it right back with no hassle.
Yeah, it was a Toto Drake. It seems to work okay, but I don’t like the way the whole things was handled.
By the way, that’s a great name for a blog.