Benjamin Franklin Plumbing of Albany

V R.

Ben Franklin Plumbing came to our house to fix a clogged toilet for $250. It flushed fine for a day. Then we were back to the same problem. So my husband decided to take care of the problem himself (which he should've done in the first place) and went out and bought an auger. He successfully unclogged it. Turns out there was a scrub brush jammed 6ft down in the pipe. Lesson learned. Do it yourself and save $250.

Dawn R.

I debated posting this but then realized if I'd read something like what I'm about to write my kitchen would not have flooded; costing tens of thousands of dollars in damage.

I hired Farrell Brothers (now Benjamin Franklin) back in 2015 or 16 to do a simple job at my house. We were having the kitchen remodeled, to this century, and needed a base heater removed. It consisted of disconnecting a pipe and capping it. It was $800. The guy who showed up was unprofessional, messy, and talked non-stop. He had to come back the next day to clean up loose ends.

In 2018 our furnace died and in the process of having the new one installed we started seeing, random, little puddles of water on the kitchen floor and basement laundry room below it. Water is never a good sign unless you are stranded in the desert.

To speed up the story the puddle quickly became a deluge of water streaming out from under the wood trim but on top of the tile floor. In tearing up the floor of my 60k+ kitchen (not bragging it makes me nauseous to think about it) we discover that the pipes that Farrell Brothers was supposed to cap, they didn't. It was like having two fountains under my floor. The water traveled under the tile but above the subfloor and rotted the wood, ruined a massive window (one of the things that I loved most about the house), compromised the structural integrity, and caused mold. Because of this half of the kitchen - floor, subfloor, base cabinets, and countertop had to be removed. Also because of this the tile isn't from the same lot so it doesn't match in size or color. Let me tell you; I LOVED our kitchen. The renovation was actually a great experience (minus the cost that gives me halt palpitations). Now the kitchen just isn't the same and it won't be unless I tear all the flooring up so it all matches. But that means removing cabinets, stone countertops, it's a rabbit hole of a job. The repair and mold remediation alone was over $30,000. Did I mention this all happened right before Thanksgiving and wasn't resolved until June?

Of course repeated attempts to resolve this with Farrell Brothers has gone unanswered. They don't respond to calls or mail. This doesn't surprise me but it does. That this is the situation today, when these companies can just turn a blind eye to their faults, and give the customer the middle finger, and get away with it....

I reached out to a lawyer and he said it would cost me thousands of dollars to fight them AND there's no guarantee I would win. Did you know that a company can shut down, start under a new name, and now you can't sue them because the essentially don't exist? No wonder these folks recent paired up with Benjamin Franklin but are still at the Farrell Brothers address in Menands. There are literally ZERO protections for consumers against business like this. I was told if I went to small claims I'd probably win the judgement but no one will make them pay.

These people got decent reviews on Angie's List. They are a local company and I wanted to give them my business. I thought they'd take care of my home and stand behind their work. They don't. I don't know how to tell you to not go through this. Just a story to keep in mind when you are looking to hire a company.