Dale Plumbing & Heating

Garrett K.

As a person who has never a publicly available negative review, I never thought it would be for a local plumbing company, but here we are (which tells you how bad of an experience I had with Dale Plumbing).

When scheduling the appointment, my girlfriend told the Company that we had a leak and that it was likely coming from the dishwasher, which had a history of leaking. The response was ""yes, a Dale plumber could fix the leak,"" while knowing the dishwasher was likely the issue. However, the company's statement was blatantly untrue....Fast forward to the plumber's visit and he spent less than 1 minute assessing the situation (didnt turn on water or the dishwasher, but merely look at the stain and opened the cabinet under the sink). He concluded the dishwasher was indeed leaking again, but this time damaging the hardwood floor. However, he said he couldn't fix the problem and that we needed to call in an appliance expert! Additionally, despite a less than 1 minute visit, he needed to charge $175 minimum fee!!!!! This is the company's minimum fee for all visits, regardless of whether the plumber fixes the issue! This was 100% not disclosed when making the appointment. Plus, the time starts as soon as he leaves Dale's office (which is crazy too), rather than when he arrives at the customers home.

Despite protesting the $175 fee and being lied to by Dale's staff, we still paid the outstanding bill. However, in gaining $175, they have lost a customer for life. Additionally, I will make sure numerous homeowners understand the poor quality customer service that Dale provides. Additionally, I will personally ensure my apartment HOA association removes Dale Plumbing for our preferred list of venders. Again, I don't mean to negatively review a locally owned business, but people need to be aware of organizations that depend upon intentionally scamming customers.

Elena W.

FRAUD AND DECEPTIVE BILLING PRACTICES. BE AWARE!!!!
Invoice was given without any hours of work.
Before giving them your CC please check calculations on an invoice.
Mark plumber charges extra hour without any explanation.
Any contact with the company after a charge dispute had no result.

Very negative experience!!!!! Highly NO RECOMMENDED.

Bernadette H.

***DALE PLUMBING IS BEING INVESTIGATED BY THE
CONTRACTORS STATE LICENSE BOARD FOR FRAUD AND DECEPTIVE BILLING PRACTICES.***

I've had no other service technician touch my gas fireplace other than Dale Plumbing. I had no contract with Dale Plumbing.

I hired Dale Plumbing to simply replace a faulty 50 year old fireplace thermopile as recommended by a PG&E technician 5 years ago who examined my fireplace....except.... Dale Plumbing did NOT replace my thermopile. The original 50 year old thermopile is STILL in my fireplace!

***I WAS TRICKED AND CHARGED $224 FOR A NEW THERMOPILE!

***DALE PLUMBING WAS READY TO CHARGE ME ANOTHER $200 FOR VISIT 1, THE 20 MINUTE SO-CALLED EXAMINATION OF MY FIREPLACE!

HERE'S THE STORY:

On day 1 I asked the Dale Plumbing technician how much it would cost to do the work. The technician responded asking me ""Didn't the office give you a price?"" and then told me he wasn't even sure if they could service my fireplace if they couldn't find a replacement part and that they would give me a price if they find a part. Nothing was presented to me on visit 1, no form, no email, NOTHING notifying me of any cost.

Dale Plumbing then contacted me and informed me that they would have to reschedule because the technician would be out of town. So we rescheduled for another day.

On day 2 the Dale technician arrived with a thermopile and some other brand NEW parts which he showed me. He then 'pretended' once again to examine my fireplace and then informed me that I didn't really need the new thermopile after all, and that he would have to return it back to his truck!

To my shock, he then picked up all the new parts he had just showed me, and left my home; 20 minutes later he returned only with an old pilot tube... with no packaging! He showed me the wide pilot tube with my original narrow pilot tube that he had removed from my fireplace and then replaced it with the wide one he said he had just found on the back of his truck.

After installing the old pilot tube, it emitted a continuous jet sound because it was wider than the original pilot tube, so more fuel was jetting out!

After the technician completed his 'so-called replacement of my thermopile', we both observed the fire log going in and out. The technician lied and told me it would improve with time, but the problem quickly worsened over time.

The Dale Plumbing technician pulled out a form to have me sign. I signed the form and got a yellow copy. I was perplexed to see on that form that they had charged me for two hours, but did not specify a date for the first hour of day 1.

They simply lumped up the first hour of day 1 with the second hour of day 2. Since I had never been notified of a cost for day 1, I refused to pay for the first hour of day 1.

I called and emailed Dale Plumbing management, and I began to realize they had no intention to remedy the problem with my fireplace. When I asked how they do business like this, I got this response:

*****DALE PLUMBING RESPONSE:
""You were told of the charges on both occasions, we were hoping you'd pay what you owed from visit 1 and refused to pay upon our return. You didn't. You are asking us to return to continue work, for someone who refuses to pay.
We were STUPID for having gone out the 2nd time and wish we hadn't, but it's our lesson to learn. Please refer back to what we told you in previous emails. We encourage you to hire a professional fireplace contractor and take your business elsewhere."" *****

I got another email response from Dale Plumbing asking me to stop contacting them.

The problems of my fireplace grew, and I became concerned over a gas leak when the time gap grew from the time the fire turned back on again. A month or two later a PG&E technician examined my fireplace and wrote up the following statement:

*****PG & E SERVICE REPORT
""Found inoperable firedog, suspected faulty thermopile and/or control valve. Pls refer to a licensed contractor to service. Observed ""short cycling"" of fireplace."" ******

***Dale Plumbing had refused to return to properly replace my thermopile without charging me again and continued to send me a fabricated bill for approximately $200.

***I contacted ***PENINSULA CONFLICT RESOLUTION CENTER***, DALE PLUMBING WAS UNWILLING TO MEDIATE.

I have discovered that many YELP reviewers have complained of similar experiences with Dale Plumbing. I wish I had done more research before hiring them. I hope others will be alert to their devious schemes, and may I warn;

ALWAYS RECORD EVERYTHING WHEN DOING BUSINESS WITH DALE PLUMBING, OR BETTER YET, FIND ANOTHER COMPANY TO DO BUSINESS WITH!

Update: My credit card company reimbursed me

Jim P.

I had a bad experience with this firm. A plumber that attempted to upsell the scope of work, stating a PRC (pressure regular) needed to be replaced that I knew was not necessary. If not for the fact I have over 50 years experience in the construction industry, I would have believed him, with a $600 fix that was not necessary.

Janine G.

I've had Dale Plumbing come out a few times now and I've been very happy with the service each time. Will definitely call them again!

Vickie V.

I can't say it enough....Dale Plumbing is awesome! Nobody likes having to wait for a plumber especially since these clogs seem to happen at the most inconvenient time. I have called Dale Plumbing several times and they have always managed to get me in the queue for service the same day-usually within a few hours. Today, Bob was thorough, professional, and helped with some suggestions for general maintenance of our pipes to avoid such issues. Thanks Bob!

Reasonable prices - even on 24 hour emergency time. Always been able to get in queue for Same day.

Marleen Z.

I am so upset with Dale plumbing. We wanted to get our wood fireplace converted to gas. We had Dale plumbing come out to give us an estimate. We received a contract from Dale, approved it, signed the contract and agreed on a date. This morning, the day before they were supposed to come over I received a phone call from Dale informing us that there had been a mistake and that the costs are $1000 higher than the signed contract listed. Can they do this? Isn't a signed contract legally binding? I offered to split the difference but there was no negotiating possible. I am still in shock... if this is how they treat their customers, I would think twice before contacting them. We had to do a lot of prep work and now we can start all over again, just before the holidays! Not a good day for me!

Nicolas H.

This is one of those reviews I wish I didn't have to write, but feel I have to so that others don't have to endure the same torture that we went through for literally 4 months. There are a couple people that work here that are nice and I want to believe truly good people, but that can't save the fact that at the end of the day the company does poor quality work and has terrible customer service. Please believe the other 1 star reviews as we had a similar unbelievably terrible experience.

For instance, attached is a photo of how they installed our tankless water heater. The inspector took a photo for proof as he was shocked that they hooked it up with plumbers tape (not even electrical tape), failed to directly connect it from the outlet to the unit and left it like that for 6 weeks until the inspector showed up and required it to be fixed. Not to mention Dale Plumbing plugged the unit into an existing extension cord (which we had for a completely separate purpose) and again left it like that without notifying us. Of course the inspector failed us for it as it needed a dedicated outlet. Instead of just taking the blame and owning up to it, Dale Plumbing instead put it back on us saying they told us during the estimate that a dedicated outlet was required and it was up to us to have one installed. Complete and utter lie. Had we known we needed to do ANY electrical work we would have kept the water heater in the garage, where it was originally. It was Dale Plumbing's idea to move it to the back of the house and we went along with it as it seemed like a good idea at the time. Instead, I ended up having to go to the city twice to pull a homeowners permit for the electrical outlet and both times they urged me to have Dale Plumbing pull the permits instead. Of course Dale Plumbing refused and we had some unfortunate conversations which ended up with the manager (owner?) hanging up on me. Given some of the other mentions of small claims court, it's not at all surprising that they don't care how they treat their customers.

After literally weeks of hounding them, the office staff acquiesced and ended up helping to resolve the project by finding an electrician to do the work that they failed inspection on. Sigh.

Every time that I wait for 3 minutes before I get hot water I think of this company that still hasn't fixed what they installed. I'll never get the hours upon hours of my life back that I spent dealing with Dale Plumbing and I urge you to save yourself the time and agony and look elsewhere.

Marcelino V.

Bob was great and quick to fix the problem. I definitely recommend them to get the job done.

Frank P.

I used with Dale service to fix my bathroom they was very knowledgeable and helpful with great bid thank you