Island Mann Plumbing & Drain Cleaning

Martha A.

More than disappointing experience. I needed to have shower faucets / fixtures replaced. This would call for the H2O being shut off, and possibly requiring soldering of the valve in the wall behind the shower. I understand. That's why I wanted a licensed, insured, professional.

All of the above information about the water needing to be shut off (which requires my HOA to send advance notice to owners and shut off the water for the ENTIRE building), was relayed to the intake department. Multiple times. After many efforts to coordinate, we finally agreed upon a water off window and work window. It was 10AM - 2PM. I took off a day from work. The plumber showed up at 2:30. In spite of me saying the office would work with us up until 5PM to get the shower fixtures replaced, he clearly wasn't interested in doing the job, and said it wouldn't be done before 5PM, therefore he would not start.

He did want to get payment though. I asked what he thought it was that I should pay him for. So then he said we could schedule the work to be done and I would need to pay 50% down. OK. So after several calls and further coordination, we came up with a date and time almost a week later. I paid 50% of the almost $700 estimate (yes, to change out my shower fixtures!). So I again had my HOA send out a water shut off notice, made work arrangements, and was prepared to meet the plumber today.

I got a call 30 minutes before their appointed start time saying that the plumber could not make it today. He had car trouble. Nothing could be done, I was told. Really? A plumbing company can't round up a plumber scheduled a week in advance to change out my shower fixtures for $700.

When I said this was unacceptable, and that I needed to have my prior payment refunded, I was given the run-around. I have to threaten to report them as fraudulent and cancel the credit card payment in order to get them to agree to refund my money.

SO DO YOURSELF A HUGE FAVOR: CALL ANOTHER PLUMBING COMPANY.

Charlie J.

I have used ISLAND MANN PLUMBING for several projects and could not be more pleased. Raymond was punctual, professional and curtious. I had a new issue this morning and I knew who to call. They are coming today.

Holly F.

BEWARE - ISLAND MANN IS DISHONEST!! I will never use them again! I called them to unclog my kitchen drain for which I had set aside $400 in savings and now I'm stuck paying $2,300 (they initially tried to charge me $2,900)!! Jesse, their negotiator kept talking about digging up my yard and re-plumbing my whole kitchen and laundry area! I kept telling him, NO, I don't NEED OR WANT ALL THAT! I JUST want you to unclog my kitchen drain!

When he told me the price $2,900 I said ABSOLUTELY NOT! That's way too high! He told me, "that's only because it might take 3 guys 2 DAYS to do the job, digging up the yard to go all the way to the sewer line." I said "Are you sure it's going to take all that to unclog my drain? Because I am sure it is not going to require that." I said "the clog is right about here (and I pointed to where I thought the clog was based on previous inspection)." And I said "there is no way it's going to take 3 guys, 2 days to fix that!" He said, "No ma'am, that's probably going to be damaged all the way to the sewer". I said "how can you know until you look?" He said "I just have worked with cast iron and I know" (later I found out that he never even checked!). I asked again, "ARE YOU SURE?" and he said "yes". So I told him to "please check to confirm". I knew that clog was not far down the line. I said, "Just to be clear, I can't afford that estimate so if it turns out you are going to have to take longer than a few hours let me know and I'll stop the work."

He assured me he would but I just kept getting the feeling he wasn't hearing me. So again I said "Because I CANNOT afford to pay that estimate." He then said getting apparently annoyed with me "Yeah, yeah, I know, we've all got bills to pay." I was stunned by the dismissive, patronizing attitude. I almost cancelled right then and there but the other guy said they had a payment plan so I thought about it and thought, well the job is not going to cost more than about a $1,500 based on what they had charged me in the past for the first hour's work ($95). So I decided to sign the estimate for them to start the work. I was told it was an "ESTIMATE". Knowing he would call me if the job grew beyond what I approved, I felt safe.

Six hours later, the two guys finished and when I asked them the final charge, they said "$2,900"! I said, "Oh no, that's not right!". I called Jesse and after 30 minutes of arguing he finally came down to $2,300 which I thought was still outrageous for the work they'd done but I felt I had no choice but to accept it. According to my math, 2 guys working 6 hours, I estimated $100/hour comes out to $1,200 + parts! They tried to charge me almost double. I understand overhead and needing to make profit but this was outrageous!

And, my calculation was conservative because they should not have taken that long but for the fact that they mistakenly cut my cast iron vent pipe vertically instead of horizontally where it diagonally veered over to the sink. As a result, 20 ft of pipe fell out of the hole in my roof (probably damaging my roof)! So they had to spend another couple of hours going BACK to the plumbing store for parts to get supplies and then fix that! Those two hours should not come out of my pocket! So that would take me down to 2 guys 4 hours work = $800 + parts (but NOT the parts for the their mistake)!!

Jesse apparently does not know the difference between a QUOTE and an ESTIMATE which I consider part of their scam. After the work was done and I was telling him I would not pay that full estimate, he told me about all the work they did and I said "No, they did NOT have to dig up like you instructed." I told him "As I told you, they only had to go to about here, about 6 or 7 ft from the kitchen." I brushed the dirt off to show him the connection to the cast iron line and his mouth dropped open in shock! He'd told the plumbers to replace all the way to the sewer so that's what he was expecting but I had told them DO NOT go beyond the clog! I don't want to pay for you to dig up my yard and for all those extra hours of labor and parts."

Then I asked "And why did you replace the line to my washing machine (work I had not approved)?!" He said they "had to" because it was clay pipe and he had already torn that out as they were trying to figure out the job. I was STUNNED! I said "it's NOT CLAY! So you never bothered to dig 2 inches down to see if that pipe was cast iron? I could have told you it was cast iron!" They did that work for nothing! My washing machine had been working fine and the work they were doing for my kitchen would NOT have affected that so there was no need to touch my laundry room plumbing! I was pissed!! They said they would not charge me for it but I think, at $2,300, I WAS being charged for that work! I later called twice to make an appointment to speak with the owner to resolve this but he never returned my call.

Greg B.

Had a clog in the drain that we couldn't remove on our own from Thanksgiving Day. Blue with Island Mann Plumbing showed up within a 1/2 an hour and had everything flowing perfect. Island Mann had the best price which was very reasonable and great service.

Thank you,

Greg
Clear Lake area, TX

Big Red A.

Still no end to the job, we've had to hire a different company to fix what they screwed up.. they came in yesterday to dig out the inappropriate drain they put in. They nicked our gas line and wouldn't own up to it. And cut my gas off. Everything in my house including heat uses gas.and it's cood here . they never came back to do all the work that they screwed up!! They where cutting corners and didn't dig a 18" trench, which was what the city said to do. They've just rigged it.
BBB next complaint and then the plumbing board..
do not use them they will , they lied to me multiple times just cover up,
They never owned up to their mistakes. And don't let the women who answers the phone fool u..they don't really care. And what she said when she answers the phone is scripted.. no truth..

Shawna N.

The estimate to hook up our tankless water heater and do a pressure test was 800$ an hour. Half day job estimate 3100$. No parts needed since we had them. No thank you!

Lindsey D.

This company is amazing! They are not only great at what they do but they have compassion for those in need of their services! I highly recommend them!

Carolyn H.

Beware the, "straight-forward" pricing. What this can mean is that, despite the job being smaller than anticipated, or taking less time, these guys are NOT willing to adjust the price accordingly. I had a hidden leak that I was given a $2000.00 estimate to fix, without Island Mann Plumbing really knowing the extent of the leak or its origin (wall, slab, etc). The work ended up taking almost half as much time as they had projected, and they were able to replace some old cast iron piping with PVC to fix the leak. Not only were they unwilling to budge on the price, but I even detected some slight contention in my conversation with the contractor when I asked about a reduction. The conversation even ended abruptly without a "good-bye"...(did he just hand up on me?)
In short, to these guys "straight-forward" is somewhat the opposite. You don't know how much the supplies cost, and you don't pay by the hour. Why? So you can't argue the value, that's why.
First and last time to use Island Mann.

Susan K.

Island Mann plumbing is great. Justin came out to give us an estimate on repairing a leak. In order to do the work he needed to coordinate with a contractor for the City of Jamaica Beach to shut off the water. Unfortunately they were never able to get together before Harvey arrived. We ended up having the city contractor do the work because it was easier than trying to do the coordination. We were billed for the visits, which we thought amounted to too much. Raymond was willing to work with us to resolve this issue. We will definitely call Island Mann in the future if the need arises.

KR C.

First, it was very hard to even get ANY plumbers to call us back for a 1-day project. But Island Mann did and we had an excellent experience including talking with the main office and dispatch.

Justin & Jesse came out ahead of schedule to fix an outdoor shower and a PVC drain network. And here are some adjectives to describe them and their work...

professional, polite, smart, eager, quick, respectful, thorough, clean, follow up. Did I mention quick? We're only making one call for plumbers from now on!