TBros - Trethewey Brothers

Brad W.

We've used Trethewey in our small condo association for 28 years. Today they said the soonest they can fix a broken water heater is in 14 days. 14 days with no hot water -- no wait list; no consideration for long-term customers, no nothing. And served up with a whole lot of attitude! We're moving on.

Jamie O.

BUYER/SERVICEE BEWARE!!!

Our family has used Trethewey Brothers as needed for about two years now since moving back into the service area. 2 jobs completed in that time period to my satisfaction specifically because of the plumber that came to house. Keith, good man. Sat and had coffee with my family each time. Months later and out of no where I experienced VERY AGGRESSIVE collections from their office without being able to prove that a $200 invoice open, was actually due as all invoices were paid with plumber onsite with credit card. VERY rude office management. Letting that go... I was in need of a 3rd request for service. Not only was I harassed over this unproven debt to collect the $200 prior to appointment (was paid in full finally once they were able to prove this portion of a job was due prior to 3rd appointment), I stayed home from my company for the 7am-11am window in which I was told they would arrive. At 11:30am I contacted the office to check on my appointment as I have half a business day wasted and several employees needing my in office attention. MUCH to my dismay when I contacted TB, the office manager whom answered the phone was extremely rude and unprofessional to me with zero compassion for my time and service needs after being very level headed with her. Short, sharp rude answers. She simply got more and more attitude as I questioned her in regards to her not informing me of the tardiness and requesting to give me a new window of time so I could plan accordingly and simply said ""we will be there when we get there"". Then... ""Do you want to cancel"" with plenty of go screw yourself attitude in her voice. ZERO customer service. At that moment I asked to talk to her boss. Her boss got on phone and I asked him how his day was. Then I proceeded to express in kind my experience with his representative. He called me a liar basically saying ""he highly doubts that, I know my girls too well"" ""I'm not gonna get into this with you. How can I help you?"" I said you can help me by telling me how you will discipline your representative for talking to a customer the way she did? He said in an a VERY aggressive and cocky voice ""I'm not gonna go round and round with you."" How can I help you specific to your job"" I said just cancel it.

PEOPLE, their are many good plumbers out there. My father lives down cape and is crippled with 3 different types of arthritis, body run into the ground at 60 years old still from 42 years of plumbing and still crawling through spaces to get the job done . Its a sad day when you are treated like a POS when hiring a skilled labor unit to service your home. The culture internally at TBros is at best disgusting at best in management. FIND GOOD CULTURE AT THE CORE IN THE COMPANIES YOUR COMMISSION TO SERVICE YOU. They will enrich your lives and experience. No one is perfect but when your spending your time and money... Stick with harmonious driven entities. Stay away from this one.

Flavia S.

Overpriced, poor customer service, non-sensitive staff, they don't care about the customers. It is all about the $$$.

Our family waited 25 days until we decided to look for another plumber. Tbros kept saying they had to wait for a part to come in the mail for them to complete the service. I was able to buy that same part at FW Webb in Dedham and paid 1/3 of the price they said it was going to cost. But they also re-scheduled 2 times.

A plumber came to my house and fixed what needed to be fixed in 2 hours alone. He charged $300 instead of almost $900 which was what Tbros estimated. Tbros said it had to be 2 men job and the plumber who fixed alone said they do this to get more money from us. The plumber also said that the description of the service Tbros provided was not exactly what needed to be done.

Not honest service. Do not recommend.

Marc M.

I called after hours in the evening regarding a leaking water heater. They called me at seven the next morning, were here shortly thereafter and by 11 a new water heater had been installed and tested.

Jill K.

My grandfather did business with trethewey then my father then me now my daughter 4 generations and we have always been more than satisfied
Dependable and honest from day one
Jill mellen kottis

K O.

Shame on me for giving them a 3rd opportunity over the past 4 years. They have repeatedly not shown up, then made excuse after excuse all of which are implausible.

I can deal with mediocrity and with honest issues like being late. I can't deal with no-shows, no-communications and then outrageous excuses. These characteristics do not create the foundation for a trustworthy working relationship.

DO NOT USE THIS CONTRACTOR.

Michael S.

Wow, what a disappointing experience I just had with TBros and wish I never called them. The drain in my house backup into washing machine then onto my basement floor so had a drain company clear it. In doing so they removed how the wash machine was tied into the drain, which is @ 3' off the floor and piped against code. Was like this when I bought the home in 1999.

https://youtu.be/HW-_WA1Psi8

The above is a very close scenario that I have so I called TBros to give me an estimate and they called me back saying that the cost would be ""time and materials"". Ok is that $1500 or $4000? So I asked for a better idea of a range, the lady said it is best if we send someone out. Ok seems common practice to me.

Guy arrives at my house, I mention that I saw Rich in this video and would like this set up, after a short blank stare says that he has concerns with this set up because it is a different type of pump over the basin system type...ah really how so? There are basically two types of pumps, centrifugal and screw and both systems we are talking about here are centrifugal. Also, both pumping systems we were talking about have the impellers sit in water idle so neither starts dry..don't understand his logic but whatever.

What he then tried to sell me was a ""power vented"" system that would require me to run a new vent line up two floors, which the then informed me is illegal in Mass but works. He has this same system in house so I shouldn't worry that it will not work. Seriously, you are recommending something that is illegal over the legal one that I asked for? Anyways, that wasn't an option so he came up with some other type of eye sore scenario. I asked him to price both.

Then as he finished this (mind you this was less than 30 minutes) he said you have to pay for my time. $104 for him to come out scratch his head leaving me with less than confidence he knew what he was doing not to mention pushing an illegal recommendation on me.

Needless to say I was first shocked then annoyed, why didn't someone tell me that I had to pay for him to come out when I spoke with them on the phone? I ask for estimates all the time, I have never paid for someone to give me one but I have some people say that i would have to so thank you not interested. I would have not had him come out and merely called someone else. Why didn't this guy say something when he arrived?

As if that wasn't annoying enough, he came out Monday here it is Thursday still no estimate or word from them.

AVOID TRETHEWEY BROTHERS I know I will never call them after this! Still annoyed that they screwed me out of $104 (yes I know I should have refused to pay since I did not agree to pay for him come out nor did they let me know I had to) but you gave me a recommendation as the plumber explained to me was illegal in Mass. I really should report them for that.

Laura C.

I called to ask if they would be able to top off the antifreeze in my heating system. I had to schedule 3 visits, buy my own antifreeze, wasted 15 HOURS of my time waiting for them to show up, and felt they took every opportunity to overcharge me. The first time they gave me a 4 hour window to come to my house to do the work. They called me in the last 20 minutes of the window, explained that they were running behind and asked if I could stay home a bit longer. I agreed to waiting an additional 2 hours and was told someone would be over ASAP. NO ONE showed up, and they called again to reschedule the next day. I said I would only agree if my house would be the first one they visited at 7 am. The service person did not show up until after 8 am, charged me for the 40 minutes it supposedly took to drive to my house (which is 4 1/2 miles from their location), only brought 1 gallon of antifreeze (which he happened to have in the truck), charged me more than 2X the going cost of the antifreeze, and then told me I would have to reschedule to have someone come back with more antifreeze. I went out and bought my own antifreeze at half the cost and scheduled another appointment. No one came within the next 4 hour window either but again I was told someone would be over ASAP at the very end of the window. They did actually show up this time and spent 1 1/2 hours to do the work that should have be done correctly the first time at a cost of $150. Instead, I paid over $450 and had to stay home from work 3 separate days for them to do a relatively straightforward job. They charge $104/hour and bill you for the time it takes to drive to your house (and perhaps stop for coffee/breakfast on the way) and round up the billed time 15+ minutes. How about they refund me for the 8 hours I sat home twiddling my thumbs waiting for them to show up in their designated 4 hour work window or the additional 4 1/2 hours beyond this time that I had to stay home from work because they were so late? When I called about the $34 charge for 1 gallon of antifreeze when I just bought the same stuff for $15, they did tell me they made a mistake and overcharged me but they never refunded it. Stay away from this company. It is a waste of time and money!

Paul C.

My general contractor installed a cheap kitchen sink and faucet when I bought my house in 2012. The stainless-steel sink, which was installed from under a granite counter, cracked in four places. The faucet looked state-of-the-art with a pull-out spray but started to leak this year.

I decided to go to Trethewey Bros. for a better faucet replacement. I also decided to have the plumber reverse a shower valve because its indicator said cold for hot and hot for cold. I chose a high-end Kohler faucet that was about $500. I also had a better sink already and wanted that installed. I stated this when I ordered the faucet. The person at the showroom said the sink installation could be problematic due to the granite counters. I was overly confident because I thought I had measured the new sink exactly for the bracket holes in the granite. It took about 2 weeks before the actual service occurred, once the faucet had arrived.

On the day of service, the Trethewey plumber arrived within the given 4-hour window. The sink-faucet installation was time-consuming and entailed sawing down the sink to fit the suspension brackets under the counter. Placing the sink required two people, so I gladly helped. After all, no sink means no kitchen to anyone who cooks, as I do.

The shower valve seemed at the time to be the easier issue. The plumber took apart the valve and inserted a reverse hot seat. He said it was working fine. We settled the bill for sink and shower valve (approx. $900). After two showers, the valve would not shut off. So, starting at 10 AM on Sunday, cold water was running in the shower because there is no designated shut-off for that bathroom. I immediately called the Trethewey number. I got a call back around 1 PM. The man who called back said he would not be able to get anyone to me until Monday. To be fair, it was one of our coldest weekends. I explained that the water was running. He suggested I shut off the water for the whole house. Since our heat is forced hot water, I did not like that idea in freezing weather.

I was told the office opened at 7 AM Monday, and, if I didn't hear from them by 9 AM, to call. They called at 6:47 AM on Monday morning, but I happened to have left my phone in the kitchen and missed the call. I saw they called about 7:10 AM and called back. The friendly dispatcher said she had sent a plumber to another job when I didn't answer the phone. Meanwhile, our shower was still running. I was given a window of 8 AM to 12 PM for the plumber to arrive. I told the dispatcher to just send the plumber because I would be here all day if necessary. I waited until approximately 11 AM to call the office back. I was placed on hold and was eventually told a different plumber was coming than the one originally here.

He showed up, as promised, in about 30 minutes. This plumber immediately conveyed a sense of confident friendliness. He was methodical and courteous. He took apart the leaking shower valve and the new part installed previously by the plumber on the first visit just fell out of the valve. It had not been placed correctly. Hence the severe leak. This plumber went to his truck, got a temporary part to fix that issue and also brought a new spindle to upgrade the old shower valve at my request and added expense (another $80 approximately). He explained that he would order a replacement for the faultily installed part and would reschedule when it came in. He negotiated reduced labor charge for his visit with the office without me asking.

Just over 3 weeks later, the second plumber came and completed the shower valve upgrade. I had braced myself for another bill and a conversation about the earlier valve part that had been messed up in the installation. I was pleasantly surprised when the plumber handed me an invoice with no charge for that final visit. He said the company acknowledged that there had been inconvenience. Now that is a why I would recommend Trethewey to anyone looking for a good complete-service plumbing company. Anyone can make a mistake, but the test of a good business is how they make it right.

John M.

Just had my first service visit from T Bros and couldn't be happier. Excellent service and the communication and helpfulness was outstanding. I highly recommend them, especially if you have an older house like I do.