The Plumbing Company

S C.

NEVER CALL THIS COMPANY. They took advantage of a grieving World War II veteran, charged him $100 for a hoax of a visit, and gave him (well, gave his nurse) a quote for $500 of work. We are appalled and aghast. Our 89-year-old mother had died at home on a Tuesday, after 71 years of marriage to our 94-year-old, now housebound father. The next morning, their shower blocked up. We desperately called plumbers to see who could come take a look at the problem, explaining all our father was looking for was being able to take a shower with the assistance of his nurse. When Waller's showed up, much to our relief, he said he could take care of the problem -- but said there was no way to snake the line (claiming there was no trap) and gave our father a quote of $500 to reconstruct the sewer line in the crawlspace under the house. He drew a diagram to show his work, and charged our father $100 for his diagnostic visit. For the next five days our father was unable to have a decent shower or bathe. On a whim, our brother-in-law crawled under the house to see if there was anything he could do. He noticed the problem immediately, cut out a small section of pipe, repaired it for about $7, snaked the line through the trap (which was not even shown on the plumber's professional ""diagnostic"" drawing!) and everything was good to go. We cannot believe that Waller's so grossly took advantage of an obviously grieving, elderly man. NEVER CALL THIS COMPANY. We called the office to ask for an explanation, the dispatcher stood by his original account, and when we told him we were pretty sure he was simply ripping us off, he hung up on us. We are reporting them to the Better Business Bureau as well.

Kenneth S.

Waller cleared the roots out of our sewer line from the house cleanout access to the Los Alamos County main sewer. Frank took my call and was very easy to talk to and ask questions. The worker, Fred, came first thing the next morning and got the job done and graciously answered our many questions about how bad the roots were and the condition of the sewer pipe. They only charged about $150 which is much less than the highly rated plumbers out of Santa Fe who would have charged an additional $40 for travel, $90 diagnostic fee, then an hourly fee of $120 of which any remaining from the $90 diagnostic fee would cover which I estimate would have been at least $250.

Pwcorgi S.

Waller's excellent technician fixed my leaking solar hot water system today. I contacted them just this morning, and expected it to be hours before they could get to my place, but within two hours it was all fixed. The service was reasonably priced, too. I'm so pleased - what a relief!

T Q.

so bad i wouldn't even give them one star. the second the guy found out i was not married he ""needed"" to remove every pipe. i only wanted a dishwasher installed.
when i questioned him he picked up his tools and left without saying a word. they mailed me a bill. i had to hire an attorney. don't get taken... oh no they make you use at least one star...

Fine Diner H.

Once again Waller's comes to the rescue! This time the kitchen sink was stopped up. I phoned and within 20 minutes the technician had arrived, and 45 minutes later, he was on his way to the next rescue. The sink is draining perfectly, and Waller's entire staff should wear capes. They are great!

Howard N.

Their first attempt to remove my kitchen drain clog resulted in a clog further downstream that resulted in a big mess in our house downstairs. Wallers apparently does not provide a guarantee for fixing drain clogs which doesn't make sense to me. We were charged full price for a second visit (their labor rate is high to begin with). I left multiple messages for the owner to call me to discuss the situation, but he would not call me back. The plumbers tried to be helpful (especially the second one), but overall this business does not care about the customer, only their money. I don't recommend Wallers Plumbing.

Julie R.

Waller's replaced a frozen heating system exhaust pipe in my garage last winter. It immediately fell down, flooding my house with carbon monoxide the next morning when the heater kicked on. Not only was he completely unapologetic about risking my family's lives, he then
charged me 5 hours to put the pipe back up (in the garage, not an inaccessible wall or closet) and perform an unrequested analysis
of our entire heating system which he had already told me was an LP system that he is not licensed to work on. The next cold snap we had, that pipe froze because it had not been installed on a slope. At that point we hired another plumber.

I have spent the last 8 months trying to negotiate the $1,500 bill, but he does not return email or phone calls. In summary, I found their work to be dangerously bad, outrageously expensive, and their business practices extremely unprofessional.

Al H.

A complete disaster, don't get close to these guys! While the technician was competent, they disappeared before the job was done. In fact they disappeared as soon as I paid the bill, stupidly enough before the work ended. Never again!

Andrea S.

Herman from Sunset Heating and Plumbing, along with his wife, were both communicative and responsive. Herman showed up as scheduled and performed the requested servicing, boiler and water heater maintenance and flush. He charges a fraction of his competitors.

Stephen P.

I am writing this review on behalf of my mother, who is 92, and who hired Sonic Leak Detection to come to the house and address a leak.

Sonic Leak Detection came to the house on two consecutive days. The first day was to detect a leak outside the house, and the second day they returned to repair the leak. The time required to find the leak on the first day was approximately 2 to 3 hours, and the charges were just over $400. They said they could repair the leak, and the cost would be an additional $3,600. They were hired to do the repair, assuming that it would be a major project to justify the $3600 cost. When they returned the next day, (there were two of them) they arrived at about 11:15 a.m. and were done by about 3 p.m.. Within this time, they left for lunch and bought an outdoor hydrant. (They charged $350 for a simple hydrant, for which they claimed to have no receipt.) They charged $3100 for labor, which was almost all done by one of them, while the other mostly talked. The actual labor outside the house was probably 2 to 2 1/2 hours, mostly done by the one person. So, something around $1,250 an hour.

Finally, the job was not finished correctly. The attachments to the hydrant were made such that they were facing the wrong direction and would make the controls very difficult to read.

The total charges for both the detection and the repairs were about $3,750. The neighbor next-door later said she had the exact same job done for about $1200.

They claimed that their charges were so high because they are specialists.

My mother paid their bills, mostly because she was intimidated by them, but felt that they were taking advantage because of her age and the fact that she lives in a relatively affluent part of Santa Fe. Sounds about right.

So, I would say hire them only if you are willing to have people work for you who operate in this way.

Obviously, we would leave zero stars if we could.

Unfortunately, we will be pursuing this matter in small claims court.