Tri County Plumbing and Mechanical

Gretchen W.

This rating reflects our experience with Rick from Tri-County Plumbing Anacortes LLC. There are a few different Tri-County Plumbing businesses and I don't think Rick has his own website so I wanted to ensure the review is not mixed up with others. We have American Home Shield and Rick was the contractor assigned to us when our water heater was leaking and needed replacing at our home in Bellingham. He phoned me just a few minutes after I put the service request in online and came by the next day to assess what repairs were needed. He thoroughly explained what steps he would need to take to complete the job (i.e., replace the expansion tank then get a new 40 gal heater). A few days later, after AHS ordered a new heater, he was quick to give me a call and come out for installation (in below freezing weather I might add). As you can imagine, not having hot water in the winter is not fun but he made the process as swift and painless as possible. We would hire him any time we need help with the water heater or plumbing and highly recommend!! A++ on communication and professionalism.

Brianna R.

For starters just don't use them. Ever.

We had a main sewer line blockage. Our water leaked out into the basement where we have a secondary living room and two rooms. One of which a six year old sleeps in and the other a pregnant woman. There was standing water.This was Monday morning. We called the home warranty they said that they would send us someone. Five hours later nothing. We called them back and said they scheduled us for tomorrow (Today) between 11 am and 1pm. The plumber was unavailable. Okay, no big deal we luckily have a dry/wet vacuum. We vacuumed up 12 gallons of water. We stayed elsewhere. We called the city and had the water shut off. We didn't know where our inside shut off was.

30 minutes prior to our appointment the plumber shows up with out calling. We were excited at first but also a little irked. Would he have just left if we weren't home? He comes in looks looks around for maybe a minute and that's being generous. Says we don't have a main ACCESS line in our house to the plumbing. That he would have to remove the toilet and he doesn't do that. He says he is going outside to look around and call the home warranty people to see what he can do. We call them as well.

When we are on the phone with the home warranty they said the technician filed his report and we aren't covered. So basically to go f ourselves. We are really confused as it has been less than ten minutes since the plumbers arrived. Turns out when he went to make his phone call he just left. He didn't even come back to talk with us. He didn't confirm that he looked outside for an outside access point. Nothing.

After that we called another plumber, full speed plumbing. They had someone out with in 2 hours of our call. With having two young children and a pregnant woman in our house we were a top priority. This plumber informs we do have an ACCESS point in our garage. It took him about five minutes to find. He fixed our entire problem with in two hours. We left a glowing Google review. Check that out for more details.

Bullet points.
Told us we DIDN'T have ACCESS lines.
We DO have an ACCESS line.
He would have to pull the toilet.
He doesn't work on toliets. (What kind of plumber doesn't work on toliets.)

10/10 DONT RECOMMEND. HE IS A QUACK.

Josh J.

I can't tell if this plumber is a con artist or a well-intentioned train wreck. Either way, there's no doing business with him.

Note: there are TWO businesses by this name who are BOTH reviewed here. This is for the TriCounty Plumbing in Anacortes.

TriCounty Plumbing was sent by American Home Shield when our water heater sprang a leak.

Rick wanted to replace everything related to the water heater -- straps, assembly, pan, etc. -- not just the heater itself. He gave AHS an initial quote. I was initially OK with this ... then, the moment I told him we were interested, he decided it wasn't enough money. He demanded that we agree to unspecified extra charges, which he refused to even estimate (except for repeating ""far more than"" the quote). He refused to do the work unless we agreed to his new terms. We had to take the cash-out option.

It turns out that Rick has a history of similar complaints (see other reviews, there are several on him from 2016-7).
* He claimed he ""couldn't disclose"" how much extra he'd have to charge because that's ""proprietary AHS information"". Insurance companies can only legally charge the quoted amount, so that's not even their information!
* He blamed bad communication with AHS on AHS being ""in another country"". In truth, he kept telling us one thing and telling them another.
* When AHS called him to sort out his mess, he claimed that we approved his bid and ordered the part. We never did.
* Rick is very pushy and talks 30+ minutes non-stop on every call. Apparently he aims to exhaust people into agreeing with his demands.

TriCounty Plumbing Anacortes simply can't be trusted.

Jirius I.

Tri County Plumbing and Mechanical, LLC has been messing me up for a whole week now. If I could give them minus stars, I would. They kept giving me times they would be here and kept changing things the last minute. Every time, I made sure I was home and the outdoor hose valve ready and the dishwasher was empty and ready for him. At the end of the day, he filed to do anything making excuse after excuse. Here are the detail: He was first coming out on Tuesday, 10:30-11:30 am. He said he forgot. Then 9am on Thursday. He came a little late and said he did not have what he needed and would be back on Friday. Then he changed it to Saturday morning at 9am. Then changed it to 11am, then changed it to 11am on Sunday. Then again he said he could not make it at all that day and said he would come to do the job on at 7am on Monday. He texted me at 7am and said he could not make it again!

Joel H.

I got assigned Tri-County plumbing via First American - and Darren is the most flakey contractor I've ever worked with. We had rescheduled 4 or 5 different times, and he never followed through to finish the work order. After more than a month, I just told him I'm going to contact First American and have them reassign me. Darren had the audacity to submit the work order as completed, and now I'm going back and forth with First American to get a refund on my service payment. This guy is a real piece of work.

Josh P.

A work order was assigned to Tri-country by our home warranty company. The individual Tri-county sent out was unable to produce a plumbing license, and wouldn't identify themselves for lookup in the DL&I database. Having a plumbing license when doing work for money is a requirement in the state of Washington. This almost certainly means that they knowingly sent out an unlicensed contractor to do work in spite of state law.

The unlicensed individual said that another individual would come out to do the work at a scheduled time, and they stood me up, no-call, no-show.

Given an actual option, I would not recommend anyone do business with them, as it appears that they do not use actual plumbers to do their plumbing work, nor can they hold an appointment.

Laura G.

Tri-County was assigned to repair our leaking shower pipes by our home warranty company First American. They open up our ceiling and first try a bunch of cheap repairs including applying plumbing putty to drains and fixtures and even the crack itself in the pipes. The leak continues until they ""determine"" that the shower pan itself has a hole in it, which conveniently voids our warranty and absolves them of any further repairs. 1 general contractor and 2 quotes from reputable plumbing companies later, we learn Tri County is lying intentionally to pocket service call fees and spare themselves from doing any extensive work, mostly likely because the job is more expensive to repair and these home warranty companies reimburse contractors at rock-bottom rates.

Darren is now ignoring my text messages because he has no obligation to do any further repairs since it took over 30 days getting outside quotes to prepare an appeal to First American. I opened this claim in September and it is STILL not repaired as I had to reopen a claim with First American where they laughably tried to assign Tri County again to fix this.

Good luck getting them to do any work, here's a list of excuses we heard from starting in September from Darren on why he canceled or no-showed for innumerable appointments - COVID exposure, wife in hospital x2, ""my flight changed"", car problems x3, ""my feet hurt"", and tech has family issue. Exhausting.

Melanie W.

I'm sorry to see so many bad reviews. We have American Home Shield and unfortunately our water heater went out, this company is contracted with them and we had everything fixed within the week. I was getting really worried, Home Depot and Lowes and other places were at least 1-2 weeks out.

Rick came out, figured out all the equipment he would need to replace, advised me that the replacement that would be covered would be a base model and that I can pay for an upgrade which I wanted. He wanted to make sure we had the water heater that we would be happy with.

Rick knew it was difficult not having hot water and squeezed us in this morning to get it installed. He was even early! Very knowledgeable and was able to tell me that the home builder didn't even put a tray below the water heater like they should have among other things.

It sounds like there may be two companies with this name and it's unfortunate if the two are being mixed up. We had a great experience and hope others are able to give him a chance.

Kenneth W.

I typically don't waste time writing negative reviews, but this review is consistent with the others- and is worth noting with considering this business. I have a home warranty with 2-10 Homeowner. The assigned company to fix my plumbing leak was Tri-county. I called on Friday, spoke to Darren and was happy to get a Saturday morning appointment; 10-12 pm. At 12 pm, there was no call and no one showed up. I called and left a voicemail asking for a status. By 3 pm, there was no follow up. I called 2-10 and they informed me that Tri-County is the only ""in network"" plumber on their list and I can use another one and request reimbursement. By the way, another reviewer who left comments mentioned that reimbursements are low through the warranty company. That doesn't appear to be the case with 2-10. Another plumber gave me an estimate that is inline with the warrant amount. FYI.

Ty W.

Don't waste your time. We got Rick from the Anacortes location. What a horrible ""plumber"". He may know how to do things but he will try to scam you out of additional charges other than your home warranty service. He just makes stuff up without even doing any testing. I have a bad prv valve and expansion tank. All he did was measure the water pressure and try to adjust it, looked at the expansion tank for rust. Then goes about telling my home warranty my expansion tank was secondary damage from the prv failing. Keep in mind, he has no idea if it is or isn't because he didn't do any testing if it. Then goes on to tell them he needs to modify the current prv plumbing to our a new one on. This is because he's too lazy to find the right valve.

Trust us, don't do it. Go anywhere else. They'll do what they can to fleece you. No idea how they have agreements with warranty places.