Overages$$

This is the email I sent to the plumber who sent an assistant to hook up an LP tankless water heater for me...The gas line needed to increase to 7/8"....
-(We received the bill from the work done on 12/2. We were dismayed. 9 1/2 Man Hours.
Your assistant came out and hooked up the hot and cold water lines to the TKJr tankless water heater and the propane at the supply tank and at the water heater.
I'd already had the water heater mounted.
I had the thru-the-wall vent in place and hooked up .
I had the electrical done, so it just needed to be plugged in.
I had 50 feet of semi rigid K copper pipe layed from the propane tank, under the house , up through the floor with 5 feet of pipe available to bend in to position to connect with the 3' flex that I provided.
I had the t-connector ready to connect the outside end of the copper pipe into the existing propane line along with reducers and flare fittings.
For some reason the plumber decided it was necessary to connect the new 7/8 propane line to the" t " inside where the old water heater had been fed the propane. (This could have been capped off.) This was completely unneccessary as the 7/8 pipe was joining the original 5/8 pipe in a "t " by the supply tank outside. This descision literally added hours to the job. Where only 2 male fittings would have needed to be soldered, the extra copper pipe that could have been bent to meet the flex was cut off and x- number of fitting were brazed in order to meet the indoor 5/8" propane line that could have been completely independent from the 7/8 line. Completely unnecessary.
I didn't want to tell him what to do, but now I see I should have. I even had and imperial pipe bender sitting there in case he needed something to bend the K pipe.
I was expecting the job to take 3 hours max.
He did good work....but his descision added at least $300 unnecessary to the bill.
I'd appreciate your response.) end of email....
I haven't gotten a response...Do I have any rights here..What should be my next step?
Jane

I won't either criticize or support the plumber,because despite your detailed post I don't really know all the details.


My comment is that misunderstandings arrise in situations like this where you have asked someone to jump in in the middle of a job which has been partially completed by someone else. You have certain expectations in mind. The professional has to possibly backtrack some because he doesn't know for sure or understand what the previous person had in mind.

So, again, I don't know if this guy was incompetent, or trying to jack up your bill, or if it was just an unfortunate situation all around.

gas line

This is an interesting situation. I would not have been pleased to have the customer tell me how to do the job, nor would I have been comfortable with him supplying the pipe and fittings, since if they ever had a failure, he/she would attempt to hold me liable for their failure. But, having said that, I would also have ascertained the best way to do the job using my own intuition and experience. From your description, and we do not have rebuttal from the installer to justify his decision, it seems that your method might have been a viable alternative to the way he installed it, but we do not know if there were extenuating circumstances that made his choice necessary. I doubt that you have any cause for relief because typically the "expert's" decision would have more validity than yours, and you would have to prove incompetence or some other action on his part.

Drip Leg

Jane are you saying your area doesn't require the drip leg at the appliance and that the new line doesn't need to be full size from the tank? Some areas do allow pipe bending but I'm not aware of plumbers that do that.