What to do if plumber finds surprise and cannot finish the job?

Question

So I had a leak under the slab foundation of my 4-plex in the hot water line.  I paid a plumbing company to find the location of the leak with a listening device.  The guy gave me a bid of $1525 to fix the problem the same day.  It included concreting over the hole after the repair was made. Keep in mind I have 4 units without hot water and he was the only plumber that would do it before the weekend (It's Friday morning).  So I agreed.

4 hours later his guys show up and they jackhammer the foundation to find a 18 ft long tunnel big enough to crawl in, and a leaking PEX pipe in there, obviously done after it was built.  Someone had tunneled in from the edge of the foundation to fix a prior leak and had only bothered the fill in the opening.  I went to Lowes and bought the PEX parts and the plumbers fixed the leak, restoring the hot water. They left without filling the hole. It was 2 guys there for 3.5 hours.

So the job of filling in the hole was much more than the estimator had expected.  I did it today with a friend and it took 3 yards of DG and a lot of dirty work.

The question is, how much should I pay the plumber?  They didn't charge me that night, saying I could talk it over with the boss on Monday.  They did come out the same day with the jackhammer and restore the hot water.  But I had to do the rest myself and it was a big job.  I'm thinking no more than $1000.  Opinions?

Aaron Mazzrillo · Answer

What part of his bid including filling in an 18' tunnel? I don't know how him not doing that work qualifies as him not finishing the job?? Once you filled it in, he should have come back out and finished the concrete work per his bid.

James Martin · Answer

The estimate may be high but lets not forget that Alex said  this company was the only one that would do the job before the weekend. That in itself is worth a few hundred to me. I would inform the owner on how many hours you and your friend have invested in time filling the hole, and see if he will knock off what it would have cost him to pay his guys to fill the hole. If he pay them $15 a hour and it took you 4 hours, I would start from there. You never know when you will need this guy again.

Brad Z. · Answer

I also think that quote was high. They still didnt complete the job they stated (even in there wasnt a big hole). I would offer to pay them $700 max.

On another note. I had hte same issue and the leak was the below the slab in a finished apartment. I did the same as J Scott above. I ran new lines from the boiler room into the unit through the ceiling. I would rather repair drywall vs jackhammer and dig.

George P. · Answer

first, i think the quote was way over the top to jack up the floor, fix the pex and then pour in new concrete.

but since you agreed, that's what you owe them. they had no idea that the tunnel was there and it's unfair to expect them to fill up the huge hole.

now, if they did not replace the pex and did not pour new cement, that's their loss and i'd deduct. i'll pay them $500 if all they did was jack hammer the old stuff.

Alex K. · Answer

I didn't expect them to do that work, but I hope to get a discount since they didn't finish and it didn't take as long as they had planned for.  I didn't schedule another appointment because I wanted to get the unit livable ASAP and I know how to use concrete.

I like Joel's idea, let them suggest the fair price and go from there.

Rich Schmidt · Answer

What Joel said. Tell them you look forward to getting the adjusted "estimate" that doesn't include the last part of the job. As in any negotiation, you want them to put a number out there first.

J Scott · Answer

The last time we had a leak under the foundation, our plumber cut the busted line off from the water heater and ran a brand new line to above the foundation (and coupled it at two distribution junctions above the slab) to replace it.  Took about a half day and a few hundred dollars -- more importantly, it didn't require any digging into the foundation.

Just a consideration if this happens again...

Joel Owens · Answer

Tell them  you are really hurting with this repair and hope they will help you out. It will depend on if they are a small mom and pop type company or one of the big boys in how the negotiate and handle payments.

Let them say first what they think is fair.There bill they come back with might be lower than you were thinking.If it's higher you can always negotiate down.

If you went higher and said what you thought was fair then they might say "that sounds about right" when they were willing to give a lower price to pay the bill.