Craziest Contractor Bids

[J Scott]

I was just doing some cleaning and found a bid I had gotten a couple years ago from my (former) plumber of mine to do some basic work on my personal residence. I saved it because I planned to start this thread one day...

While it's only two small items, this probably qualifies as the most ridiculous bid I've ever gotten from a contractor. Basically, he wanted to charge me $377 to install a new garbage disposal and $245 to install a new toilet fill valve.

The materials for this work would be less than $125 (retail), so the labor would be about $500. Given that the work should take less than an hour, that's about $500/hour in labor.

To make matters worse, this guy had been getting a lot of business from us on our investment properties. Part of me thinks he didn't know who I was (my project manager deals with the contractors most of the time) and thought I was a regular retail customer. Not sure that makes it any better...

As you might suspect, I don't recommend Summit Plumbing in Atlanta... :)

So, who else wants to share a ridiculous bid story?

[Jeff S.]

Plastic surgeon has a plumbing issue in his house and calls a plumber for help. Plumber taps on a few pipes, solders a few joints, and after an hour of work he hands the plastic surgeon a $1200 bill.

Outraged, the plastic surgeon exclaims, “I don’t even charge my patients that!!!”

To which the plumber replies, “You know, when I was a plastic surgeon, I didn’t either.”