My foray with a plumber has finally ended. What started as a 11k quote turned into a 25k project. How does that happen?
Let me take you back in time to 2013 when I thought it was a good idea to own a home. Build equity. Don’t waste your money renting. Be a smart human… I put a down payment of 18k on a 300k mortgage with PMI. I hardly had more money than that. Jeff and I lived together the first year and someone literally fell through the stairs to give an idea of the condition of the home. Adding to, the inspector found water damage but there was a 9k seller assist to solve the issue. Ha! Who knew that the patio was sloped incorrectly, the storm drain is from 1850, the HVAC unit will bust, and the roof has a hole in it (this is an exaggeration to get the point across). These thoughts as a first time home owner didn’t even cross my mind. All I knew was I needed a place to live and how hard could it be being a home owner?
Fast forward to today and I’ve learned that I’m not a handy man. I can tackle tasks, but I can’t do them professionally. My life skills are not to spend my time to properly tile a bathroom. My job is to make money to have someone do it better than I can. Which brings me to calling a plumber to handle some maintenance. The plumber had a 4.8 rating with a 1,000 reviews so I felt confident in the professional. The estimator and I go through the house and we aim at fixing the sump pump, the faucet, updating spigots, and replacing the shower tub. He quotes 11k. I sign.
They arrive and begin work. Next they tell me that the floor tiles of the bathroom need replacing, do you want to do the bathroom floor? Sure. 6k. Then we went up 2 feet of the shower and there’s water on the sheet rock, we should really do the whole shower. Ok. 6k. This drain outside has dirt in it, do you want us to replace it. $1,600. By the end I felt like Quagmire below.
To consider that this bathroom cost more than what I put down on my mortgage 12 years ago is laugh out loud funny. It takes a long time to make 25k and these guys threw that figure around like everyone has that kind of money. Now fortunately I do have that kind of money, but it felt like highway robbery because once they were in, what else could I do? Don’t worry, you’ll see that money back when you go to sell the home. Sounds great. In the end, it was hard work and it’s a major improvement, but buyer beware, a home is not as it appears.
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