When a Plumber Becomes Their Own Worst Enemy

How would you handle a situation where you were called to clear a drain for a restaurant, only to get a call three days later that it was blocked again? This happened to a midwestern plumbing company. The plumber returned, cleared the drain, and presented an identical invoice to the restaurant manager except the total charge was 66% higher. The manager balked at paying. What would you do now?

The plumber chose to return the following morning and put a balloon in the drain line. He then texted the restaurant owner and gave him an hour to pay or he was leaving for the weekend.

The restaurant manager called the police. They mediated. The restaurant owner paid the invoice under protest. The plumber removed the balloon and left. What happened next was not good for the plumber. The restaurant manager called a local TV station, which interviewed the manager and showed damning security camera footage of the plumber sabotaging the drain. The plumber didn’t appear on camera to present his side, but talked with the reporter by phone.

The restaurant manager made the claim that it wasn’t the money that bothered him. He just wanted the plumber to stand behind his work and he wanted to warn other people. Over the phone, the plumber told the reporter he didn’t offer any guarantees for drain cleaning. All he could do was make sure the drain was clear at the time of service. Overall, it was not a good look for the plumber.

Seven Mistakes

The plumber made seven crucial mistakes:

1. He didn’t charge enough. His first invoice was for $235 in total, which included a sewer equipment fee of $75 and a truck/fuel surcharge of $35. That means the labor was $130. Moreover, the plumbing company is a union shop. The company’s labor costs are probably higher than the typical service plumber.

Charge too little and margins become tight. This makes plumbers reluctant to be flexible if a situation starts going sideways.

2. He likely hurried the job. Because the plumber didn’t charge enough, he or his plumber likely hurried the job and was less thorough than he should have been. We can’t know this for certain, but the strategy of most low-price plumbers is to run as many calls per day as possible, precluding a thorough job. Accordingly, he might have missed problems (e.g., the grease trap might need to be cleaned out) or missed debris or muck in the drain line, causing it to stop up 72 hours later.

There was no mention of the grease trap on the invoice or in the story. If it was the problem, the plumber missed an opportunity.

3. He wasn’t flat rate and didn’t price upfront. The plumber did not appear to be flat rate. Certainly, the restaurant manager appeared surprised at the amount of the second invoice, implying that he wasn’t presented with a price before work began. While it was emergency service, after hours, the labor increased from $130 to $280, a 215% increase (the total invoice with the equipment fee and fuel surcharge increased from $235 to $385).

While the plumber is pricing low, the issue is the differential between the calls and the fact that price of the second job surprised the restaurant manager. Present a price before work begins and this goes away.

4. He communicated poorly. The restaurant manager appeared to believe the second call was a callback. If the plumber communicated that it was a separate service call and would be billed at a higher rate for emergency service after hours, he didn’t get confirmation that the restaurant manager understood that.

Poor communication continued when the plumber and restaurant manager went back and forth on the charges by text messages, which loses tone and body language. Text is a horrible way to handle disputes.

5. He acted impulsively. The restaurant manager was questioning his invoice. Instead of meeting face-to-face to explain things from his perspective, the plumber took action the next morning before anyone arrived at the restaurant.

The plumber failed to even attempt to resolve. Instead, he chose to escalate matters at the first opportunity.

6. He committed vandalism. While it might be cheered on by plumbers, this is an inexcusably stupid action that could have resulted in material harm to the restaurant and criminal charges for the plumber.

The plumber was fortunate the police called to the scene had cooler heads than he had. In all likelihood, it was such a petty action and petty amount that no prosecutor would want to waste time dealing with it.

7. He failed to appear on camera. When the TV reporter reached out to him for comment, the plumber should have insisted on meeting on camera. If he appeared friendly, professional, reasonable, and sympathetic, he could have won the PR battle. Instead, he forfeited.

Until the plumber inserted the balloon, the situation could have been resolved. At worst, he could have chalked it up to the cost of business and walked away. He could have put the restaurant on his no-calls list and turned away future business. Instead, his overreaction ended up with him portrayed as a vindictive contractor consumers will want to avoid. He became his own worst enemy.

Before you react in a situation like this, get a gut check from plumbing’s most professional contractors. Join the Service Roundtable or Service Nation Alliance and learn from other plumbers’ experiences. For inspirational stories about the trades, buy Matt Michel’s book, “Contractor Stories” from Amazon.