My Honest Review
Had an issue with a leak in a plumbing pipe in the backyard that was causing major flooding. Reached out to my home warranty company and got a contract plumber from Universal Plumbing to come out Tuesday, October 4th to diagnose the problem. He was able to find the leak, but didn’t look at the actual pipes or assess which parts were needed. I was later told by Universal Plumbing that this was because the home warranty had not approved the repair at that time. With the plumber, unable to do any work, I then called the home warranty again to find out how long it would take for the approval to get sent out.
After leaving a very honest review with my home warranty company they suddenly became very anxious to help. The same cannot be said for Universal Plumbing. All they wanted to do, throughout the entire process, was place blame onto the home warranty company. Meanwhile we have had to live in our home with no running water. I was having to use containers of water in order to do the most basic things.
When you are without running water you can’t bathe, you can’t brush your teeth, you can’t wash your hands, you can’t flush the toilets, you can’t do laundry, you can’t wash dishes. This was our situation for weeks. When I asked Universal Plumbing, who is a 24/7 company, why this didn’t constitute as an emergency they said it was because it was only a “slow drip leak”. At this point I was beyond livid and wanting to prove a point so I went out, turned on the water and let it run for a full 20 minutes. Within that time the flooding was back and I recorded the damage in a video. Any time the water was turned on, the flooding in the backyard returned and was so bad that it ran over into the neighbors’ backyard as well. The video clearly shows the flooding and that it was not at all a “slow drip leak”. And how would Universal Plumbing even know the extent of the damage?
The water was off when they came and they had only been out the one time and barely even bothered to look at the full issue. Which again Universal Plumbing says, is because of the home warranty. Fast forward to Thursday, October 20th. We are now in week three and the approval has finally gotten to Universal Plumbing, but now they say they must order parts. What parts? I have no clue, and also have no clue as to how they know what parts are even needed since their first and only time to come out wasn’t thorough in the slightest.
Now again, this is a 24/7 company. The approval was received on a Thursday yet no one came out for repair until Wednesday, October 26th. The gentleman that came on Wednesday was able to complete the repair, but had the wrong part. The part that was specifically ordered for our repair and pushed this issue into its third week ended up being too short. The gentleman told me that they have plenty of parts at their shop, which is just about 7 minutes down the road, so all he had to do was make a quick run to the shop. About 20 minutes later, he was back and after about another 10 minutes, he was done. To find out that they had the necessary parts just approximately 7 minutes away was what really opened my eyes.
Universal Plumbing can blame whoever they want, but there is no excuse to make someone, without running water in their home, wait a week to get someone out to do the repair. I am absolutely at a loss and can not justify how this could even be possible. I have had to devote way too much of my time trying to get this solved and I was left feeling played. What is the point of being a 24/7 emergency service boasting company if you make a customer wait a week for that emergency service?!
All I’ve learned about Universal Plumbing is that they are absolutely incapable of doing their job accordingly and are completely untrustworthy. I strongly encourage anyone reading this review to look elsewhere for a plumbing company. I cannot express the utter disappointment I have with Universal Plumbing and I made sure to call and let them know that I was dissatisfied and would be writing a review. They have simply proven that they are useless and completely unnecessary.
Now in order to end on a good note I did also let it be know that I was very impressed with the plumber who came to resolve the issue. He was the one that let me know that not only do they have parts in shop, but that the plumbers themselves carry parts in their vans. I was grateful for his honesty and am sorry I did not remember his name.