Complaints

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• Initial Complaint

  Date:09/18/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Came out on Friday 9/15 marked 2 spots said for sure that was it. Had someone come dig the same day and was not it. Came back out on Monday 9/18 now he saying the leak to big to find it. Did not find leak and costed me $300 to have someone dig up 2 holes that he was so sure about. I paid to find leak he did not find leak. Want my money back.

  Business Response

  Date: 09/22/2023

  Response to BBB complaint
  Customer: **** ******
  Complaint: We could not locate her leak on her water main
  (complaint stated a repair issue)
  
  For leak detection on underground water leaks there are
  never any guarantees that can be made that the leak can be located.  There are too many unknown factors such as
  the severity of the leak on the pipe, the depth it was buried and even the
  material the pipe is made out of.  This
  customer provided a length of around 400 ft (150 yards) from the water meter to
  the home.  The length of the distance we
  have to do the detection on is very important because as the length increases –
  it increases the time and cost to find a leak and effects the likelihood of
  finding a leak and providing an accurate quote to a customer.  When I arrived, I immediately realized that
  that the length was much longer than the stated length when booking the
  appointment. When measured it was approx. 1000 ft of pipe from the water meter
  to the home.  This is 150% longer than
  the customer described on the phone when booking the appointment.
  To accurately find a leak you must be able to induce air/nitrogen
  into the water main, where the water and air meet and come out of the leaking
  area makes an audible sound that can be located using advanced
  microphones.  In this customers case, the
  Pressure (PSI) of the water getting to the home after the long stretch of water
  main was 10 PSI – this is extremely low and indicates a large leak.  During the first visit to the home, they were
  informed the water was extremely low – 10 PSI coming from the plumbing lines at
  the home.  In these type of large cracks
  in the pipe, the air is not able to build enough pressure to create a sound
  that can be located with a microphone. 
  Unfortunately – there are no other technologies/techniques that exist
  until for this type of leak.  This can
  also not be foreseen before the detection is completed.  We are paid for the time spent trying to find
  the leak, and again no guarantees have ever been made to a customer and no
  guarantees were made to this customer either.   While we are able to locate a leak the
  majority of the time,  there are times
  when leaks are not able to be located.
  On Friday 9/15/2023 – we went out for an initial
  detection.  The fee described to the
  customer was $550.00 for 2 hours of detection with time after that at a rate of
  $225.00/hr.  After listening over the
  water main, 2 areas of “leak sounds” were detected with the microphone, 1 by
  the driveway and 1 by the water meter.  I
  spent 2 hours listening over the entire area (which is what the  $550 detection fee is for) that the water main
  runs with no other sounds detected. 
  During the initial detection the customer was told that the line was plastic
  and with no idea where it ran on the long stretch of property, it would be hard
  to locate.  However,  I marked the two spots because that is where
  you heard the typical leak sounds. After the customer had the spots dug up by a
  plumber, they did not find the leak, so as our normal procedure follows, we
  agreed to go back on Monday 9/18/2023.  I
  returned at no cost to do an additional detection to see if we could locate any
  other areas of sound.  During the second
  detection I fed air from a compressor to get a higher volume of air into the
  line to see if any additional areas of sound could be heard.  After an additional 2 hours of detection,
  that I did not charge the customer for, the line would not hold the pressure,
  indicating a leak that is too large to locate using available leak detection
  methods, especially since there was no visible leak at the location of sounds I
  was able to hear.  We did this second detection
  at no charge even though we had additional 2 hours of travel and 2 hours of
  work time on site, even with the additional cost of materials, gas etc.
  I then told the customer that in these cases, there are 2
  options left: While neither of these options is ideal/cheap these are the only
  options available in the case it cannot be located and there are no other
  options.
  1)Have a plumber dig up the line until they find water and
  follow it to the leak.
  2)Have water main replaced.
  
  While it is unfortunate, we could not locate the leak, some
  leaks do not make the necessary sounds for any leak detection company to locate
  using a microphone (the only available method for this type of leak on a
  plastic water main).  There is no way to
  know this in advance but to complete the detection and listen over the entire
  line, which is what the detection fee is.  When this happens, it is because the
  line is too far compromised to allow us to find and pinpoint where the leak
  is.  At no point was any guarantee made
  that we could find the leak to this customer.  We had a complete 5 Star rating on
  Google from our previous customers before this job with no other complaints on
  Google Review or to the BBB, even when in the past we have been unable to locate
  a leak, our customers understand we do everything possible to find their
  problem and use every method available with the current technology and equipment
  we have to use.
  So far, we have done $1,100.00 dollars of work for $550.00,
  which for us includes 4 hours of travel time and 4 hours of detection time on
  site.   
  We understand the frustration at the situation, but we are
  paid to provide a service and provided the service.  We have never given a refund to a customer
  for not being able to locate a leak and are up front with our customers that we cannot guarantee detection because of the complex nature of leaks. We have had many 5-star reviews on our
  services, even if we cannot locate a leak, as we do everything we can to locate a leak and are paid for our time working to detect the leak.