Pineflakes

I originally posted the following in the plumbing forum, but this really about the larger issue of warranty service, customer care, responsbility, and liability. Check out the examples for plumbing warranty below, but as business owners, how do you define your limits under a warranty. As a GC of a residential remodeling company, we work in older homes with latent wear or pre-existing conditions that are outside the scope of our work, but nonetheless are related to the work that we do. Sometimes we respond to a call and determine that it had nothing to do with our work other than bad timing. We are still the first person that the homeowner calls when anything goes wrong (even years later) and often are not even interested in taking on small repairs or maintenace jobs that do not fall under our warranty. I strive to provide good customer service but have been disappointed to find that many clients grow soft over time and take our exceptional customer care and responsiveness for granted. Sometimes we can even quickly take care of a problem that is not our responsibility during a trip out to see what is wrong in the name of good relations and future referrals, but I have had customers mistake a 'freebie' as an admission of responsibility for the problem.

How do you all do business?

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following formerly posted in plumbing forum:

I'm a residential remodeling GC, with a question for all you plumbers out there regarding warranties on your work.

First of all, let me say that from my POV plumbing is unlike any of the other trades because no matter how educated, skilled, and experienced a master plumber is, there is always a possibility for leaks-- a slip joint connection leaks, a threaded pipe, a sweated copper joint. Hey, that's what testing is for-- fill the sink with water and pull the drain, plug the DWV and fill it with a 10' head, reconnect the existing supply lines, etc. and check for leaks. Inevitably there will be one that requires redoing. It would drive me crazy to be uncertain about my own work. If someone wants me to build them a wall-- I build it, it matches the plans, meets code, is plumb and level, and wont fall down.

And with plumbing, sometimes things break or clog and water goes everywhere. Hey, that's why there's 24 hr plumbing service and not 24 hour electricians (other than the utility companies) or 24 hour concrete workers, etc. Who's fault is it really when a soldered joint pops, a old pipe starts leaking in a new place after being rattled by adjacent repairs or new work, a fixture supply hose ruptures, or a client's under-sink plumbing starts leaking after they've obviously bumped the slip joints askew by stuffing bags, cleaning supplies, and other junk to capacity down there?

The biggest factor for many of these is time. Did a plumbing repair that day cause a small leak in an adjacent section of pipe that becomes noticeable later that evening? Was the under-sink plumbing fine when it was installed and is now leaking 1 week later? Or did a weakly soldered joint blow apart a copper pipe 1 year later?

Brave plumbers, how do you address these situations (or even sleep at night)? Is the small leak in the adjacent section of pipe your fault, or billed as extra work? Did the homeowner bump the under-sink plumbing or did the piping connections not meet at exactly the same angles in a tenuous fashion? Obviously the soldered joint was weaker than the rest, but it held up fine for for a year. Is that faulty workmanship or an inevitable repair that all homeowner's must face. And to top it off, now there is water damage (warped hardwood floors, soaked insulation, damaged personal property), with threats of environmental lawsuits over mold.

Where do you draw the line? On one hand, we should provide good customer service and warranty service if needed as a matter of doing business. On the other hand, we cannot be responsible for someone's entire house for all of time should anything come up. Our company only warranties labor and not materials (which get manufactured more and more poorly). If a fixture breaks, it is not our problem (most manufacturer's carry their own warranties). And unfortunately, excessive handholding or even top-notch customer care is often abused or exploited by customers who take it for granted.

I'm guessing that you all have strong feelings about the quality of your work.

Tiger

I'll try to stick to the heart of your question, because it's too funny to think a newly sweated pipe will leak. Compression connectors are a different story & probably the main reason I went into electrical instead of plumbing. From a marketing standpoint if anything leaks within five feet of where you were working you better cover it under warranty.

The legal warranty is 12 months, but for a good client I keep going back & going back until they're satisfied. Sometimes that drags on a few years. It's part of my overhead & I don't sweat it.

Dave

mdshunk

The rule of thumb is, you touch it, you own it. It shouldn't have to be that way, but reality prevails. That's why you should always look over things really well in the vicinity of where you're working, make recommendations, and note the recommendations on the bill. When I'm working in a panel, for instance, I check all the screws for tightness, and give everything inside a good visual once-over just to cover myself. If I see something that needs attention, I point it out. You could do the same thing. I would suspect that an experienced plumber should be able to identify some tell-tale signs of a fitting originally soldered so poorly that it might "pop" so that you can point it out for possible correction.

A couple funny situations come to mind, along the theme of your post:
-Customer called and complained a couple days later that the air conditioning breaker is tripping now that we ran a new line to the bathroom receptacle. One has nothing to do with the other, but it was tough convincing this lady of that.
-I was changing 4 foot fluorescent light bulbs in an office and a lady's adding machine quit working. She asked me what I did that was keeping her adding machine from coming on. "Just changing light bulbs, lady".

Pineflakes

Among the more serious warranty issues, the absurd ones you describe are all too common. However, we often have to at least make a site visit to make sure that is the case. For example, let's say the client with the air conditioner calls to say that the main trips every time she turns on the AC. Well, it should have nothing to do with the work you did, but then again, maybe something else is wrong in the panel you worked on (noth to do with the AC circuit) and she is just providing some misinformed theory about the problem.

As remodelers, we get a lot of this because we often "touch" the whole house in our work, or enough of it that it is hard to say, well the 5' of this wall is original but this 5' is ours. Maybe the 5' of old framing is covered by 5' of new drywall. It really depends on the problem to decide that we made an error or not. People call us with all kinds of ridiculous suggestions based the erroneous logic that since a problem happened after we worked on their home, we are somehow directly or indirectly responsible. Ignoring their claims is not the same as demonstrating non-liability and it does not help gaining references for future work either. Do you send out the appropriate trade to suss out the problem and if it is not one's fault, bill the client for the service visit?

rbsremodeling

This is why I sell/charge for my warranties they start off at $1500 and up.

If your are creative in the wording and add value to the warranty above your normal warranty items typically covered. You either break even or make money on the warranties.

20 jobs 1500K =30k how much of that do you think you will spend in a year to fix warranty problems??

__________________

Being an idiot frees a man from having to live up to others peoples expectations.

Double-A

As a conscientious company, we try to point out problems as we go along and also offer solutions. Our contract points out that existing is existing, and we're not responsible for it, even if we worked right next to it.

We write up change orders for corrective work we are awarded as we point it out, and for those jobs we were not awarded as a written record of the incident. Sorta like MDF does when he's on a service call and sees something out of the ordinary or that needs attention.

The responsible thing is to bring these problems to the home owner's attention and allow them to bear the burden of addressing them, armed with the best information and advice you can offer.

In spitting contests over warranty work, it usually boils down to what knew what and when. Negligence is another story. Having a written policy and written track record of following that policy will protect you from almost any negligence claim.

__________________
"My clients’ wishes are the center of my attention." -- David Guido, a contractor in Woodstock, N.Y.
New York Times, July 20, 2006

Grumpyplumber

There are a very large percentage of old homes in my area, many up to 100+ years...some have galvy or threaded brass water lines & galvy drainage that will literally fall apart on touich, I've had a gate valve fall apart on the second floor of a condo while under pressure just trying to close it.
I've never run so fast for a basement.

My contracts point out "existing & unforeseen defects" are not my responsibility, the gate valve in the example above failed due to it's condition, simply shutting it off is part of it's function and I'm not liable for it's age.

If I connect a new P-trap and the drain inside the wall developes a leak from movement, it's most likely due to a corroded pipe or fitting.
I make a concerted effort to point these things out to customers immediately on arrival.

Had a job recently where a customer complained the faucet she'd purchased for me to install was dripping.
I went out and swapped the cartridges in good faith because it was a large remodel job...ordinarily I wouldn't.
She called back a few weeks later to tell me it was dripping again.
I had to explain to her that replacing it (pedastil faucet) wasn't covered because she'd purchased it. Luckily it stopped dripping on it's own.

Had another customer call me @ 7pm one night last year about a macerating toilet that I replaced just two weeks earlier, I'd told him it was a very bad idea to have one in a commercial bath, but he didn't want to pay to core a new drain through the concrete floor to the basement main.

I was on my cell phone with him as I drove there, family left eating dinner without me as my heart raced over his questions on how much my liability would cover because water was dripping into the ceiling below.

I arrived, he proceeded to question my ability in front of his staff as I siphoned the water from the bowl.
On removal there were small objects in the grinder blades, beer caps.
An employee mentioned "Thats from the beer we had last night at the party".
I reiterated my previous suggestion that he consider putting a regular toilet in, charged an arm and a leg for the off hours service call.

He tried to bail on payment, telling me I should be accountable where it was newly installed.
Luckily he opted to save face in front of his staff when I stood my ground.

Bottom line, leaks happen yes.
Cover your azz and let them know what potential troubles you might see when exisitng plumbing is in bad shape.

When that corroded drain fails inside the wall, you told them it might happen.
When the green copper pipe above the heater has a leak in a soldered joint, you told them it might.

"You touch it you own it" is a myth.
That thinking could lead to the thought that we're responsible to replace the entire baths drainage when a leak developes from replacing a toilet.

Not all callbacks are no-fault, obviously there are those leaks that crop up after you leave on work you've done, however...

IF a customer chooses to see your not wanting to drive out and do free work on exisitng conditions after you've detailed the potential for trouble and given them the option to repair it, there's a good chance your better off letting them go to your competition with those expectations.

Grumpyplumber

Sheesh, I hadda write a novel to make the same point.

Double-A

Been there, done that.

__________________
"My clients’ wishes are the center of my attention." -- David Guido, a contractor in Woodstock, N.Y.
New York Times, July 20, 2006

kevjob

I am a remodeling GC here in Denver and frequently remodel 100 plus year old homes and I have a unforseen etc.. the other way I handle it is we will have a walk thru after demo so they can see why we have to add this or change that, I make it clear we can only guess at what is there by what we have seen before.

__________________
Kevin
Highlands Ranch Co, bathroom remodeling
Aurora Co, Bathroom Remodeling
Kitchen Remodeling Denver