Plain Terms

1. The quote is the number. There is no second number.

Most people have been handed a second number. The job opens up, something is "worse than we thought," and the price moves. We write the price after we've looked at the work, not before, and then we hold it. If we missed something, that's our miss to eat, not your bill to absorb.

No change-order ambush. No hidden contingencies. No post-completion adjustments. If the price changes, it's because you asked for something different, and you'll approve it first.

Same promise on an emergency call. The quote is the number. Emergencies included.

The diagnostic fee comes off the job

We charge one flat fee to find the problem. $150 during standard hours, $50 more in the evening, at weekends and on holidays.

If you hire us, that fee comes off the job.

It doesn't change based on what we find. No “free” estimate that turns into a sales visit. A real diagnosis, at a published price, credited back.

You're told which rate applies on the phone, before anyone is dispatched. Never after.

2. Not everything needs doing today. We'll tell you what does.

A technician who finds five problems and calls all five urgent is either careless or selling. When we look at your system, you'll get a plain list: what has to be fixed now, what should be watched, and what can wait. We'll put a rough timeline on each one. You decide what happens and when.

The honest answer is sometimes "leave it alone." You'll hear that from us when it's true. We would rather come back in two years than sell you two years early.

• Needs doing
• Should be watched
• Can wait

3. Nobody knocks on your door that you haven't already met.

Before your appointment you'll get a message with the name and photo of the technician coming, and the time window. He'll be in a marked truck and a company shirt. You should never have to guess who is standing on your porch, and you should never have to take someone's word for who they work for.

If someone shows up who isn't the person we told you about, don't let him in. Call us.

4. We don't start work you didn't approve.

Not one part, not one hour. You will not be asked to decide on the spot. We'll walk the work with you, write the number, and leave. If you want to think about it for a week or send it to whoever helps you decide, that's the normal way to do this, not an inconvenience.

You can say no, and the visit still ends politely. Take the estimate, sit with it, get another bid. We'll still be here.

5. Floor coverings down before the tools come out.

You shouldn't be able to tell we were here. Except that it works.

Boot covers, drop cloths, and a broom. Every visit, not just the big jobs. We haul our own debris. Nothing sits in your driveway overnight. The last thing we do is walk it with you.

The guarantee: one year

Our labor, the materials we buy for your job, and the craftsmanship are guaranteed for one year from the day the work is signed off. If something we installed or something we did fails inside that year, we come back and put it right, and you are not billed for the visit.

Materials you supply yourself aren't covered by our guarantee. We'll still fit them, and we'll tell you before we start if we think they're wrong for the job.

Manufacturer warranties are ours to chase, not yours. If a unit fails under its own warranty, we handle the claim, the paperwork and the return. You shouldn't have to argue with a manufacturer about a machine we chose and installed.

What you pay, and when

Work is paid in stages, and the stages are written on your quote before you sign anything. You are never asked for money we haven’t already told you about. On a small job there is one payment at the end, and you are told which kind yours is before we start.

1. 30 percent when you accept the quote. That buys the materials for your job. You get a dated receipt saying what it's for and what happens to it if the job doesn't go ahead.
2. 50 percent at the halfway point, which is a point we agree and write down at the start, not one we decide when we get there.
3. The balance when the work is finished and you've walked it with us.

If a payment is missed

Work stops until it is made. We will tell you before we stand down rather than simply not turning up, and we will leave the site safe and weathertight.

We are not responsible for what happens to an unfinished job while it is stopped for a payment we did not receive. That is the honest consequence of a stoppage, and you should know it before the first invoice rather than after the third.

Paying by card

The number on your quote is the price if you pay by card. Pay by cash, check or bank transfer and we take three percent off it.

You will never pay more than the number on the quote. That's the whole point of the first promise on this page, and a card fee added at the end would break it.

Quotes, extra work and permits

A quote is good for 30 days from the date printed on it. After that, material prices have usually moved, and we'd rather requote than hold you to a number we can no longer buy at.

We only do the work that's on your estimate or invoice. If we find something else that needs doing, we stop, put it in writing with a price, and wait for you to say yes. We don't do it and bill you afterwards.

Permit fees are yours unless your quote says otherwise. We pull the permit and deal with the inspector. The fee is passed through at what it cost, and you get the receipt.

Changing your appointment

A booked slot is a van, a technician and a day we turned other work down for. So there are limits, and you get them here rather than on an invoice.

• Cancel with 24 hours’ notice: no charge.
• Reschedule with 6 hours’ notice: no charge, twice.
• A third reschedule of the same job: $150.

Who does the work

Most of it is our own crew. Some of it isn’t: electrical is done by a licensed electrical partner, and occasionally another trade is too.

They carry their own license and their own insurance, and we’ll send you both the same day you ask. They work to our schedule and our standard, and the guarantee above covers their work exactly as it covers ours.

You have one number to call, and it’s ours. Being handed a subcontractor’s phone number when something goes wrong is the thing this company exists not to do.

What the guarantee doesn’t cover

Two things. Both are worth understanding before you buy anything, from us or from anyone else here.

St. George water runs 18 to 22 grains per gallon, and that is over every hardness limit the manufacturers publish. A.O. Smith stops at 7 grains. Noritz and Rheem stop at 12. Rinnai’s manual says replacement of components due to water quality damage is not covered. Those are their words, in their own warranty documents, and they mean scale damage is excluded from the manufacturer’s warranty on almost any water-carrying appliance in this valley.

Ours excludes it too, and we’d rather say so here than at your kitchen table. What we will do is tell you what maintenance a unit needs to survive this water, put it in writing, and tell you honestly when something already at the end of its life is not worth the repair.

The other one is digging. If your job needs a trench, we’ll show you the route before we start and we put the ground back. We don’t guarantee that plants, sod or decorative rock along that line survive it. We have public utilities located before we dig, and that locate does not cover your sprinkler lines or your landscape lighting, so tell us where they are if you know.

What we won't do

Negative promises cost something, which is why they're worth more.

• We won't give you a second number.
• We won't call everything urgent.
• We won't send someone to your door you haven't been told about.
• We won't start work you didn't say yes to.
• We won't publish a price on this site and charge a different one at your door.
• We won't tell you a repair makes sense on a unit too old for it.

Why we put these in writing

Every contractor says he's honest. There's no way to check that, and the people who say it loudest are often the reason you're asking.

So instead of asking you to believe us, we wrote down five things you can hold us to, and we hand you a page at the end of every job that says the same thing.