Doug Kanter wrote:
I'm calling around for labor estimates to have my 3-knob bath faucet
replaced with a single handle Moen. I'm explaining that on the other side of
the wall, there's an access panel that was designed in heaven. 4' wide, runs
from floor to ceiling. It's as if you were looking at just the framing in a
half-built house. It's on the first floor. Pipes are also totally accessible
from below. Matter of fact, there's a 6" x 4' slot in the floor. You can
reach right up from the basement, if you needed to.

I've called three plumbers who live within 5-10 minutes of my home. Take a
guess at the estimates. Labor only.


The first $250 bucks covers hauling the toolbox into your house from
the plumbing truck.
After that you can figure about $200 an hour, IMO.

My plumbing nightma Hired a company to clean out a clogged drain
under a tub in a ground floor apartment. Their power snake *broke* in
the pipe, and try as they might they couldn't figure out how to extract
it. They wanted to blame the mess on the clog in the pipe, of course.
Ultimately wound up having to jackhammer up the cement floor in the
bathroom and cut out a section of the drain pipe to recover their
broken tool. The plumbing company originally wanted over $10,000 to fix
their own mess........needless to say we finally agreed on an amount
about 10% of that price and I wouldn't have paid that
if I had time to take the *******s to court. It did take two guys just
about all day to jackhammer the floor, cut out the pipe,and patch in a
new section so that $1000 was both the biggest rip off and the cheapest
plumbing I've contracted for in quite a while.
Two plumbers, one day.....the $1k probably just covered wages.