Complaint Review: Just Water Heaters Inc.

I called to have a hot water heater installed. I was told the price was $159.00 for installation and $97.60 for a permit for the City of Berkeley where the house is located. There was a brief mention of 'possible additional charges to bring it up to modern building codes'. I was told they could do it between 8am & 10am the next morning, or later if I preferred. I said between 10am & noon would be better for me, and was told that would be fine.

The next day at 11:30am I called to see if there was some delay, and was told they would be arriving between 10am and noon, not arriving at 10am and finished by noon. At 12:30 I called to say no one had yet arrived and was told they must be running behind and that someone was just dispatched to come to my house to do the work.

The installer arrived about 1pm, looked over the existing hot water heater, called his business, spoke for a while, then handed me the phone. The man on the phone said that it would cost me $534.00--with me supplying the 40 gallon hot water heater for which I paid $220.00. When I protested, he said that if I returned the water heater I had bought and used their's, it would bring the total cost down to $699.00. I still protested, and he came down to $650.00.

I signed the contract to have the work done, disgruntingly. Then I called the company back, with the installer still here and spoke to a 'supervisor'. I told him that I was going to file a complaint with the State Of Calif. Contractors' Board. He then told me he wasn't going to allow his installer to do the job for me, even though I had already signed a contract.