I’m writing to alert potential customers about the truly excessive charges I encountered from 3 Mountains Plumbing, which I believe must be the most expensive plumbing outfit one could possibly hire in the Portland-metro area.
Their effective hourly rate for our job was $320/hour for a single journeyman plumber’s time. That’s right, $320/hour!
We had 3 Mountains Plumbing install a new kitchen faucet and a new dishwasher. Both installations were quite simple and straightforward. Neither required any new or additional plumbing, etc. It took the plumber about 2.75 hours total time to install both. Their charge was $881.00 for this work.
3 Mountains Plumbing has a unique method of calculating what a job will cost. They are not a fixed hourly rate plus materials company, as are most plumbers. How they work is you establish a scheduled time for a plumber to come out. When scheduling, they ask a lot of questions about the nature of the work to be done, etc. - the same as any other plumber. The big difference is when they come, they provide a fixed cost for the work – You either agree to their charge, or you pay a nominal fee for their time and estimate. I definitely feel 3 Mountain’s method disadvantages their customers. Here’s why I feel that way:
Given the difficulty scheduling a plumber in the Metro area these days (my experience was most are about 2-3 weeks out), I believe 3 Mountains takes advantage of the tight market and figures if you really need the work done, they can pretty much charge you whatever. They’re there and have the time to do the work. When, like me, your jaw drops at their cost, your alternative is scheduling with another company 2-3 weeks down the road.
In our case, our dishwasher was removed the day before by a different plumber only to discover the replacement we ordered required a modification to our cabinet to fit (which the contractor who made our cabinets did the next morning - see my review for Pacific Northwest Cabinetry). We were expecting a large crew over for Thanksgiving dinner and it wasn’t really possible to schedule a less expensive plumber out before then. Besides, the plumber that was sent out by 3 Mountains thought he was only going to be performing an estimate and scheduling the work for later. Ours was his last stop before starting a week’s vacation and he was openly anxious to get home and on the road.
In any regard, I did agree to the price. He did perform the work and, to be fair, did a fine job. The folks at 3 Mountains are all very nice to speak with. Interestingly, when speaking to their accountant while paying over the phone the next morning, I was told one of the owners would call me about my concern regarding their charge. I’ve waited 48 hours before posting this review and no call back from anyone at 3 Mountains Plumbing.
By the way, the other plumber (The Plumbers, Beaverton) we had out the day before was equally competent and charged us $128/hour plus materials. I will never call or recommend 3 Mountains Plumbing to anyone and will gladly recommend The Plumbers as my preferred alternative.
Be forewarned: 3 Mountains Plumbing has no business or ethical problems charging you $320/hour.
