I didn't hire the guy. I would never just tell a contractor to come work and then we'll talk money at the end. I was laughing at his dumb ass quote.
the difference is both times he wasn't asked he was going to charge for the add on because a) they were simple jobs and b) he had been so reasonably priced for other thing. wont make that mistake again though.
That might be his business model. Under quote to get into the door, and make his money on little odd end shit.
i'm pretty sure it is. I made the mistake of not asking him how much because I knew it would take him such a little amount of time and he was so reasonable with the first part.
He probably didn't have one, but if he had a pro press instead of soldering the copper together, the fittings run 10 to 12 bucks a piece and the copper is probably going to run a minimum charge of 10 bucks or so.
somewhere I have the invoice. I don't recall him claiming the parts were $50 or something. as I said before he also pulled a similar thing with a leaky faucet. I think this is his MO. give a reasonable estimate for a repair and then hope he can make his real profit on any add ons.
i'm far more suspicious of car mechanics who do this all the time. I took my car in for an oil change and the guy calls me and tells me I have a massive oil leak. I explained to him that my car has never lost any oil, so i'm not sure how it could be massive. he was kind of flustered after that. I didn't get it changed. drove the car for another 100K miles without changing it. never lost any oil then either.
Took mine in for an oil change about 3 years ago and they told me the transmission fluid needed to be replaced. I had just replaced it 3 months prior (shortly after I bought it, because it hadn't been driven much in the last 5 years by the previous owner). They wanted $140 to do it. Obviously I turned them down, and no mechanic since then has mentioned anything about it.
