Hetherington Mechanical and Plumbing

They are hired by HOA’s mostly. You are required to use them for various items of plumbing work and heating work and therefore, they charge an arm and a leg. Recently they were supposed to fix the heating in one of our units. They left without fixing it. Didn’t do any follow up and didn’t return so when our guests arrived 3 weeks later there was no heat in the middle of winter. I wish I could give them no stars. They don’t deserve even one. Avoid them if you can. I have since learned that two other units in the same building have been without heat for a month because of Hetherington’s incompetence.

We had a pressure assisted toilet that started not flushing over 6 months ago. It got to the point that any flush repair worked only about ten days max then stopped flushing after ten days after another trip by the handyman so that we had finally to flush 16 times, first the outside handle, then the inside cylinder, then the inside handle, then the outside handle again, the water line calcium backup, then the inside cylinder, then the inside handle, then the outside handle again, repeated again a few more times, til finally we called Hetherington Mechanical and Plumbing plumbers on California Street at 4th Avenue. They sent Junior who went thru the drill a couple times, consulted with the owner a few minutes, went & got a new Toto toilet (a gravity type), returned shortly and installed it. His efficiency, competence, wisdom about the best next step, and decisiveness (consulting the owners and knowing when to replace!) were amazing. We definitely recommend this company and its employee, toilet engineer Junior. Don't wait six months to call them for your plumbing issues.

In short, stay away from this slimy business full of incompetent and insincere people. So what was supposed to be a routine service changing the shower cartridge was a 3-day nightmare dealing with 3/4 workers with skill issues for a job they are supposed to be qualified for. The first person upon arrival on 9/24 didn't even know what he was supposed to work on. Red flag. Then when we explained what needed to be done not only did he do bad job he damaged stuff behind the shower cartridge, put the covers back on upside down, jammed it and messed up restoring the water for the building to the point several other units were complaining about water pressure and black sludge. We communicated another plumber needs to be sent out to rectify the situation and I simply felt bad for the second guy. He straight up said the first person really messed things up and he couldn't fix it because additional work would need to be done like demoing the tile to get behind, etc. So he came out for nothing and we set aside time to be present moving our schedules around to accommodate for nothing. Then today 2 new guys come. The documented scheduled agreed time was 9am-1pm but we get a phone call at 9am saying they were on the way. One guy arrives at 1024am. Thats unacceptable and unprofessional but whatever I can be flexible. It was so awkward the guy was asking me for my keys and if his partner could park in my parking spot when there was plenty of parking outside. Just an odd part of the experience. Then when I check the parking spot I see his partner sweeping water in the garage into a drain? Is that common when shutting off the water. Another oddity. They don't communicate anything for us to assist with moving stuff and I notice they just start touching our personal hygiene items like I can do that thanks and I would have happily done it if someone mentioned it prior. Then after a little bit of work they decide to take lunch for 45 mins from 1215pm to about 1pm the time they were supposed to be done. Again no update or anything. 3 hours go by. This is for changing the shower cartridge and demoing a little bit of tile plus clean up. The install of the new tile was to be done by a different vendor. I start pressing on when they are gonna be done and I get nothing but attitude and non answers. Anyone intelligent knows how these companies try to make money through billable hours. Management here must be terrible, the training sucks, the technicians have severe skill issues or all of the above because needing to send 4 people over 3 different days over 10 hours is straight garbage. Stay away from this company and give your business elsewhere. This place is horrible.