Winston from Toronto

SUMMARY: Excellent work, but lack of preparedness caused extra cost and aggravation. THE SITUATION: I bought a thermostatic control for the shower/bathtub to replace the pressure-sensitive control. I opened the box and read the instructions and wow, this was a lot more complicated than just swapping one pressure control for another. I didn't understand the instructions and couldn't figure out what (if any) other parts I'd need to make it work. I needed professional help. WHAT I DID: I contacted a few highly-rated people through Homestars, explaining what I needed done and giving the model numbers of what I had (the specs and instructions are easy to find online), and asked if they could install this for me. Sam quickly replied that he could and his estimated labour cost seemed reasonable (neither too high nor suspiciously low). And a handyman who was also a licenced plumber seemed like the ideal person for the job. HOW IT WENT: Sam arrived at the appointed time, was friendly and professional and went to work. He spent much of the day working on the install and commented that it was more complicated than he expected. When he was done installing everything, we turned the water back on and, to make a long story short, it didn't work and he couldn't make it work. After talking on the phone to the vendor of the product, he realized that we needed more parts to make this work. He would have to get these parts and return another day. This was a disappointment because the very reason I hired him was to get the efficiency of having a pro show up with all the necessary knowledge and equipment, rather than having someone figure it out as he went along. This was a month and a half after Sam received the information he needed to find out what parts were necessary (and he did contact me in advance to ask some questions to determine whether some other parts were going to be needed). There was nothing he learned this day that he couldn’t have found out before. It turned out he couldn't get the parts until Monday (this was on Thursday), so we went without a functioning shower or tub faucet until then. Sam spent the day Monday re-doing the job and demonstrated expert plumbing knowledge and skill in his solution. If he had arrived with everything necessary to do the job on Thursday, I would be giving him a 10 rating. The labour cost ended up being more than twice the original estimate (after a reduction -- I think he probably spent about four times as much time on the job than he expected). So here's the issue: Part of being an expert is knowing the limits of your knowledge -- recognizing when you don't know something. Sometimes in home repair, things come up that you couldn't have known about. In this case, Sam could have known but didn't realize that he needed to. When I first asked whether he could install this specific item (giving the information necessary to quickly find the instructions and technical descriptions), I expected that he'd look it up if it wasn't a job he wasn't already familiar with. He just made assumptions without spending the two minutes necessary to verify them. It seems to be the same for a number of other lower-rated reviews Sam's received. If he'd have recognized what he doesn't already know, he could have saved us all a frustrating experience. I think that Sam would do an excellent job at home repair tasks where he has the necessary skills and knowledge. But if he can’t be relied on to know whether the task you need done falls into that category, then it’s hard to recommend him.