Testimonial: Residential deep sewer excavation

Mike Webb
Residential deep sewer excavation, Coburg

“We live in a California Bungalow in Melbourne’s inner north. We share a sewer with a neighbour and over the last 20 years we’ve had an ongoing problem with internal blockages that have needed regular clearing out.

And over that 20-year period we’ve received conflicting advise as to the cause of the problem. We had decided to continue clearing out the blockages and share the cost with our neighbours – but the time between blockages were getting shorter and shorter and the costs were mounting.

We had three opinions and none of them were definitive which was very frustrating. A friend of mine’s a tradie. When I asked for a quality plumber, he gave me Ben’s name – they’d worked on some project together. A recommendation from another tradie is invaluable.

On first impressions, Ben appeared to be a young and contemporary plumber, a good listener, and actually interested in what you had to say rather than rushing to a solution.

He was thoughtful as to what our situation was and didn’t jump to conclusions which led to us feeling he was happy to work with us and the shared property situation. We felt Ben could work with the group and he had the skills to work in that slightly odd situation.

Ben presented us with a quote to undertake an investigation that would give us an accurate fix on the location of the blockage and a solution. We were hesitant at the cost but confident in Ben, so we went forward with the investigation.

Once the investigation was complete, he gave us two options – partial repair or replacement of the whole sewer. We discussed the benefits of both options and in the end, we went with the partial repair based on the investigation and Ben’s assessment of costs versus benefits.

We committed to do the partial repair, set the time and date, and Ben arranged it all and rang us in the middle of it and said he wanted to use a new technology and he would cover the costs. This really reinforced for me that he was a contemporary plumber and knew what he was doing.

I was also impressed with his leading hand on the job, Daniel Sharratt. Ben had talked to us about his quality standards, and I got the sense that Dan aligned with Ben’s interpersonal skills and quality of his work. Dan responded to queries and followed up things when asked. Ben’s presentation flowed through to the people working on his behalf on site.

One thing that impressed me was Ben did what he said he would do. He ultimate took responsibility for it. This isn’t always the case with tradies.”