If you live in San Francisco and are need of a plumber, do not deal with Happy Pipes Plumbing. These guys are a joke. They're one of the biggest rip off artists I've ever dealt with. I can't believe that I'm still fuming about this but hopefully this will help me get it off of my chest and move on.

I moved to San Francisco a few years ago so I don't have a list of trusted plumbers, electricians, etc. as I did back home, where the family and friends would call the same companies when something went wrong. One day, out of nowhere, my water heater started leaking. I immediately hopped on the internet to find a local plumber. I found these guys � www.happyplumbing.com. I read some of the reviews on their site and what they say about themselves and decided to give them a call. Let me tell you, all the mumbo jumbo they have on their site about how reliable and how small and affordable they are is a bunch of b.s.. They're called happy plumbing because they are happy ripping people like me off. I wouldn't be surprised if the reviews on their site are self written.

We scheduled an appointment for them to come out and they were late. No one bothered to call me and let me know that they were going to be late, I had to call myself to find out where they were. Then it took them forever to change my water heater. For a a professional plumber, this should be a piece of cake job. Then they gave me a bill that was out of this world, but I figured everything in San Francisco is more expensive. By this point I was a bit irritated but was just happy that the problem was behind me. Then comes the real nightmare. I take my first shower with this new water heater and I notice that the water was jumping in temperature. First it got hot as hell, then as I adjusted it, it got freezing cold. I immediately called happy pipes back. Well surprise surprise, as nice and polite as they were when I first called them with the leaking water heater and they knew they were going to make some money, they were the complete opposite. They were so condescending and made it sound like I'm a complete idiot and this is how all water heater s work. Then after fighting with them, they finally agreed to get someone to come out and take a look at it, which is exactly what they did, just looked. They told me that everything is fine and again tried to convince me that I don't know what I am talking about. They left without doing a thing. I repeatedly called them afterwards, but no one cared to talk to me. It seemed like they got their money so they didn't care anymore. I had no choice but to call another plumbing company. I went with a major chain company this time. When the new plumber came one, on time by the way, he told me that the issue was with the water heater that Happy Pipes installed. They basically pulled a fast one on me because I don't know anything about water heaters. The new plumber replaced the water heater and the problem was solved. I was finally able to take normal showers and not boil my skin. What really made me feel like crap is when I got the bill from the new plumber. It was almost half of what Happy Pipes charged me. When I told him how much I paid Happy Pipes, his eyes almost popped out.

Happy pipes talk about how they stay small to keep overhead low, well obviously that's done for their own advantage because they don't pass these savings on to the client, they just pocket all the money. To add insult to injury, they install faulty equipment and could care less about it after they cash your check. Do not, I repeat, do not fall for their fake we're the good guys and the others are the bad guys b.s.. These guys are the bad guys who are either posing as good guys or are just in denial.