I called New Canadian initially for a second opinion. Steve arrived on time and walked me through what he was doing. He came to the same conclusion as my first estimate and was competitive so I decided to go with New Canadian. They were scheduled to start at 9, I received a call at 10:30 saying they would be there at 11:30. At 3:30 I received a call saying that they were not going to make it and they would have to do it the next day. Fine enough... the next day arrived and work went started... New Canadian and the other estimate differed in where they were going to dig... New Canadian was going to go from the top of my stairs and dig down where as the other company was going to dig from the drive. Everything was going well until I was told they could not get to the rest of the blockage from the steps and they were going to have to dig a second hole in the drive (as per the original estimate) AND that is was going to cost me double the cost because now it was two holes... which they told me as I had a hole in my front steps and no water drainage... basically over a barrel. While working I had to step out so I asked the guys working if they would be finished that day... at this point a man who I never met who was not working on the job turned to me and bluntly said "you will get what they told you" turned back around and offered up nothing else. Well I was just asking a question, I am the customer and this guy who I guess is the boss basically told me to mind my own business.
The work itself is very satisfactory, the guys were nice aside from whoever the boss was, I am upset that the job cost doubled when the other company would have done it differently and probably got the job done for half the cost.
I'm glad my drain works and hopefully I won't have to call anybody in about this again.
In response to below: my rating is not low... it is not a stellar score, but I am not trashing either, I am in the middle in each category... I stated I am satisfied with the work, my score says I am satisfied, just not over the moon satisfied... what do you want? I was charged over double of my initial quote, my quote says 12 feet of pipe replaced and I see you now replaced 6 feet... not 12 as you said in the increased invoice. Please learn that a average score is not a trashing score, it just means I wasn't blown away by the service... I think that is fair to anyone who was given a quote for $2600 and then told it will cost $5800 mid job... would you be thrilled if your mechanic said it will cost $1000 but while your car is on the lift he says nope... $2000... of course not...