Don Dowling Plumbing & Heating — Local services in Paterson

I originally thought I would be writing a very different review. I had a leak in my kitchen sink faucet on a Sunday, and of the handful of plumbers that I called, Don Dowling Plumbing was the only one that answered. They were able to send someone over a little more than an hour and a half later. The plumber who came was in contact with Don by phone about the situation. He said I would need a new faucet and here’s where things went awry. When the plumber told me the rather steep price for the faucet itself, I said I could run down to Home Depot and get one while he was removing the old one. He said that the ones from Home Depot are not made as well as the ones from their plumbing supplier. He said they might look the same on the outside but that the internal materials are better on the ones they provide. Since I had once heard something similar about Home Depot’s power tools and because I like to think people are basically honest, I was inclined to believe him and paid a rather hefty bill in order to get a good quality product installed. (I didn’t begrudge the high labor charge, as it was a Sunday.) As it happened, the plumber left the box for the faucet in the trash, and I noticed it had an SKU sticker on it. Since unlike UPCs which are the same on a product no matter where it is sold, SKUs are unique for each retailer, I decided to use Google to see who this good plumbing supplier was. Lo and behold, it was HOME DEPOT! The sticker even had the Dept, Aisle and Bay numbers on it. I feel immensely hoodwinked as I was charged $140 more than the Home Depot price. If a plumber wants to charge a modest convenience fee for supplying a fixture, I can understand, but the amount they added on was almost 1 ½ times the actual price and more importantly, the fixture came from the store whose quality they disparaged. Just doesn’t...

In my recent interaction with Don Dowling, I found him to be dishonest and unethical. He put down his own employee, raged at his customer (me), and showed himself to be shrill and short-tempered.

People make mistakes. What matters is how you respond to them and make things right. After Don's apprentice made a series of mistakes when trying to fix a tankless water heater, Don agreed to "make me whole" (his words), after I spent $600 for basically nothing. Once his apprentice failed to diagnose the problem (let alone fix it), I felt no confidence in having him continue, so I hired another company, which fixed it successfully.

In response to Don's promise to "make me whole," Don agreed to install a new dishwasher I had purchased, a job that could easily be completed in an hour. But when I tried to schedule a time for him to do the work, he basically "ghosted" me, and didn't respond at all, even after five texts and three phone calls over the course of a week. Only after I texted saying that I might share my experiences on Google Reviews did he respond to me, and did so angrily. Throughout this period, I had held out hope that he might do the right thing and fulfill his promise to me, or at least come up with some other way to make things right. But he did not.

In general, I live by the rule that people are basically good. So when I run into a situation like this, I lose a bit of faith in humanity. Good people don't run from their mistakes, they don't make promises they have no intention of keeping, they don't rage at their customers, and they don't disparage the people who work for them. Sadly, Don Dowling was irresponsible, angry and dishonest, and I don't advise anyone hiring him...

Had a problem with sewer gas in powder room. Call Don as a recommendation. He called back quickly came in a few days. Helper replaced the wax seal and it cut down on some of the smell. Had the room scrubbed clean and painted since the smell was still noticeable. Made several calls back to see if he could check the seal or vent pipe. and each time it was excuses that he’s help is on vacation, to busy you need a smoke test etc. said he would call back to schedule. It’s been 3 months still no call. The problem was fixed by another plumber. It was the wax seal installed was cracked no more smell. I have no problem paying for services but, If you can do your job correctly don’t do it at all. I would not refer...