Saw a tech skip the dryer vent brush, left a lint bomb behind

Went to a job over on 5th and the previous guy had "cleaned" the vent but never pulled the line off the wall. I popped it loose and a solid 3 inch plug of lint fell right out, like a fuzzy snake. Homeowner said the dryer had been taking 2 hours a cycle, makes sense now. How do you guys handle it when you spot sloppy work from another repairer, do you fix it and charge or just tell the customer?

1 comments

1 Comment

brian_rivera5911d ago

Ever had a homeowner watch you fix someone else's mistake and then try to haggle the price down? I had a similar job last spring, the vent hose was kinked behind the dryer and packed solid, took me 20 minutes to clear it out. I told the owner straight up what the last guy missed, but I didn't charge extra for the cleanup. I just folded it into my standard service fee and explained that catching it now saved them from a potential fire hazard down the road. They appreciated the honesty and ended up tipping me, plus they've called me twice since for other appliance stuff. My rule is, if it's a safety thing like a lint bomb, I fix it and mention it, but I don't make a big deal about billing for it separately. Keeps the trust and gets repeat business. In my experience, calling out another tech too harshly just makes you look unprofessional, so I keep it to, "hey, found a few extra issues while I was in there, here's what I did about it." Your mileage may vary, but that approach has never burned me yet.