Business ProfileforWolcott Services

A deep freeze at the end of December 2022 resulted in a leak under my deck in my backyard. We called the water department, they came to look, but were short staffed and exhausted from all of the other leaks from the freeze and did not instruct us to turn off the water. I hired Wolcott Services to come diagnose the leak. They billed us $97 for the diagnosis (but never even looked at the spigots apparently?). They were to come on a Wednesday Friday 1/06 but they rescheduled to Saturday 1/07. The plumber (?) told us to turn off the water and that they would have to remove the deck and excavate to find and repair the leak. They hired a restoration company to empty and clean the crawlspace which was full of water. I told them that I would remove the deck and started to remove it Saturday 1/14. After only removing a few boards and turning the water on I noticed the leak was simply an illegal spigot from the last owner that had broken. I communicated this to the Wolcott plumber and removed the deck boards so he could remove the bad spigot line and stop the leak. We were told we would be reimbursed our $1117.50 deposit for the excavation but were not.I am a single mother and school teacher and have one renter and not having running water for two weeks was extremely difficult, as well as unsanitary and exhausting. I also had not worked in two months and did not have a lot of money to work with. But we managed. When we thought we would finally have water back on the 'plumber' told us he needed us to remove more boards which would make us without water another 24 hours. It was too much at this point. The plumber should have checked the spigots before anything else (the first thing that breaks in deep freeze temps) and charged us for a diagnosis that I did myself at great expense and effort (tools and gear were purchased). I fired Wolcott at this point. I was able to hire another plumber who came out in one day and made the repair in one hour, costing $350. But they already had taken the $1117.50 as a deposit for the excavation that didn't happen. When I emailed Wolcott requesting we get a refund of $767.50 ($1215.50 paid in total) they only credited me $532.50. Leaving a single mother school teacher and her children without water for two weeks and trying to cause damage by excavating unnecessarily is unacceptable. We got a $1700 bill from the leak from the City, purchased tools and gear, wipes, paper plates, etc. All of this could have been avoided had the 'plumber' actually looked at the spigots as a proper plumber would after a freeze. Not acceptable.