He suggested he would remove a foot of pipe from both sides if the joint and re solder it! He asked for $250 for it. Sounded too much to me. Is that reasonable estimate? If not, how much should it be? Did not look like more than 30 min work to me. He was from a nationwide plumbing franchise company. When i balked out, he offered to do for $100 , but wanted to keep the money for himself rather than taking the money to his company. Sounded unethical to me. Is it how they do the work?
The repair involves removing water from the pipe and re-flowing the solder into the joint. 30 minutes and maybe $60 labor (min charge for 1 hr). Removing the joint and adding two joints adds another weak point that could leak. Although there are splices that can be installed for this type of repair, it's easier and cheaper to re-flow the solder if the pipe is otherwise sound (not corroded with mineral deposits). Mineral build-up would require to removal of the bad joint. Double the price to $120 for that.
When you're working with soldering copper, always remember that if you have a problem or a leak, you cannot just patch it up. The entire job needs to be redone. Here's some basic tricks that I've learned from various plumbers (I'm not a pro, I'm just a DIY learner): First and most important, clean and sand the outside of the male part and the inside of the female part. Use flux to help the solder stick to the copper. Heat the joining piece (in your case the coupler) on one side until the flame turns green - not a scientist but I think it has something to do with oxidation. Once that happens, heat the opposite side. Then feed the solder into the joint and it should suck it up and inside. There should be a small bead remaining on the outside of the joint to ensure a full seal. Personally, I still don't have all this stuff down. I practice on small stuff and have had to get pros to fix my mistakes. I try to learn what I can from them. They say I have the right ideas but my application needs work. Hope this helps.
Unfortunately you will find these people in every type of business under the sun, that doesn't mean the whole company is that way, but again, there are some that will cheat and lie and steal to get what they want. If I were you, I'd tell him I have to think about it and get him out of the house as quickly as possible. You're correct in your assessment of the time frame it would take to do this job, a 1/2 hour sounds about right. For my business to do that repair, if it's fairly easy to get to the pipe, then I would say $100 would certainly cover it. I always figure if a guy would cheat his company, he probably would cheat me too.
