Titan

When do roots do most of their growing? In the summer when leaves are on the trees and they are especially thirsty? Or in the winter when the only source of moisture is from the roots?
I've spoken to various arborists and they tell me different things.
This is important in order to determine what term of warranty to give on a root clog job.
I'd appreciate any insights you might have.

__________________
Striving for the Health, Safety, Welfare, and Convenience of Each Valued Customer

Protech

Warranty on a root clog? Are you crazy? They need the pipe fixed if they want a warranty IMHO.

__________________
Plumber, Repiping, Replumbing, Leak Detection, Solar Water Heater, Drain Cleaner, Pipe Leak, Polk County Plumber, Lakeland Plumber, Winter Haven Plumber, Haines City Plumber, Bartow Plumber

brain freeze

the company i worked for in montreal would "under no circumstances" warranty a root job.

Vince

Titan

Depending on the extent or nature of root intrusion, we warranty our power rodding jobs for either 12, 9, 6, 3 months, or 1 month. Rarely will we avoid putting some kind of warranty on a job. Underscore "rarely."
Crazy? Think of it this way: if and when this thing clogs up again -- and it will! -- , who are they gonna call? Us! If it's within the warranty period, we unclog it, put the camera down, and GET A NICE DIG JOB (no, we won't warranty it beyond that point; a further warranty would disincline them from getting it fixed permanently).
If it's past the warranty period, who do they call? Us! And then we open it up again, put the camera down and GET A NICE DIG JOB!
Either way, we win.
We've found that more people are willing to call us if a root clog happens again when we put a warranty on it.
So what if we have to do a "freebie" rodding once a month or so. WE GET THE DIG JOBS! Just about every time!

P.S. If you're not in our market area, try it. It works. If you're in our market area, keep refusing to warranty root clogs. We love it when people call us to follow up on the area agencies which think the same way.

Happy Rodding!

__________________
Striving for the Health, Safety, Welfare, and Convenience of Each Valued Customer

Protech

We have tried doing warranties on cable outs. What happens is the customer says "Gee, Xthousand dollars to replace that line? I think I'll just pay you to come out once a year and cable it and give me a 1 year warranty with it. At that rate, it would take 10 years to equal the cost of replacing the line. Yep, just go ahead and cable it out for free. I'll call you back out and pay again when the warranty runs out."

How do you get around that scenario?

__________________
Plumber, Repiping, Replumbing, Leak Detection, Solar Water Heater, Drain Cleaner, Pipe Leak, Polk County Plumber, Lakeland Plumber, Winter Haven Plumber, Haines City Plumber, Bartow Plumber

Titan

You asked if the customer thinks, "I'll call you back out and pay again when the warranty runs out." ("when" = "after"? or "when" = "before"?)

If "after", fine. Another power rodding job at full rate. We win!

If "before": Our warranty only covers a full-pipe clog. We don't want people calling us simply because they "think" it might be clogged before the warranty term is up, or because they "anticipate" that it will clog again. If there's a doubt, the camera goes down and if it's not a full-pipe clog, we get a camera job at full rate. We win!

If "before": on a warranty call, any follow-up warranty granted is, of course, of a lesser period than the previous one. The whole strategy is designed to prompt the customer to finally choose the inevitable -- replacing the line. That's, after all, what gives the customer the best value. If they choose something lesser, like having it rodded once a year after it clogs up, that's okay with us. They're not getting a 12 month warranty on a second rodding anyway.

Some people, however, can't commit to a big dig job replacement package right on the spot. When they have a year or so to anticipate it as a necessary reality, then they go for it. Others call every other year or so and have us open 'er back up again. Fine. Another power rodding at full rate!

There is method to our madness, and it seems to be working well. And your circumstances may be different. I sure won't criticize you for your company policy; I'm not there.

__________________
Striving for the Health, Safety, Welfare, and Convenience of Each Valued Customer

Protech

A warranty is just a promise that you delivered your products or services as advertised and if that turns out not to be the case, then you will fix it by doing ******.

We warranty a cable out by sending the cam down to verify the line was cleared. You simply can't warrant that a line will stay unclogged. I worked at a company years ago that decided that it would build value by putting a 1 year warranty on cable outs. Not long after, we started getting call backs on houses that had scale buildup on cast iron or rotted out cast iron or even just people flushing with way to much toilet paper. If you don't honor your warranty they call channel 9 or call the BBB etc.
After running the #'s it was determined that of the few jobs that were sold from the warranties the profit was swallowed by the costs of going back out to all of the call backs. They do not offer a warranty anymore and neither does anyone else in my service area.

I warrant that the line was in fact cleared via the camera and record it for proof. By doing it that way you will sell far more jobs because you already know exactly what is wrong and where the problem is and can offer to fix it on the spot. Since you are the only one with the information you have a distinct advantage over your competitors. In order for someone to attempt to outbid you they would have to send someone out to camera the line just to find the problem to give a quote. I find that I sell more jobs by simply doing an inspect on every cable out. Most customers won't tell you that they have had to call out a plumber every few months for the same stoppage. Buy doing the inspect, you will sell jobs because the customer can see the problem. They know that you aren’t making stuff up to sell work and respect how thorough you are. I rarely have a customer freak out or complain because we wouldn't warranty the cable out we did. The few that do quickly shut up when I remind them that we have video footage of the line after we cleaned it and that everything was documented on the invoice including the part where the tech specifically told them about the problem (break, collapse, buildup, back pitch, backward fitting etc) and explained to them that there is no warranty. I have found that good customers recognize good plumbers and the ones that want to rip you off will just go somewhere else when they realize that they are dealing with a professional that's been around the block a few times. If the majority of your customers are that honest and easy to deal with than kudoz to you. In my area it's about 1 reasonable customer to every 2 that want's to get one over on you. We have a lot of what we call "professional customers". They have perfected the art of ripping people off semi-legally.

__________________
Plumber, Repiping, Replumbing, Leak Detection, Solar Water Heater, Drain Cleaner, Pipe Leak, Polk County Plumber, Lakeland Plumber, Winter Haven Plumber, Haines City Plumber, Bartow Plumber

Protech

So let me paint a scenario for you. You cable a line. Said line has a break in it. Customer calls you back out 1 month later to tell you that his whole house is stopped up. He says he does not want you to jack hammer open his floor and replace the 20 feet of bad 4" CI because he can't afford it. He calls you 2 more times that year.

What would you do?

BTW, this actually happened.

__________________
Plumber, Repiping, Replumbing, Leak Detection, Solar Water Heater, Drain Cleaner, Pipe Leak, Polk County Plumber, Lakeland Plumber, Winter Haven Plumber, Haines City Plumber, Bartow Plumber

Protech

I just realized I hijacked your thread. Let me attempt to answer your original question. I’m not a biologist or a farmer, but I understand that most trees work like this:

Water with nutrients dissolved in it is drawn in from the roots and is “sucked” up thru the plants fibrous circulatory system via capillary attraction. The pulling force is generated from the transpiration that occurs at the pores under the leaves(they have a specific name that escapes me at the moment). Newer leaves are more efficient at transpiring than older ones. I would guess that in light of that, the roots would see the most new growth when the trees metabolism is up and transpiration is at its peek. spring. My second guess would be summer.

__________________
Plumber, Repiping, Replumbing, Leak Detection, Solar Water Heater, Drain Cleaner, Pipe Leak, Polk County Plumber, Lakeland Plumber, Winter Haven Plumber, Haines City Plumber, Bartow Plumber

Titan

They used to say back when I lived up in Alaska, "When in Nome, do as the Nomans do." Unfortunately, some guys (and gals) run their service company the same way: adopting company policies just because that's what everyone else in their market does. No risk taking with the possibility of stumbling onto something that makes one a distinctive agency with a service no one else provides. No vision to try something different to see if it will work or not. No guts.
Sounds to me you're the kinda owner who thinks something out rather than just adopting a policy because you heard someone else has adopted it. You have justified your approach, and I respect you for making it work for you.
This ain't Nome, but I stumbled across something that works well for us, without fail, in spite of all the variety of unexpected circumstances that might derail the expected response and outcome unexpectedly unlike what we prefer to expect.
Let's us both keep giving our customers the value that's best for them. Shucks, maybe someday you might wanna buy me out, or vice versa! Then we might have to discuss it more.
I wish you and your approach the best!
Thanx for your response about the roots.
Warrantingly Yours,
Titan

__________________
Striving for the Health, Safety, Welfare, and Convenience of Each Valued Customer