Bay Area Backflow, Inc

I was reluctant to understand this whole backflow thing. However, Bay Area Backflow has been very patient with me! They installed a new backflow last year and serviced it this year. The technicians were fabulous and helpful. On time, and they explained everything to me as they went. The folks on the phone were great as well. Shout out to the owner who stayed late to answer additional questions when I randomly dropped by their office.

Like many small businesses lately, the county is requiring backflow valves to be installed and tested. After calling down the approved list of vendors we settled on Bay Area Backflow. I assumed it would be a simple task to schedule the inspection, get the tags, and be on our way to no backflowing water in our system. The phone call went well until we started talking about scheduling.

- They were not able to commit to a date on the phone. We scheduled a tentative date and time and had to wait for someone else to confirm with me. This makes it difficult to plan water shut down for your business. They need at least 15 minutes with your water off. If your valve does not pass you can add an unknown amount of time on. So naturally, I asked about weekends and the day that we are closed, Fridays. No can do the woman said. They don't work on Fridays or weekends. Splendid.

- They require your credit card information up front, a week ahead. Again, this felt like a red flag but since I was running out of time to comply, I went ahead. I assume many businesses have stiffed them on the bills. Shocking.....but I suppose it does happen.

- Someone was supposed to confirm our appointment the day before. Nothing. So I got up early to be at the office on good faith.

- The two gentlemen that showed up to do the work were fantastic. They were on time, knew their trade, and were polite.

Of course one of our brand new valves did not pass their test. So they told me it would be an additional $120 or so to clean out the valve. I had no choice. Either fail the verification or pay the ransom. So we paid.

The three stars are for the two guys that showed up at 7:30am to verify my new valves and get it done with literally one minute to business open.

The minus two stars are for the poor communication by the main office and the difficult scheduling.

Probably won't use them again next year. But we'll see who is on the list.

I've used this company to test my backflows for 3 or 4 years now and recently i had replace one of them. From the very first phone call to the work being preformed, everyone was very friendly and professional. It's rare to see companies running at this level of knowledge and excellence!