Alaka’i Mechanical Corporation

Had some plumbing that required a licensed plumber in my condo. Called this company and the estimate was very affordable, so decided to go with them.
Technician named Darren came up to do the work and he was freakin awesome. He did everything we wanted plus some small work in the time they estimated it in. This guy was a hard worker and he really came prepared. The quality of his work was great and I found no flaws.
Pros:
Affordable, easy to schedule, on time, comes prepared, works efficiently, and great communication.
Cons:
None
Definitely will do business with them in the future and I’ll recommend everyone to use them.

Called on a Monday to setup an appointment for Tuesday. Got home early to be ready for the call. Appointment time came and went. Called the company back after 15 mins past the appointment time. Person on the phone said they would call me right back to see if a foreman could come. 45 minutes later, that person finally called back and said that they wouldn’t be able to do the job but asked if I could reschedule for the next day. What a waste of time! Went with another company to fix my plumbing problem.

I was thrilled with the service by Nate. He called ahead. He arrived on-​time, despite miserable traffic, and change out my kitchen garbag disposal unit in under 1 hour.
I could not be more satisfied with Nates performance and abilities.

Terrible ! Scheduled for estimate to fix my leaky faucets in kitchen & bathroom between 8am & 10am. No show so I called & he said he would call me back. No updates after 15 minutes. So I called again. Different lady answered & I was told she needed to call me back. After 10 more minutes, a guy called me, finally, to inform me that they wouldn’t be able to come! What is the schedule for??? I took a half day off from my work just for this??? Will never go back.

Absolutely TERRIBLE customer service/​policy from plumbing department. My wife and I live in a small apartment complex, Country Club Villages, located at 1090 Ala Napunani St. Drain cleaning was scheduled for ⁹⁄₁ for our unit, automically assigned by the association. It was noted that we’d be fined for not being present. Turns out both my wife and I work that day and were unable to get coverage/​request off. We both work in the medical field with demanding schedules – I’ll be sedating patients for their endoscopic procedures (i.e. colonoscopy, EGD’s, Bronchoscopy, etc.) on my scheduled date of 9/​1, and my wife will be treating kids with cancer (i.e. chemotherapy, blood transfusions, etc) at Kapiolani Medical Center. Called Alaka’i plumbing and spoke to Brennan (sp?) who gladly rescheduled me for today, 8/31,since Alaka’i was gonna be on site 8÷31−9÷2. I gave him the whole day, stating that I’ll gladly wait the whole day if they could just fit me in. I also offered anytime Wednesday since I was going to be home babysitting our son anyway. So Brennan (sp?) schedules me for Monday 8am-​12pm. Wonderful! Later get called by Brennan who says his manager, CHAD, told him I can’t switch my date/​time, but would still do it ⁸⁄₃₁ if I paid out of pocket $ 100/​hr. This is nothing but EXTORTION and I refuse to give these guys one red cent of my hard earned money. Tried to get in touch with the manager, CHAD, but no return call as of yet. I’ve already complained to Country Club Villages management who says that this has happened to not only me, but several of my neighbors whose lives do not revolve around Alaka’i. This is the last year Alaka’i has contracted with Country Club Villages (2012 – 2015), and I’ll be sure to be present at the upcoming board meeting on ⁹⁄₈ (and I’m sure with some angry neighbors in tow) to voice my frustrating experience with Alaka’i and to recommend no further renewal of ANY contract/​business with Alaka’i. As I type this complaint, I can hear/​see them cleaning pipes and they all look like high school drop outs. $ 100/​hr on top of what the association was going to pay you anyway?! Really?! Do your tattoos cost that much? Crooks, thieves, thugs, however you want to call it. I’ll be hiring another company for drain cleaning, and have already got the approval of Rick, our manager, to do so.
On another note, last year we were able to reschedule to a different date for the same work related reasons. They did not show up! Sandra, the secretary in the management office can confirm this. But don’t worry, we didn’t fine anybody.
9÷2÷15 Update: Looking out the window I watched as an Alaka’i employee sat in front of an obviously empty apartment for ~30min+ glued to his phone (probably posting on Facebook how $ 100/​hr has never been so easy), standing up now and then to knock again. Perhaps the apartment’s occupant somehow cloaked themselves and managed to sneak by this distracted, overpaid youth? I approached him to ask why he couldn’t just do my apartment instead since it was obvious that nobody was home. He took his eyes off his iPhone just long enough to say, «We have to stick to the schedule.» Ridiculous! In my line of business, if a Patient cancels whether willingly or is deemed too unstable for the procedure/​sedation, then we don’t waste anytime and move onto the next Patient. If I sat on my butt scrolling through my phone during the blocked time I’d surely be fired! Man, I’m in the wrong business. To think all I needed was a GED or even less. Absolutely disgusted with how this company operates.

Called and left a message at 5pm for a shower that was not working. Phone call was returned first thing the next morning and plumber had the problem fixed by noon that day! Super professional reception, thorough and efficient plumber. Much appreciated Alakai! Saved me a lot in time.

Great job finding a slow leak from a unit above mine. He was also very patient w/​the idiots that live upstairs who did not think they could afford the $ 300 repair! They really did not have a choice after it had been leaking for a month & they had been very evasive. He did a great job of covering the job w/​a trap door. I will need more ceiling repair work to fix all of the peeling paint etc. He was on time, early even & worked very efficiently & did an excellent clean up job, even vacuuming the hallway where some of the ceiling dry wall was tracked. Our condo bldg uses them all the time. Thanks!

4 calls and each time I was told they would touch bases with their A/​C technician and call me back. Each time I expressed that my air condition was out and that I lived in Ewa Beach so I felt repair was critical. Each time, I received no call back. Must be too busy to worry about customer service.

Last year I called Alaka’i for plumbing service and had a very bad experience. They service our building so I figured it would make sense to use them, but there was a lack of communication between the different plumbers, which caused a job that should have been completed within two days over twice that long to get done. It seemed like they are used to working on large plumbing jobs and will fit in small home jobs when they can, but I would recommend you go with someone else who will be more customer oriented for such a job. When I called to talk to a manager to explain the problems I was having with the company he said he would call me back but never did. I have no reason to question the quality of their work, but trying to work with them to complete the job was very difficult. As well as not being very efficient, they seem expensive.

I can’t honestly give a review about their repair service because I never got that far. They installed our ac unit ten years ago so I called them first for repairs. For openers they wanted my credit card number up front. Who does this? Square can charge on a cell phone instantaneously. More on this later… So I give them my information, which I was hesitant to do, and I get a call back the next week to set up an appointment. In the meantime I check the ever useful Unilocal reviews and find out they start charging from when they leave their office to come to your place. Who else does this? My appointment was for Monday at 8am meaning one car wreck or gravel spill in rush hour and I’m out hundreds of dollars before they even set foot in my home! Worst of all they didn’t even volunteer that information. So now they got my credit card number in their system and I didn’t even use their service. Never again!
To answer my questions who else does this, the answer is no one. There are more honest, hungry shops in town that will repair ac and charge for the work they do and not charge for driving. Go elsewhere and find a more honest approach to ac repair. I’ll write a review on an actual repair once I get the work done.

Thank you for the response, Jackson C. We had called for some maintenance work on our A/​Cs and to re-​route some old plumbing lines, NOT an emergency call, and we told the telephone representative this. We even asked how far in advance they were scheduling, since we needed to request leave a week or so in advance in order to be home for the work.
That your technicians don’t charge this way if the job is scheduled a reasonable amount of time in advance was NOT relayed to us at all, even when we asked for more information about the «we charge when we leave for the job» policy – in fact, it was when we asked for more information about this policy, since it seemed like such a strange thing to do for all service calls, that the telephone conversation became… less than pleasant.
Your response that you only charge this way for emergency calls makes much more sense than what the representative said. I appreciate the clarification. Hopefully it will be information that all representatives give to potential customers in the future. Thanks for taking the time to respond!

Excellent service, good price, prompt and on time, pleasant human being, good dispatch service, and AND the technician fixed the problem in short order. The «other company» I called today couldn’t be bothered, gave me an insane price, and couldn’t fit me in for days! So I’m very pleased with Alaka’i Mechanical plumbing experience today.

A bit pricey, but the service was outstanding. Had two infrequently used a/c’s serviced and cleaned. Huge problem with pigeons. Technician cleaned out entire units and cleaned up nesting pigeon nests/​crap underneath, too. Worked with me to develop a plan to keep pigeons away. While he scrubbed, cleaned and did all the grunt work, he sent us to City Mill to pick up birds-​b-​gone, a caulking like gel he squirted all underneath and on top of the a/c’s. Also installed another product to deter birds on top of unit, a spider like wire device that flows with the wind.
Saw pigeons come back, go underneath a/c’s and go back out. Contemplated for a bit on what to do, then flew off. For now, Val at Alakai Mechanical is my hero!