Learning the hard way

After a pipe burst, a St. Louis Park homeowner hired an unlicensed plumber, who, after collecting insurance money, didn't finish the job.

By Lora Pabst, Star Tribune

Last update: July 27, 2009 - 2:11 PM

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Anne Steffan thought the guy she hired to repair her kitchen would get the job done in a couple of weeks. Two months later, her kitchen didn't have running water or a sink, and the refrigerator was still in the living room.

The unfinished kitchen repair taught Steffan a lesson: Run a background check on your contractor. If she had, she would have found out that Rodd Hansen, the owner of Advanced Plumbing Services, wasn't a licensed plumber and was facing an almost $10,000 fine from the state. She is still waiting for him to refund her money, which he says he plans to do.

"For someone like that to take advantage of me, it's very tough," Steffan said. "At this point, I'm trying to prevent it from happening to someone else."

When reached by Whistleblower, Hansen said he has a plumbing license from South Dakota, which has plumber's license reciprocity with Minnesota. However, officials from the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry and the South Dakota Plumbing Commission said Hansen has never held a plumbing license in either state and is not eligible for reciprocity. The Labor Department fined Hansen $9,805 in June 2008 for operating without a license and failing to file a bond.

"We owe a fine," Hansen said. "There are a lot of companies out there who owe fines. We're working to get everything resolved."

Steffan, 26, had lived in her St. Louis Park home for six months when the dishwasher pipe burst in March, sounding like Minnehaha Falls as the water soaked through the floor and flooded her basement. Hired to rebuild her kitchen, Hansen cleared out the water and pulled out her appliances and flooring in a few days. Then the work slowed.

Hansen said the work was delayed because the wrong cabinets were shipped. In May, he hooked up her sink, refrigerator and oven, but Steffan said she still didn't have hot water in the kitchen. Steffan's insurance company paid Advanced Plumbing Services about $17,000 up front for labor and supplies, including two hours of work by a "licensed plumber."

When the cabinets hadn't shown up by the beginning of June, Steffan got suspicious and began to inquire about Hansen. She and her lawyer found several civil court judgments against him, including the fine from the Labor Department.

Charlie Durenberger, head of the department's contractor enforcement unit, told Whistleblower the state received a complaint in November 2007 from a 74-year-old woman who had hired Hansen to work on her townhouse after he told her he held a master plumber license. Durenberger said Hansen "walked away" from the job after causing "significant damage," including jack hammering a hole in the woman's kitchen floor and cutting through her walls.

Hansen returned a call to the state in December 2007, but didn't respond after that.

"He had the right to request a hearing if he thought our facts were incorrect and he never did that," Durenberger said.

Hansen was fined $9,805 -- about $6,000 more than a normal fine -- because of the damage he caused to the woman's home.

"As far as plumbing goes, this is one of the worst [cases] I've seen," Durenberger said.

Steffan's new plumber, Joel Franke, said Hansen improperly connected the water pipes to her sink, creating the potential for another flood.

"I was blown away," Franke said. "I've never seen anything like that before."

Franke is a licensed master plumber. Steffan made sure. She looked him up.

-- Lora Pabst, 612-673-4628, lpabst@startribune.com

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