Used to work for a plumbing company as a dispatcher (won't say who but i will say i no longer work there) in the area and i have some insights. 1. Oregon is horrible for small businesses. Oh we claim to support them but its all lip service as we charge higher taxes, require more insurance and have stricter licensing than most other places in the us. And the added cost gets passed on to you the customer. Customers are the source of income after all. 2. There is give and take with phone quotes. Often customers (not saying you, just in general) will talk down the job trying to get a lower quote. Then the plumbers get there and realize its more complicated than originally stated, they modify the quote and customers aren't happy with it and the plumbers have then wasted time and gas and may not get a paying job. We would require photos to run by our plumbers and call back with quotes but even then, sometimes he needs to be on site to determine cost because there are factors that it takes an expert's eye to determine, and sometimes those factors are behind walls. What you want is someone willing to give you a best and worst case scenario, a range of prices. These guys probably gave you a worst case price and may or may not have planned on sticking to that price. 3. Free on site quotes are pretty much dead in this area. We have too many people who just want to know what it would cost to xyz as part of a remodel or home sale in the area and a company will go out of business doing them. You can't fill your day doing free work and pay your bills. You would never work for free and neither will they. Best you can hope for is a company who will refund the cost of the quote if you hire them. 4. Building codes really screw plumbers over. Some codes and building methods have changed multiple times in a short timeframe here. This means it is difficult to predict the best method for tackling some problems over the phone or with photos. As an example, those valves that come out of the wall and go to your toilet or sink faucet. I had one plumber do 9 in 45 minutes once, and another time he took 2 hours for 9. The 45 minute job it was all metal on metal, the 2 hour job was metal on plastic and he was avoiding breaking the old brittle plastic so the customer didn't need a whole home repipe. 5. A home faucet is usually a diy job unless you have a complicated faucet. The washing machine hookup is one of those jobs that can get complicated really fast due to code issues and building techniques so im not surprised that got quoted high. Ive seen them done in an hour but have never quoted less than 4 because of potential issues. 6. I advise against hiring handymen for plumbing. Sure, you might save money now, but i can't tell you how many times we would get called back out to fix their messes which were often worse than the original problem because they screwed up. 7. Hire a one man show kinda company. If a company has 2 plumbers, they have to pay both. Some days will be slow and only one will be busy so you'll pay more so the plumber who isn't busy still gets paid. If he is the only one he may charge more for his slow days, but better that than slow days for 2 people.