Roto-Rooter Plumbing & Water Cleanup

I was given a service time window of 8-10am. At 7:20 am, I was called and told that my service person was headed out and would be there in about 45 minutes. Ninety minutes later, no one had arrived, so I called the dispatch center. They repeated that the service person was on his way. My service provider, John Cronin, arrived between 9:30 and 9:45. I showed him the poorly draining shower and mentioned one toilet had been getting stopped up recently, and asked him about a shower head that seemed to be leaking. He was happy to do the shower and toilet, but he indicated the leaky shower would probably be more involved (and more expensive). He quoted me a price for the shower drain, and took $50 for the coupon I had received by email. For a secondary service (the toilet), he was able to give me a 10% discount. I decided not to do anything about the leaky shower. I mentioned that I needed to be out of the house by 11:30, and he reassured me that he should be done within 90 minutes. He wore booties while inside the house. He did the shower first, and nicely requested a paper bag rather than dumping the drain mess into the wastebasket in the bathroom. Then he offered to do all 3 toilets in the house for the price of one additional service, which was great.

almost didn't do because roof pitch was too steep (they claimed-, but I went up on roof and cleared tree branches out of the way).

This review is for service provided by Roto-Rooter in Sunnyvale (408 739-2415): The worker arrived when expected, was personable, and evaluated the problem. He gave us an estimate which we thought was high considering that we have had similar work done by Roto-Rooter for 30% less in a neighboring city. When we showed the worker a second, easier to access and open sewer 'clean out' then the one he was planning on using, he quoted a new lower price. He did not inform us that the lower price was due to the application of an unknown discount but presented it as a lower price because the job would be less work. We considered the lower price to be acceptable in light of the fact that we had a coupon that we could apply. When it came time to pay, the worker refused to honor any coupon (including the $30 Angie's List coupon), stating that he had already discounted the price and the computer would not allow him to also apply our coupon. The 'discounted price' was not for the same work (because the new sewer clean out was more easily accessed than the one he was originally thinking to use). I think the worker should have been more clear in his communication about the price before doing the work and should have honored our coupon. We ended up paying $60 (35%) more than expected when we agreed to the work.

She did a great job. She was very, very pleasant. I had no concerns.

After looking at several drainage cleanouts, determined that theproblem was actually due to clogged roof vents. He went up on the roof several times to investigate the various vents and clean them out, pulling hair and grease out of them. Every thing was working great once he had finished.

On Saturday morning I noticed that my sewer branch line, which runs downhill from my house through my back yard to a sewer main about 200 ft. away, was leaking about 150 ft. downhill from my house. I called several providers, but Roto Rooter was the only one who said they could get to it that day. I tried to describe the problem and the layout of my line, indicated that the problem was all outside. They told me they would be there between 5:00 and 7:00 pm. I understand that when you're the last appointment of the day, they will probably be late. However, Brian arrived at 9 pm, by then it was full dark. He couldn't work from the cleanout closest to the clog because it was dark, and he didn't have a long enough power cord. He snaked out the line from a cleanout up near the house. The drain was running when he left, and he suggested a video inspection, and also recommended an expensive bottle of enzyme pipe cleaner which I purchased. On Monday, I called the office to make an appointment for a video inspection first thing Thursday morning. I made a point that we needed to be the first appointment on Thursday because I had to leave for work later in the morning. The office person that I spoke to promised they'd be there between 8:00 and 9:00 On Thursday morning the drain was stopped up again. I called the office shortly after 8:00 to let them know that they'd have to clean it out again before the video inspection, and they told me no problem. At 9:10, when no one had arrived, I called the office and they told me the technician was on the way, and was only a few blocks away. At 9:35 when I called again they said they had a and quot;misunderstandingand quot; and the technician had been dispatched to another job, and that they would try to get some there by the late afternoon. These people have a serious problem with punctuality and scheduling, and also they lied when they told me the technician was on the way. Also, they charge by the hour, instead of by the job. I expect that there will be an extra charge for weekend service, and I was happy to pay it, but I would like to know the cost before comitting to the work. Both the initial (weekend) work and the video inspection were to be an hourly charge. I have had another company come out, clear the drain and do a video inspection for a fixed price. I have also hired that other company to replace a section of the sewer line that is clogged by roots and causing the problem. I will not use Roto Rooter again.

We’ve hired them for several things over the years.

It started out as a clogged drain and they cleaned that out. Then they discovered we had some roots they couldn’t reach so they had to put a clean-out in our yard.

I’ve had them out several times. It was excellent!

It took about 30 seconds and I was charged over $200

On a Saturday, my house sprung a serious leak. I called the national Roto-Rooter at about 2pm, and after some mis-steps by their national call center, I was finally put in touch with this local franchise at about 5pm. The person I spoke with asked about the specifics of my problem, clarifying that it was a leak. She said someone would be calling me back within 30 minutes, and that I should be able to get someone out here that night. 50 minutes later at 6:30, no one had called me, so I called back. I was assured that the plumber currently on a job, that my job was next in line and he would call me back very soon and should be able to fix it that night.. OK. By 7:30pm, I had still not heard. So I called back AGAIN. At that time, the same woman told me that sorry, no plumber would be coming out that night, but that they would take care of me first thing on Sunday morning at 9am. GRRRR. I was stuck at this point and had to accept it. Very frustrating. Remember, I had been trying to get Roto Rooter to fix this since 2pm. I asked why no one had called me when they first realized, why was I always having to call them? She apologized. At 8:15pm, I received a voice mail from the same woman, telling me that someone would be out to fix my leak at 9am the next morning. OK, next day. No one shows up at 9am. At 9:15am I call and ask where the plumber is. A different woman named Barbara answers. She is a nasty person who interrupts and yells and should not be in a position that deals with the public. She tells me that no one is scheduled to come to my house that day at 9am!!!! But I had been told TWICE yesterday that someone would come out, and I had a voice mail recording of it too! She tells me that it wasn't her problem, that apparently I had been dealing with an answering service the previous day (unbeknownst to me!) and that the answering service doesn't do scheduling or anything. I tried to explain to her my frustrating experience - about all the times I was promised someone would show up and fix my leak, how I had to keep calling back to find out what was going on. She kept interrupting and talking over me, saying it wasn't THEM that made these promises, it was the answering service. She offered no apologies and made no effort to help me out with my pipe that had been leaking 19 hours. I then spoke to the manager who was equally rude and obnoxious -- once again, not letting me complete a sentence before interrupting me and talking/yelling over me the entire time. Like the other woman, he blamed it all on the answering service, did not take any responsibility, and made no apologies. According to him, I should have known I was dealing with an Answering Service (even though that was never made clear to me), and thus somehow KNOWN that everything they were promising was complete bull! Listen, RotoRooter Franchise! It is YOUR responsibility to either man those phones yourself or hire a suitable answering service. If you hired a crappy answering service (who had far more polite people than your usual staffers, BTW), then THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM, NOT YOUR CUSTOMERS. You should do RIGHT by your customers and keep the promises that were made to them -- regardless of whether by your own staff or by the people you hired to REPRESENT your firm after hours. Meanwhile, after 18 hours, I still have freakin' leak to deal with. THANKS FOR NOTHING ROTO-ROOTER.

He was great. He was honest. Actually, when he arrived the drain had fixed itself. He told that I didn’t have to rooter it. It was actually a good thing that I did because when he did go down he told that I have got a root issue. So he did find another issue. All I had to pay for is the service call because the drain had fixed itself by the time he got here.

Called and got immediate response. Scheduled work on the same day. Showed up at appointed time. Unplugged stopped up sewer quickly and efficiently. Cleaned up the mess left by the overflow. Was pleasant and businesslike. Job was done within an hour. Charged Sunday rates, but that was to be expected. Excellent work ... no problem since then with the drains.

Called Roto-Rooter on a Friday evening. Here within 2 hours. Fixed everything. Courteous, pleasant to deal with, capable. Expensive, but worth the money.

The only thing that was a "hang-up" was that when I went to pay the bill that was presented to me, and I presented the coupon downloaded from Angie's List, the worker guy said he knew nothing about the coupon. So, I went ahead and just paid the full price and threw the coupon in the trash. So, in my case the Angie's List coupon didn't work. But the service was a.o.k. and I just paid the bill.

Excellent service, but expensive. Didn't have time to shop around. Couldn't find the latest copy of Angies List, might have used a company with a coupon. Anyway I did get a 10% senior discount.

Terrible. I would not put my trust in them to perform a quality repair since they can't even demonstrate proper customer service over the phone.

Some kid showed up, took a look, and said that his supervisor would call ..............

I discovered a sewer line blockage, and by coincidence, happened to have Plumbing Company X (I don't want to name them) working on an unrelated plumbing fixture under warranty. Company X snaked the line and found roots. I got bids from Company X, from another Angie's List company (Company Y) and from Roto-Rooter, an Angie's company. All three believed that the line needed a and quot;pipe burstand quot; to fix the broken line. Company X bid $6700 plus permit costs (which would have pushed it over $7,000). Company Y bid $9,990 , after an and quot;Angies list discountand quot;, but refused to honor its own Angie's coupon for $3000 maximum because they said the sewer line was more than 5 feet deep in the street (it wasn't). Roto Rooter bid $5400, including all permit fees. They came when promised and did an excellent job. When they dug the hole in the street to access the sewer, they saw that the line wasn't broken. Only a conector had broken where the line met the main, so they simply reconnected it and did the other work and closed up the hole and paved it. They also reduced the bill because the repiping wasn't necessary after all. Quick service, low bid, concern for the customer and honesty. What else could you ask for? Brian was the main plumber (along with his brother) and were excellent.

Had Roto-Rooter come out and install a new kitchen sink faucet. The guy on the phone couldn't give me even a ballpark estimate on the price, but sent a plumber who arrived very quickly. I was shocked at the price, considering there was no plumbing needed. The handle broke on my old faucet, so I bought a new one. I expected this job to take less than an hour, so I was expecting it to run maybe $120 at the most. That said, I have a guy standing in my kitchen who can do the job for $380, or I wait and try to save a couple hundred bucks. I chose to have him do it and he did a great job. Bottom line, the work was performed well and very quickly...but $380 to swap out a faucet seems very high to me. I haven't gotten other estimates though, so maybe is not as exorbitant as I think. If you're in a hurry and can afford it, I would recommend Roto-Rooter.

Good. Quick and professional.

They did a fine job. We were satisfied.

It was about $250 to clean the drain. A bit expensive, but that was worth it for the cleaning. The upselling was BAD It was about $150 to video tape the drain. Perhaps i have the pricing inverted, and it was 250 for the video tape and 150 for the drain. I do not recall. Anyhow, the recording was worth approximately zero dollars and zero cents. The day of the cleaning they gave me a rough estimate of $80,000 to fix the pipe. So, obviously I wanted to get a better estimate, even if i needed to pay for it. When they did the video of the pipe, they told me there were problems and they would give me an estimate. then the city came by, to let me know if the city was responsible for the pipe or if I was. The Roto-rooter guy took off. I paid him for the video, estimate, and for marking on the ground as to where the issues were. I got no estimate. I got not markings. a week later i received a DVD with the video tape with no explaination as to what was in the video, how much it would cost to fix or where the issues were. If you need an evacuation pipe drain cleaning, Roto-Rooter has the right tools for a 6" drain. I would just find a different company that has that same tool and call them instead.

Rotor Rooter they cleaned out my sewer line. And I would use them again in the future.

the service tech showed up on time and was professional, but the problem came back the next day. I have not received a follow-up call from business to make sure I was satisfied with work performed.