Robby's Rooter

They did a good job, and they are very honest. I would recommend them to anybody.

First off let me tell you that I had used Robby for years on apartment buildings I own. When he first started, the service was excellent and if I had any problems, I could always talk to Robby personally and get quick resolution. However, I began noticing prices creeping up and customer response to concerns lessening as his business grew. The last time I used him was on this call. One of my tenants called to say that their sink was clogged and needed snaking. So, as I always have done, I called Robby's Rooter to take care of the problem. They went out and finished the job and I was billed for the service. A few days later, the downstairs tenant who had been on vacation called and said their drain was clogged. I knew that the drains ran from upstairs to down in the same drain pipe and it was fairly obvious that the plumber had pushed the clog lower in the line. I called their office and asked that the plumber finish the job correctly. They cleared the line and I was billed a second time for cleaning the downstairs sink. When I called the office, the woman there became very rude and said that the line was a second clog and unrelated to the first. The more I talked with her the less I was able to reason with her. Now keep in mind that I have literally given Robby thousands of dollars of work over the years so I felt it was not unreasonable to be able to discuss this directly with the owner. She told me Robby was too busy to talk and I needed to pay the bill. I asked her to relay the message to Robby that I would like to discuss the matter with him. I never received a call. Because I had years of service experience with Robby and I didn't want to lose a good plumber over a small disagreement, I thought it might be the office staff who was the problem. So I wrote a letter to Robby personally. No response. I stopped by the office to talk with him. No response. I even talked about it with one of his plumbers who apologized for him and said he would relay the message. No response. This is the last time I used the service. All I wanted was some acknowledgement from Robby of the problem so we could come to a compromise. Unfortunately, good customer relatons is no longer a priority in his business.

Very happy with their service today and I would recommend them and use them again.

They were great. I called Monday and they said they could come out the next day between the hours I was home (they gave me a 3 hour window). The next day they called to double-check that I was home, and Renee arrived about 1 1/2 hours later (easily within the window they gave me). He was very nice - I showed him the shower knob that wasn't working. He took it off and showed me where it was broken. He didn't have a new one that would fit, so he went to Home Depot. I also showed him a showerhead in another shower that I wanted replaced, since it was too low. I said if he could find something that would work at Home Depot to please get that as well. He came back within 1/2 hour with a knob and a new showerhead, as well as a pipe that extended the showerhead to make it taller! He put them both in, showed me what he had done, and then charged me $128 total (including parts). The whole thing was completely painless, he was very nice, showed up on time, did the job without making a mess, and didn't charge me an arm and a leg. Bravo to Robby's Rooter!

A year ago Robby assessed the health of the sewer line with a camera prior to the pouring of the driveway. He told me that the video of the old clay sewer line looked ok and would probably stay that way if I had it snaked every year. (There is a pine tree whose roots clog the line occasionally.) The plumber who was sent to do our first annual routine snaking was unfamiliar to me. He told me he wanted to use the 4" snake. I said use whatever is best, but in the past I've seen excellent results with small snakes and patience, and my primary concern was that there be no damage to the sewer line since it runs under the new driveway. He told me he would use a smaller snake and do the best he could (the snake he used looked plenty large to me). Soon the snake was stuck. With some effort the plumber recovered it and adjusted the snake cutting head with pliers, saying it had gotten bent. Then the snake got stuck yet again, and this time it would not come out. Phone calls were made, the plumber seemed to get a little testy. Robby was to come with the camera and try and assess the reason for the stuck snake. Meanwhile, the plumber told me to back off (and I don't know if this was out of concern for my safety or not) but I went in the house and phoned the head office and asked to speak with Robby, the owner, who actually never returned my call. While in the house, I heard the plumber continue to work on the line; at one point there was a fairly huge crash. I went outside and saw the snake line had been pulled apart, presumably by the force of the plumber pulling on it. At this point I was told that Robby would come in 2 days to video the line and try and determine the cause of the stuck snake, but the line was still usable. Two days later the camera results were inconclusive. But fortunately Robby was wise enough to crawl under the house into the crawl space and noticed the sewer line had separated at a joint due to the brute force of the first plumber trying to dislodge the snake two days earlier. So it was pretty wet and smelly down there, but at least not all of our effluent had dumped under the house due to the location of the separation. Just the effluent from one bathroom, not both. At this point I asked Robby to check all the connections and certify that everything was tight, which he did. I extracted an agreement from Robby that if the evidence showed it was through the negligence of his plumber that got the snake stuck, he would give me some consideration on the cost. The next day or so 2 guys plus Robby showed up and sliced and diced my driveway, dug down and exposed the pipe, showed me the clearly old crack that had grabbed the snake for some reason (when other snakes, the last as recent as a year ago, had sailed through). There was much discussion of replacing the clay pipe with poly pipe using a really expensive method of pulling a burster attached to plastic pipe up through the clay line, exploding and replacing it with long lasting, jointless poly pipe. In the end I decided that when I do that, it should be from the street to the house, not from partway down the driveway to the house. After splicing in the ABS with rubber sleeves and stainless steel bands, Robby ran the camera from the new cleanout to the street, then finished the job started a week before... he snaked the line of the few roots that were there. Then there was the guy who showed up to pour the cap. He must have run out of concrete midway through the job because at one point he was gone with maybe 20% of the wet material sitting in the hole. Then he finished the job and left. Fortunately, there was some daylight left and I assessed the job: pretty rough and ridge-y. I found my old unused float and smoothed the job as best as I could... it was still very wet. I wasn't expecting a seamless job but this was a little workmanlike even for me. After recapping the job, I did ask for and receive a discount from Robby when he came a few days later to collect his fee of $1200 for everything. Yup, he gave me a whopping $100 off. I took it. I extracted a promise from him that if I ever used him again he would not send the plumber who got the snake stuck. I like Robby. He has delivered much lower cost services than other plumbers I've had to kick off my property. His brother in law Tony is an artist with a snake, but he moved away. I'm pretty sure $1100 is a great price for the job that was done, and the job seemed ok, and there were some fairly major problems as well. I'm left unsure whether I should have born all of that expense. But I did.