S & D Plumbing

I recently hired S & D plumbing to make some major repairs to my main line. While there have been no issues with the plumbing work so far, I wanted to share the terrible experience I had with this company after learning they damaged my bathroom floor tiles during the work. No protection was placed on the floor and when the toilet was dragged across the tile, it chipped and damaged a good portion of the floor. When I brought this to their attention they initially appeared to be responsive and assured us someone would be out to assess the damages and determine a plan for repairing the tile. The company made several verbal and written promises to follow up but never did. A month later and only due to DAILY phones calls from myself did they finally send out a company to assess the damage and prepare an estimate. The damage was so extensive that the repair company stated the entire floor would need to be replaced. After this S&D us completely ghosted me. I’ve called incessantly, each time with another promise that the manager will call me back tomorrow, call me Monday, etc. I’ve never received a phone call nearly 4 months later and I suspect I never will. When I followed up with the repair company they stated that S&D contacted them and informed them “the customer won’t be moving forward with any repairs at this time”. This is untrue as I very much would like my floors repaired but am now on my own to either dispute these charges with my credit card company or go to small claims court- of which I plan on doing both. This experience has been and will most likely continue to be extremely stressful. Before you consider doing business with this company, please consider any of the other number of honest plumbers in the Austin area. If S&D would like to reach out to me and make this right, you have my contact information.

Just had my annual water heaters check up and then drained to remove any sediment build up since last year. Melvin, my plumbing hero, and Travis, his colleague arrived on time, as always, and did a fine job. I also had them replace my existing garbage disposal. They double and triple checked that the unit was working properly, in this case making sure that the unit was quiet while running. In addition they made sure the under sink area was left with no messes for me to clean up. Melvin and Travis were very professional and friendly and always willing to answer my questions. They are the best!

Canceled 2 appointments in row. Left me sitting g here waiting. Gave same lame excuse both times.

S&D Plumbing told me that their work would require 2 to 3 days but they took 14 days mostly due to working only about 5 hours per day and due to their work error which required an extra day or two. Due to the pandemic, I was forced to use my backyard as my toilet during this time. Also, despite my asking them several times to use a trap under dirt from the 22-foot tunnel dug under my house they did not do so. Therefore, when removing the dirt, they removed much of the rock from my rock garden and tore through the weed barrier thus causing weeds to now appear. Finally, they dumped the remaining tunnel dirt and my garden rocks over my back fence. In writing, they claimed the delay was due to removal of rock rather than dirt under my house, but I produced a photo showing the dirt pile with no rock. I paid half of the $20,000 up front now their attorney demands full payment of the other half or they will sue me for full payment along with attorney and court fees. Despite the damage they did, they refuse to reduce the invoice amount and have never offered an apology.

Great service and response. We have hot water again.

First, they never showed up to the initial appointment so I called them and they stated that they needed to talk to my landlord in order to get his permission to come out. I asked why they didn't call me and let me know this instead of scheduling an appointment and having me wait around from 1-5 for someone to show up. The lady got a TERRIBLE attitude so I told her I was going to review the company and she asked me if I would like her to send me the link.... I got a call from Scott who wanted to make things right but only if I deleted my bad reviews on them. I stated I would consider it if the job was done. I was told it was a $0 fee to find the leak and once they found it he would give me an estimate on what it would cost to fix. Today, the tech shows up and tries to charge me $350 per hour to look for the leak......... WHAT A HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE.. Called another plumber and they are on their way to find my leak for a $0 charge. Waste of time and don't recommend this company to ANYONE.

Update (02/23/2018) Dan, Thanks for taking the time to respond. After the bad experience with your company I hired Accurate Leak and Line to come out and do an inspection. I explained the same details over the phone to their receptionist and asked for a price. She quoted a price. I paid the price. It was very easy. I'm disappointed you're accusing me of trying to get free work. I asked your receptionist twice what i can pay her. She said "nothing". 3 days later your plumber (who was a good dude) showed for the appointment said it would be a bit under $1k for under 2 hours of work to check it out. He quoted this price before getting out of truck. Not sure why we couldn't have discussed that when i asked for a price. It's perfectly fair for a customer to get a sense of pricing on a thousand dollar job before beginning work. I think you're response speaks volumes about how you treat your customers but thanks for taking the time to respond (not intended to sound snarky. many companies wouldn't bother replying). --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lots of other great plumbers in CTX area. Please keep looking. Called to book a service visit for a possible waste line leak following foundation repair. I asked receptionist what the charge was to bid breaks under a slab. She said free. I pointed out prior yelp reviewers had complained about 'inspection charges' from service tech's after being told the bids are free. Receptionist assured me there would be no charge for the bid. I said i'd called back. I called following day and went through same routine. No fee for bid. I pointed out issues noted in online reviews. Receptionist stated, no fee for bid. So I booked the first available appointment. Fast forward to my noon to 4 appointment window, service technician isn't even out of truck before quoting a thousand dollar 'inspection charge' but only if "it's less than 2 hours of work". $595 for the inspection plus $175 each to remove two toilets. Either dishonest or just poorly trained office staff. Either way it wasted a large part of my day. The plumber was a nice guy and seemed very knowledgeable.

They replaced one toilet and fixed the other. They also check out all of the sinks, tubs and water heater to make sure they were in good shape. They also showed me my water cut off valve which I was unsure of where it was.

They rerouted line and bypassed the leak. Called after job was done that we have a lot of air in our water and clunking sound in pipes. They were extremely rude on the phone and said they would not come out without charging a sevixe fee.

I don't remember the price. Overall, it their work was good. Give them an A all around. They always send the same guy. His name is Michael and I like him a lot.

It was repaired promptly. Our plumber arrived early, after calling to confirm we were available.

They did a good job. I needed two water heaters. They wouldn't do it and so the upsell was quite a bit on that. I thought the offer of Angie's List was very good but I was really looking for two water heaters. That was what attracted me. They had a really good price but that was only for one water heater and I needed two. They increased the price on the second one quite a bit. They knew what they were doing. They did a good job with the installation. I didn't have any problem with their responsiveness. They were available. They wouldn't honor the Angie's List for more than one water heater. That was the problem. The charged me $1200 difference between the two. They said they could only sell one at the Angie's List price. I thought it was kind of deceptive for that price and not sell you one at the same Angie's List offer.

I called them at 4 p.m. on a Monday and they were out the next afternoon. Within an hour or two they found it. They were recommended by my realtor and were "can do." That's the attitude I wanted. They were fantastic. I don't know plumbing prices but they seemed a little bit pricey. However, they were fast, efficient and had a let's get it done attitude. They found it pretty quickly. They were very professional and I liked them. They listened to me and let me tell them where my late husband thought the leak was. They took care of the problem for me, that's all I can say. They were out yesterday for a check on their work. They sent a boss out to check their work. He wanted to make sure that I was happy and I was happy. I liked their attitude. They had to go all around the house, re-trench and do re-directs and stuff. They were extremely responsive, quick, eager to please and provided follow up to make sure everything was okay. I was stunned when they did that.

They were quick to come to our assistance and quick to find the solution and quickly fixed the leak as well as help us with some preventive maintenance to avoid possible future problems. The plumber was quite knowledgeable, pleasant and professional. (The original leak had been caused by roots pushing the pipe into a rock and causing it to have several holes. The couplings(?) that joined the copper pipe with the pvc pipe need to be changed and adjusted and the S&D plumber put an extra section in that took the piping further from the rock.) FYI: This all happened in early August and I have already referred them to two individuals needing plumbing assistance.

The work was performed on the day of the first appointment. I thought the first visit would be to provide the quote and set up for the replacement. Buying the deal through Angie's List was a big mistake. Instead of getting quotes from more than one supplier you are tied to the one business. The total cost was higher than other higher rated businesses on Angie's List. I have since asked them about the $339.29 charge that did not include a replacement of the gas valve. They were reviewing it but had not provided any update after 3 weeks. In addition my credit card was charged an additional $207 by S&D Plumbing three weeks later. They cannot explain the charge and say they did not submit it but checking my credit card on line I can see their business name and phone number next to the charge. They offer some other services I had planned on getting them to quote for me but after this experience I would be hard pressed to give them the opportunity. I also would not recommend using an Angie's List deal unless you know the work you need completed is fully covered by the price.

Excellent job! On-time, professional, and friendly. He explained each step of the process and answered all my questions. He also gave me written estimate for future work.

Told us they would get back with us. They didn't, so we had to find another company(not local) who is AWESOME fixed our shower

They looked at the washing machine to check the water pressure. They were good but they were too pricey.

I picked out the faucet. I was very happy with the service. I assumed that the price would be time and materials however on arrival the plumber quoted a fixed price of $250. The switch out took no longer than one hour and there were no parts other than what I had purchased. In the future I will be careful to insist on time and material as the $250 / hour charge seems quite high.

We were very frustrated with them from the beginning. No one knew what to do to repair. As explained above. The second visit they had created made us all the more frustrated with them. The final straw was they were to have us sign the check from USAA. (once we were satisfied) They could not get ahold of us for a couple days as we were out of town. They forged our signature and cashed the check. WHO DOES THAT? Dishonest and I believe illegal actions on this business is just wrong. Stay away if at all possible.

We hired S & D to replace our sewer line at a contracted cost of $3,800. The whole experience was terrible. I'll try to keep this short. In summary: they screwed the job up terribly. We had to fire them, have two other plumbers document their poor quality work and pursue a credit card chargeback, which they fought all the way. The trouble started when they discovered a second pipe running from the house. My wife was home and they told her that it was abandoned. She had to insist that it be inspected. The supervisor came and said that he'd run his camera and it was full of dirt. My wife suggested that it might come from the laundry and that she should run some water down it to be sure. They wouldn't let her do that. When I got home and they were about to leave, I asked her to run the water while I was out there. Of course out it came, I took a look at the pipe and there wasn't any dirt in it. They also stopped 10 feet short of the contracted distance from the curb. Finally many parts of the pipe were reverse sloped and the trench was dug in a zig-zag requiring many extra joints. They couldn't come back the next day, and then it rained. So they came back on Friday. Fair enough. They sent only one person who was rude and surly and ignored my requests to check the backslope. He had scheduled an inspection that afternoon. When the inspector arrived they didn't come and get me, I had to keep an eye out; it was clear they didn't want me there. The inspector pointed out that the trench was full of water and that meant the test was failing. The guy from S & D said that I had flushed during the test (and somehow that water got past their test plugs? Who knows what he was thinking. Anyway I had not flushed). The inspector also pointed to the back sloped sections that I had pointed out. The guy from S & D just left at this point, knowing there was a leaking sewer. Stupidly I believed him when he said it was ok and a few flushes later and the trench filled up with black-water. Later we also discovered that they'd managed to glue the back-flow protector shut through clumsy gluing. We sought other quotes over the weekend and communicated with the owner of S and D. We didn't want them back out there---they'd had two shots at it already---but did invite him to inspect the work. He never replied to that invite, which I think sums up the level of care for quality they displayed. If I had a dissatisfied customer I'd want to see the work, regardless of whether they'd let me fix it. We then had two other plumbers inspect the work and they both confirmed our fears, one providing a report in writing (a very hard thing to get a plumber in Austin's close-knit community to do, but he was personally annoyed by the quality of the work, I think). They were both surprised, since S & D had a good reputation, but thought it was to do with the rapid growth they'd seen for S & D recently. Anyway, one of those plumbers had to take out everything they'd done, fix the trench and re-lay all the pipe. We were without a working sewer for a whole week. Thankfully the guy two doors up let us use his toilet and the porta-potty outside his house. We contacted S & D and let them know that we had to pay someone to fix all their mistakes and that we needed the 50% deposit back. They didn't reply to any contacts so we initiated a chargeback through the credit card company. That whole process was very hard work, S & D fought it all the way, replying with signed statements that made no sense and accused us of not communicating with them. In the end the case was referred to Visa dispute resolution and decided in our favor. In short they were unprofessional, rude, incompetent and aggressive. We had a leaking sewer for a week after their man simply left, knowing that there were problems. We got our money back despite their efforts. It was a 4 month nightmare.

Can't say enough praise for this company. Melvin, their plumber for the job, was superb in finding a water leak in the main water line to the house, which had been leaking for over two days, and which had resulted in quite a bit of water in the lawn. He was able to do some sound probing, but in the end he went by instinct, following the movement of the water in the yard. He was able to find the leak digging less than a 2x3 square feet by about one feet deep, which is remarkable (the proverbial needle in the haystack!!!).

First, S & D's customer service was excellent. Clarisa at the office went out of her way to get me same day service. I had a constant water leak down the slab on the outside of the house. Melvin and the crew arrived and within minutes identified that the hot water line was broken at the slab. They checked every aspect of the house to determine that there were no other leaks. They measured moisture levels throughout to determine how far the leaking had advanced. The hot water line was capped and I was instructed regarding the remaining hot water service throughout the house as the weekend was approaching. Rhonda worked hard with the insurance company to be sure that the extent of the damage was understood and the best option for repair was acceptable. The repair crew came several days later, they were very efficient. The two young men worked as a team, they communicated clearly, explained their work, and showed me the products they were using as they completed the job. Both teams were timely, highly professional, and efficient. Great job S & D plumbing. No wonder you are USAA's first choice. Thank you!

I did not contact provider

AWESOME. I cannot recommend S&D enough. Professional. Affordable. No up-selling. And, my 4 year old wants to know when he is coming back because he was so cool.