Jim Dandy Sewer & Plumbing

Buzz came out yesterday to do the camera inspection and locate, but couldn't get passed the first "T" in the line. He tried a smaller clean out and wasn't able to get anywhere with that one either. So he didn't charge us and came out the next day with the smaller camera. This time he was able to get farther, but still was unable to get all the way through the line. He gave us some suggestions and a video file of what he was able to see. He was kind and very helpful. He put in a call to the excavator to get us a bid on fixing our problems with the sewer. So although we didn't get all the information we were hoping for, we were very pleased with the service we did get.

Yesterday evening around 7pm Jamal from Jim Dandy Sewer & Plumbing knocked on our door and told us that he mistakenly cut our main water line while working for the neighbors. He said that he will be back in 10 minutes to talk to us. I called their office and talked to someone who apologized and told me that they will send one of their emergency crew member (I think Ryan) over. Ryan actually called me and said he will talk to Jamal. I don't know what conversation they had but Ryan neither called me back or would he answer his phone. Another guy named EJ actually called me up and said he is Jamal's supervisor and he cannot reach him. I connected them via my phone. They told me that they don't have the part but will fix it first thing in the morning but they will make sure we have water from the neighbor's hose bib. EJ told me he will be here himself to fix the problem in the morning. Jamal was here till 11pm trying to get us some water from the neighbor's hose. He finally got a trickle running and left ut the water stopped half an hour after he left. In the morning I called them around 7 am and they said they are on their way but the part's store does not open till 8am. Jamal got here around 9 and told me he will fix it in 20 minutes. After 20 minutes he told me "oh, I got the wrong part". I need to go get a new part. Its been three hours since he left. The worst part is that when I finally was able to talk to a manager at Jim Dandy's I got to speak to someone name Larry who was rude and condescending. He says "our subcontractor" broke it but they told us they fixed it. He refused to take any responsibility or to help. I have no idea what do do next? I have not been able to go to work today and now I am wondering whether I am going to have to call another plumbing company and pay this from my own pocket? 18 hours without water and still waiting.

I feel badly I can't remember his name but the technician arrived on time and was very polite and friendly. He was especially respectful of our home wearing shoe bonnets and careful to clean everywhere he worked. I didn't realize at first that he would be working under the sink disconnecting the drain pipes to clean so I hadn't emptied the sink cabinets in advance. I am recovering from knee surgery and he insisted not only to empty the cabinets so he could get in there to work, but then he put everything back in and much neater than when he found it. I was able to get to a couple of the cabinets but he would have insisted on doing those as well. All our drains are running very clear and fast now. I'm sure I could have received similar quality service from other providers but this young man sets the bar very high in terms of customer service and outstanding friendly attitude. Jim Dandy Sewer and Plumbing to be represented by such a quality employee. I highly recommend their service.

I talked to Mel in the office on Friday, 9/12 and explained to him that I had a leaking kitchen faucet and also a leaking master bath toilet. An appointment was made for the following Monday (9/15). Dave arrived 15 minutes early and started work right away. He removed the old faucet, and installed one I had purchased, and then replaced the wax ring and sealed the base of the toilet , all in 1.5 hours labor. We were very pleased by the professional manner and skill shown by Dave (and Mel). My wife was especially pleased that all the old parts and trash were cleaned up and the areas were spotless when Dave left. No one looks forward to plumbing problems, but, when the inevitable happens, I will be calling Jim Dandy.

The company listing on Angie's list shows free estimates, however they charge a fee of $49 plus an hourly rate if they are not selected to do the work. This is not a free estimate.

I couldnt have asked for better service.His name was David and if I use Jim Dandy plumbing again,which I am sure I will, I will definitely ask for him.He was extremely knowledgeable and gave me a lot of interesting information concerning the plumbing of my rental home .Bob in Ballard

Everything went as agreed. The service tech called roughly a half hour before he showed up. He was prompt, professional and got the job done. I'll call this service again if needed.

Had a problem with a bathroom sink that was totally plugged. It would take 10 minutes to drain the sink. I checked the trap, and it was clear. Used Angie's email to schedule an appointment, and it was confirmed by Jim Dandy. No one called or showed up for the first scheduled appointment. When I called, the manager (owner?) was very apologetic. We rescheduled, and the tech called 30 minutes out, showed up promptly, was quite efficient in clearing the bathroom sink drain (who knew that the drain plug itself had a filter that could clog - I didn't before then) and even left a complimentary jug of drain cleaner. Two days later I discovered an outdoor faucet that would not shut off completely (wish I had found it in time for the first service call). I emailed again, they scheduled me for the next working day. The tech showed up, replaced the faucet assembly. Except for the first scheduled appointment glitch and the "Minimum Service Charge" (although it wasn't too bad), I was quite happy with the service, and would happily use them again.

Joe was great. My house was built with a style of valve that is no longer used because they tend to fail. Several of mine have already been replaced by Jim Dandy when they were here for a bathroom and then a kitchen remodel. When another one failed we decided to have the remaining ones changed. Had a small miscommunication problem: I sent a written message through Angies list stating I needed the valves replaced and when Joe arrived, he thought he was replacing faucets. He didn't have the exact parts he needed so some of my sinks have mismatched valves but I am ok with that. He worked quickly and got it all done. I would definitely use them again.

Over all The Workers Did Great Job and Jim Dandy is a fine outstanding Company, the will stand behind their work, and are very friendly, and atttive to theirs customer's needs I would recommend them to anyone who needs a good plumber.

[Update 8/14/14: Received a call from the general manager of Jim Dandy after he read my very critical initial review and had a nice chat about our concerns about the project. Clarified some points/issues and so I have updated/modified the review and grade.] ... First off, this was the 3rd time that we used Jim Dandy in the past year. We went with them based on all the "A" reviews and the effusive praise on Angie's List. The problem is that Angie's List is merchant-centric, so negative reviews get buried and reviews get rounded up and there is no easy way to view negative reviews. ... Okay, so we had a blocked kitchen drainage pipe that was bubbling water outside our kitchen and so we called Jim Dandy. They sent a crew quickly, like within a day or two, which we were pleased with, although they never called 30 minutes before arriving as they said they would. Of course, we find out later that the two guys include an old plumber who likes to chat about nonsense while charging you by the quarter hour and the other guy was a guy whose plumbing experience was 3 months on the job and 5 years working at Lowe's (yes, he told me that twice when I asked him about his background!). The couldn't clear the blockage with an auger so then they accessed the pipe using a scope. ... The problem is that there was a break in the pipe outside the house and so it couldn't get resolved that day (which is fine). The guys were incredibly slow, largely due to the young guy's inexperience (sorry, but working at Lowe's doesn't count) and the old guy's lack of mobility, and both of their inability to think and work in an expedient fashion. This odd couple wasted a lot of time going back and forth to the truck for equipment constantly, and was not helped by the big young guy's difficulty moving around due to his heft and the older guys inability to almost move at all after having had knee replacement surgery recently (yes, he told me a lot about that). ... Anyway, I was not a happy camper after getting a $500+ bill for work that was needlessly long due to the quality of the crew. They called the estimator and he eventually came out and tried to placate the irate customer (me) by offering a modest discount (still paid almost $500 total including tax) which we accepted. They also discounted the proposed next step to repair the broken pipe, but which still ended up amounting to an excessively large total in the end. Our mistake was that we agreed to proceed on with trying to get the drainage pipe repaired. ... So, the next step involved getting another crew to excavate the pipe outside the house, try hydrojetting to clear the blockage (likely due to root infiltration), and to replace a presumed break (from the scope). The first problem was that the crew came several hours later than scheduled (and only after I called to ask where they were). They dug up the pipe in front of the house quickly but were not equipped to hydrojet as they had just been told of the job after 4pm. A day or so later another crew came with the jetter but were not able to clear the blockage with the jetter due to another break being found downstream from the other blockage. ... So the estimator guy came out the next day or so and told me that basically we would need to rip up some trees on the property line between us and our neighbors in order to access and repair the broken pipe beneath. This would involve tearing up concrete as well, which was on the neighbor's property. I contacted the neighbor and obviously they were not too keen about that, and so we got about 3 more estimates from other plumbing companies (that we found on AL). All three of them suggested that we reroute the kitchen pipe through our crawlspace and connect it to a different drainage pipe, thereby avoiding any excavating of the property between the two houses. We went with one company that bid only $1000 for the work to be done and so we went with them since the estimator at Jim Dandy had not returned my email/text in 2 days and I could not wait any longer. Anyway, the work was done by this different company and it works great. ... Overall, we were not happy with the initial (the first team that came out with the Lowe's guy and the chatty old guy) work that was done, the punctuality of the crews (I took time off from work and ended up waiting 4+ hours for the crew to come, and only after calling Jim Dandy who then called a crew to come out), or the excessive cost of the work that we had done. I was not impressed with the communication/organization either, or the fact that we almost underwent what likely would have been a nightmare (tearing up concrete and trees on the neighbor's side of the property line) to repair a pipe when there was a far easier and cheaper solution that did not involve any exterior excavation work. I was impressed with the general manager who did take almost 30 minutes to review the work/project and our concerns about it. He was not defensive at all and is the only reason I've altered this review. --- Still, in the end we paid Jim Dandy over $2500 for work that did not seem to worth the cost. They sent a guy with 3 months experience whose main work experience was working at Lowes and an old guy who was unable to actually do any work himself, and who the estimator acknowledged was sent to train the inexperienced guy. And then they had the gall to charge by the quarter hour for several hours of slow, plodding work by a novice and an old guy who likes to endlessly chit chat. We paid $2000 to dig up a pipe that was not very deep and relatively easy to access (done in less than 30 minutes) and to get <2 hours of hydrojetting. Jim Dandy themselves have a deal for 2 hours of hydrojetting for a little more than a third of what we paid for the hydrojetting plus an easy (I could have done it in less than 30 minutes with a shovel) excavation of a shallow kitchen drainage pipe. Then they suggest a terrible plan (excavating outside between our properties) that we luckily avoided after talking with other plumbing companies, who ended up fixing our problem for a very good price. And most of all, we ended up with no actual repair done, just a very expensive bill from Jim Dandy. ... The bottom line is that I cannot and not ever recommend Jim Dandy to anyone. I always urge people to at the very least get numerous estimates before committing to what could be very expensive work. In my experience, the smaller companies are almost always better. Not just because of the generally lower cost, but because they have smaller crews and they have tighter control on the quality of their staff and how the work actually gets performed.

I called on Saturday morning and someone came out same day without the preposterous weekend rates. The owner is very helpful and straightforward and the employee who did the work very professional. I chose Jim Dandy because after calls to several business, I felt their pricing system (and ethics) to be the most fair. Last year I had the same sewer problem but used a different outfit (unfortunately) and never had a good feeling about that one. Since my house has the standard old Seattle plumbing issues I'm sure I'll have need for more plumbing work. I'm happy to say I've found a plumber that I will be comfortable calling again when the time comes.

They were great, fast and nice to work with. They also fixed another drain issue without us even asking.

Unfortunately, they turned the water off to 13 condo units without warning.

They did such a great job. They were extremely responsive. The job could have been approaching $20,000 because it included a connection with the city’s sewer main under the street. They coordinated with the city and the city ended up paying for $12,000. There was an unexpected change with the city’s schedule which changed the scope of the work a little bit from what had originally been planned on our side of the property. So they ended up having to do a little more work than they had originally anticipated. For that work basically they charged us the cost or it would have cost us half otherwise.

They canceled on me once, but after that everything went VERY well.

They did all eight drains in the package. The hardest was our kitchen sink, which they did four times. After being away for business I came back and the kitchen sink was still running slow. I mentioned to them and they said they fully backup up their work at no charge...they came back first thing the next morning and nailed it...this is the ultimate service...and they are so nice, and professional!

Extremely responsive; came out exactly when they said they would; Sam even called about 30 minutes out to make sure I knew he was coming; had exactly what I needed with him; was done within the hour and I even added an extra side-project for him to do. Loved these guys and will use them again!

Jim Dandy was a great company to work with as far as punctuality, technician skill level, and work performed. After the technician looked at two side by side sink drains that were very slow draining, it was obvious that I did not need a whole house drain clean as the drain lines couldn't have been cleaner. I'm a single female home owner, so handy man repairs are beyond my knowledge level, and because both master bathroom sink drains and the toilet were acting up, I assumed in error that the whole house drain cleaning special would be a good idea (even though I talked extensively with a customer service rep at Jim Dandy who seemed assured that this would fix my problem). However, the stoppers of these two sinks simply needed to be adjusted. This assessment, by the way, took 15 minutes. The toilet in the same bathroom as the 2 side by side bathroom sinks had been acting up for quite some time, and after the technician auger'd the toilet line, came to the conclusion that it was not a drain issue, but that I needed a new toilet. He wrote me a new invoice for $335.07, and said to contact Angie's list for a refund for the "big deal" I had purchased since they had not performed that service. After nearly a month of Angie's list telling me to contact Jim Dandy, and Jim Dandy telling me to contact Angie's list for refund - I have no other solution than to have Jim Dandy refund me for the unused portion of the "Bid Deal" that I had purchased, minus 15% that Angie's list takes, which works out to be about $100 loss. What is so completely frustrating, is that I ended up spending $419.90 to basically be told I need a new toilet and adjust the level of my 2 sink stoppers (which were stuck in a slow draining position)... and then have to spend $350 to purchase and have a new toilet installed. I WILL NEVER PURCHASE A BID DEAL FROM ANGIE'S LIST AGAIN! BUYER BEWARE - lesson learned the hard way for a single/female/struggling homeowner who was easily duped as I have no idea how to fix plumbing issues. SO FRUSTRATING that it was such a huge ordeal to recoup any kind of a refund and had been trying to work something out with both parties for a month!

Joe Hicks from Jim Dandy Plumbing arrived at the estimated time or even a bit earlier. He was very professional and helpful and quickly identified what the various problems were. There was initially a bit of trouble in shutting off the water supply since the valve inside would not shut off the water adequately and it was impossible to shut off the valve at the street meter. It looked like it would be necessary to have the Seattle Water Utility come out and replace the meter. The Utility person came out amazingly fast (about 10 minutes after I called) and was able to shut off the valve. Joe, who at that time was packing up to leave and had made an appointment for 5 days later, agreed to stay and get the work done. Joe was able to quickly remove the toilet, remove the item stopping the toilet and replace the toilet. He then made the two other repairs quickly and professionally, leaving the drain in much better shape and stopping the leak in the kitchen sink. All of the work done and the delay because of the problem in shutting off the water took more time than we originally thought but the charge was for the actual work on the repair. We can't speak highly enough about the work done by Joe.

He had good reviews that made us go with him. They were prompt, they were good at explaining what they were doing and how to prevent any future issues, and also they were careful in what they doing in not damaging or scratching the tub while they were snaking. Their price was fair.

Here's the followup after I submitted the below issue Owner Bob contacted me to take care of the issue. He reviewed my case thoroughly understood the communication gap that led to additional charges. He has agreed to reduce the additional charges and resolve the issues. Thanks Bob. Thumbs up for your personal attention. -------------- Few weeks ago, I had an issue with my shower. After calling few places, I ended up choosing Jim Dandy since they were the one available next day. Due to insufficient information they gathered, the guy kept calling my phone number (which was switched off during meetings), instead of my wife's number who stayed home mainly to take care of this. We called again to check on them and finally showed up the next day. He said he had to purchase some parts to fix the issue. Finally on 3rd day, he fixed the faucet. But for a part that cost $30, the final amount I paid was $530.00. That is right, feaking five hundred dollars for a faucet. We had a similar issue and got it fixed last year for $80 bucks through a different company. They actually gave us one year warranty. Jim Dandy charged more than $500 and gave only 6 months warranty for their work :( Extremely disappointed and will not go to them nor will I recommend them to anyone. Also many places do not have service fee just for showing up. But Jim Dandy charges 50, just for consultation. He also charged me 32 bucks for parking, more than 5 times the amount he paid. When asked, he simply, that how it is..

Scheduled on Monday for a Wednesday appointment. One of my toilets was having a problem flushing and I thought I had an obstruction in the drain pipe somewhere. Carl called before my appointment, and was actually early, which never has happened to me. I was coming from work, so he had to wait for my arrival. Not a problem. I explained the issue and Carl went to work to check it out. Had problems getting a camera thru my pipes due to some angle problems. But he kept at it and was able to get it down. We inspected the drains all the way to the street, and they looked good. He then flipped the toilet over and discovered the issue. Something that should have not been flushed down the toilet had been. Which caused a partial blockage. This was not pleasant,and I was glad I was paying someone else to deal with this situation. Carl earned his money on this job. Big time. In fact, this guy deserves a raise. Thanks

Averi showed up quickly and was very efficient and fast about getting it resolved. Cleaned up everything nicely when done. He was very professional and the price was fine. Would call them again

Very well. Technician was thorough ,helpful,honest & cleaned up well.