Jim Dandy Sewer & Plumbing

Kenny came out on time and quickly dealt with the issue in about 20 minutes. He also did an excellent job of cleaning up the work area, so that there was no trace of the messy work he had to do.

The job took a few more days that originally estimated due to a hiccup in scheduling the final inspection. But otherwise it went as expected.

When I called I was able to schedule an appointment for the next day. Kenny the technician called to let me know when he was on his way. He was polite, efficient, and took care not to damage my emerging tulip and crocus bulbs.

Problem solved. Cleaned up the area - wouldn't even know there was an issue before.

My basement is leaking from a likely broken take-away pipe. These guys come out, snake the pipe, then told me to call a plumber. ***? Worthless. However, they did charge me just $50 to show up.

- Had fair pricing even on weekend - Scheduling service was very efficient (no need to wait for callback, knew calendar right away) - Technician arrived very promptly - Technician was very courteous - Technician used least invasive way to fix issue, saving me time and money. - Technician also looked at other misc. issues on site for no fee

Our kitchen sink drain was completely clogged on Friday evening. One of our friends recommended Jim Dandy to us. Called them Saturday morning. The receptionist was very friendly. Made an appointment for 3pm-5pm. The technician Skylar came right on time. He inspected the pipe and decided the clog happened in the main pipe. He brought in the 80 feet long drain auger. After one round, he pulled out a lot of grease and told me that was the cause of the clog. He ran the hot water for 5 minutes to flush out the grease and make sure everything worked well. He also shared some tips with me how to prevent building up grease in the pipe. We are pretty happy about how punctual and efficiently Skylar did his job and will definitely recommend Jim Dandy to our friends.

This is a second rating for services performed at the end of October 2016. The first time through, the plumber installed a PRV incorrectly and in the house instead of the yard near the water main. Worse, he cut a hole in our wall to do it. Later, after we complained about the job, a second plumber came out and installed the PRV correctly and in the right place. Jim Dandy also sent a wall repair company out to patch the hole in the wall, at their expense. How to rate a company like this? On the one hand it was a terrible job, but they made good on it finally. I want to give them an "A" for finally doing it right, but I don't have the courage to hire them again, sorry.

I have mix feeling. On one hand, Kai was very professional, courteous and a really hard worker, but he seems fairly new. He tried first to unclog accessing from the baffles of the septic system per the recommendation of his supervisor via FaceTime. Unfortunately that took two billed hours. Later he went via an access point for the sewer and snake it on less than 30 mins. At the end he fixed the problem, however felt that the initial digging of the septic was a bit unnecessarily and we end up paying for.

Sam and his assistant Christian called ahead on the day of the appointment, and informed me thy were running ahead, and asked if they could come by earlier, to which I heartily agreed. Upon arrival, Sam told me he'd done work at our house in the past (he even remembered what the repair was for - I had no recollection). They explained the fee structure (which I had received when making the appointment). The work was straight forward, and was completed within an hour to my immense satisfaction. Sam was very professional, and I'd hire Jim Dandy again (though, I in fact did hire again - just didn't realize it. Suggestion - it would behoove them to send periodic emails to make sure I keep Jim Dandy top of mind.

When you low crawling on your back, it takes an while, about five hours. That is why he gets A's all across the board.

The tenant royally screwed up both bathrooms. We had to even replaced house siding in it. They had managed to rip the whole in the bathtub, and had not said anything about it, and everything rotted. They chipped the porcelain coating, and rusted the bathtub. This property is an financial lost, for the next decade. Jim Dandy did an great job, he found out the problem, he turned off the water, and let us know what the problem was. He pointed out the problem, and charged only for the consultation fee.

I had Jim Dandy come out to give me an estimate on the plumbing work required to split my bathroom into 2 smaller bathrooms. I never ended up getting the estimate. Michael came out, looked at the bathroom, entered the crawlspace, and informed me he'd have an estimate in 2 days. A week later I still haven't received the estimate, so I call asking for an update. They assure me it will be done by the following morning. Several days later I still haven't received it, and call again. Again, they assure me the estimate will be done tomorrow. Repeat two more times. I still don't have an estimate.

It went ok. The technician was able to come in with short notice and do the service on the MLK holiday. He fixed the hot water problem in the bathroom. We hired Jim Dandy (company) because our regular plumber was not available. It was pricey for the service we received. We are going back to our regular plumber and probably won't hire this company again.

I don't think I will be using Jim Dandy again. Scheduled them to clean the sewer pipes, followed by a complimentary scope at a later date. The tech who initially ran the cable through for cleaning left the area by the pipes in my basement an absolute brown mess (and given the kinds of work being done, you can imagine what that mess was made of, eugh). Second tech was by for a scope a few days later and he was much more professional and apologetic for the mess that had been left (and informed me that my job had been that gentleman's last gig on his last day with the company). Kind of a bummer.

I went under the house and I looked over to the side and over there was like a puddle of water and I went, "Oh my," and I could see the water coming out of the pipe. I was looking up, trying to find a plumber that had some decent reviews and I happened to find them. I called them and they came out the next day. The guy came out, he went under the house, he looked at it and he said, "Oh, I can't fix this. I'm going to have to have somebody else come in and fix it." I went, "Okay," He goes, "Well, they told me that you needed to have a camera put down," I said, "No, I told them I had a leak, that there was water coming under the house." They assumed that it was from the sewer and I said, "No, that's not what I said." The guy wasn't the nicest that I talked to, when I first talked to them. Anyway, this guy was fairly young and he said, "Well, I don't have the equipment to fix this. So I'm going to have to get somebody else in here." I went, "Oh good grace." He called this other guy that does whatever and fixes the pipes. They called him and he came in two days later. He goes under the house and he says, "Well, I'll see what I can do and try to put it together." What he did was, he went down and he cut a chunk of the pipe out and then he replaced it with a clamp. There was no gasket fittings on the clamp, which there should have been because it needed to have some pressure and not hard pressure. He started tightening and put them on and then he said, "Oh great," and I said, "What?" I couldn't get over there because you have to crawl on your hands and knees to get to where it was. I was taking his word for it. He said, "This isn't going to work, it's bending the pipe," and I went, "Oh great." It's copper pipe. He explained to me that, "Well, we're going to have to dig under your house here, under the sidewalk and dig that out so that we can get to this because we can't get into that part unless we dig under your house," and I went, "Oh, okay. So, what does this going to entail?" Then he said, "Well, we'll have to write it up" The guy was supposed to come out again two days later or over the weekend, whatever it was. They set the appointment. I called my neighbor because I remembered something about him going to school at this point in time and he is working for a big plumber and I decided to ask him if he would come over and take a look at it. He said, "Sure." He gets under the house and he is looking at it and he goes, "Well, I hate to tell you, but he has got the wrong type of pipe on there, he has got the wrong type of clamp." It wasn't the pipe that bent. He brought the clamp upstairs and looking at it, it was the clamp that had bent and that's what was causing it to leak more. There was no reason for them to come out and dig this up, to replace it. It was just that he used the wrong stuff to fix it and it wasn't fixed. It still was leaking. So that's when he told me that it had to be dug up and replaced, the whole thing. My neighbor came over, he had to go over to his boss's house, got the right pieces, the right pipe that had to be on it and the rubber clamps and there was no leaks and there hasn't been since then. So, as far as I'm concerned, he has probably saved us a few thousand dollars from having to rip up our yard here. They were nice enough, but it was not very competent in the job that they did at all. It was ridiculous, so I wasn't happy at all with them.

The technician was very professional and courteous. Did his job well.

Having to get a new sewer is never fun but Austin and the guys at Jim Dandy made it as painless as possible. I just bought my house and before I even moved in I knew I had to get new sewer. I got 3 bids and JD was the lowest cost but it wasn't just price that swayed me. They performed a free sewer scope just to confirm issues and Austin was thorough explaining my options. Once project got started, we realized that my sewer line was connected w my neighbors. Austin went the extra mile working with my neighbor to help split costs of sewer repair in shared area and my neighbor went ahead and repaired his sewer also. It doesn't hurt that I bought a house next to the best neighbor ever.!!! The crew worked so hard in rainy weather, they were respectful, replaced my sewer and my neighbors, cleaned up, repaired concrete and replanted grass seed. If you have to replace or repair a sewer I highly recommend Jim Dandy.

I called a few other plumbers prior to this, most were pretty rude, didn't have availability until at least 4 days out and seemed eager to hang up. Not a way to get business! Jim Dandy seemed to have a call center, and the person who took my call was friendly and could get us set up with an appointment the next day. We had the appointment set up for Sunday between 3-5 PM. Around 4:30, I got a call from the plumber saying he was running late from his previous service and would be showing up around 5:20. I appreciate the fact that he called to relay this, and it was not a big deal because we didn't have anything going on, but late is late. He was friendly enough and introduced himself, came in and took a look and went out to get the power snake. After a little effort he was able to remove the clog and explain his process as he went. He started to inform me about enzyme cleaners that will treat grease and hair in the pipes which seemed useful to know. He also kept saying without this treatment there will be constant clogs in the future. I am pretty skeptical about these statements and products, especially during a service. After researching it later, the price for the cleaner was about 2-3x what it would be at the local big box store. He did not push the sale further after I declined. Aside from that he cleaned up the tub and tiles of any water or dirt from the process. To follow up on his work he also had the shower faucet run for a minute or two while he looked at the pipes from the crawl space to verify that he hadn't caused a leak. This is an important part of servicing. Then I got the bill, which was quite a bit higher than I had expected, I think originally it was about $275 and after a 10% off coupon came out around $250. I also never received a receipt that was supposed to be emailed to me, this must have been due to a typo. On the way out he was asking about the age of the house to understand the condition of the pipes. After learning the house is from the 1950's he reiterated that this will happen again in the future without proper servicing or without a repipe. I can understand there is some truth to the statement but there is also a bit of fear mongering and up selling going on. I think there are always better ways to express information as.. well.. information and to provide a choice rather than to imply "call us in a few months because you will need us". Overall the experience was good, but I think there was a little too much up selling going on for me to try them again. I also need to get better with the plumbing snake!

The replacement went OK but there were three problems: 1) After the valve was replaced, the plumber did not check to see if there was enough flow in our faucets (a 30-second job) nor use a meter (which we'd assume a plumber would have) to verify the pressure. When I called later on to ask about the lack of pressure, the plumber suggested that I try adjusting it myself and that I should buy a pressure meter to check. He did not offer to come out and test or adjust it for me. 2) The office staff needs training. They seem not to know much about who or what is going on in the company. This seems to be a training/communication issue which the company should handle. 3) They mis-billed us; to their credit, they caught it, corrected and apologized, but it should not have happened in the first place.

It pains me to write such a negative review, because I have used this company at least three times before and only very positive experiences plus I have recommended them numerous times. I have nothing but nice things to say about the crews actually doing the work. They were unfailing polite and happy to explain to me what was going on and they worked very hard. I am, however, seriously displeased with the absence and poor quality of communications from whoever is supposed to be supervising the job and also with the companies internal communications. Here are some of the problems I have experienced. The work was arranged for the beginning of October (I needed to wait until fall to lift all the plants in the way and to get a new roof), yet the job supervisor called to say that the crew was on their way the morning of August 4th. My street wasn’t even accessible because of SeaFair, no locate had been done, and the yard wasn’t ready. I called the office to reschedule for October 10th. I also sent an email confirming the date and reminding the need for a locate since I have underground power and they would be working over my water line. Called the week of October 3rd to confirm the date and to say that a locate hadn’t been done yet. Called the Thursday before the start date and learned that the start date had been changed to the 11th. I reminded the new site supervisor that a locate was still needed. He said he would call for one right away. When the crew arrived on Tuesday the 11th, they said they were waiting for the site supervisor, whom they expected to be there in minutes. When I pointed out that a) no locate had been done and b) I have underground utilities including power they called for an emergency locate. They couldn’t start work until the locate was completed and the site supervisor arrived much later in the morning with the camera. It was a good thing I stayed home that day because the only access point to the sewer is inside in my basement, something that first site supervisor knew, though it was never suggested that I should be home. I left the crew with my phone number with a plea to call me if they had any questions. On the 14th, I discovered that my phone/internet line was out and I called CenturyLink and they sent a repair technician out on the next day. He pinpointed the problem to the line having been damaged in one of the trenches. I immediately called and left a message for the site supervisor and explained the problem when he called back. He first told me that there were no locate marks for the phone line and I told them that wasn’t true because I had asked the guys had pointed out the cable to me and where the locate marks were before they had been buried with excavated soil. I asked the site supervisor to contact Century Link ASAP to get it repaired and he said he would. On the 18th the site supervisor called me to say that there was no longer a permit in place at the city and that he had been told that the homeowner had put a “stop work” on it. I told him I had done no such thing. I used to work for that city department, so I am very familiar with the permit process. Fortunately he was able to get a new permit. I contacted the city and found out that someone from Jim Dandy had cancelled the permit on August 31st and requested a refund. I have no idea why that was done, because the original permit was good until 12/10/2016. I called CenturyLink on October 20th to find out the status of the repair and found out that 1) nobody from Jim Dandy had contacted them and 2) the repair was scheduled for the 31st. No amount of pleading would get them out sooner. I asked the crew to please tell their supervisor to call CenturyLink to get the repair done so they could finish the job. Before one of the holes was filled, I noticed that the abandoned downspout line had been connected, which I had specifically requested that it not be the week before, because that was one of the major sources of the line blockage from the rat holes. The line then had to be cut and capped. The guys said that they wondered if they should connect it but didn’t check with me or the supervisor, despite having my phone number. I haven’t even mentioned that a weld failed on the pipe as it was being inserted, but I understand that mistakes happen and that accounts for the extra days of work to locate and repair it. The more senior crew person told me that he should have better trained the less experienced guy on what to look for as it was going in and that would have prevented the problem. It was made even worse by the torrential rain they had to work in and the difficulty in finding a camera to locate the problem. I was without my phone/internet for 2 weeks, my front yard walkway was still torn up and the sidewalk closed when I finally sent an email to the general manager describing the problem and requesting as schedule for resolution. I never got a response, but the hole was filled in and the pavers partially reset and they sent the final invoice. I called the office and pointed out that they had charged me too much for the city permit and that I had a copy of the permit in my hand. I was told they would correct that on the final invoice. In the meantime, I paid $5,000 towards the balance, the remainder due. I contacted the crew leader on November 14th and inquired about my front walkway because I had received the final invoice but the work wasn't complete. (The permit fee on the invoice had not been corrected) He said that it was finished and asked me if there was a problem. I said yes there was: •The soil hadn't been compacted. I had specifically asked the previous crew leader about this and he said a gas powered compacter would be used. He also assured me that the pavers would be reset as good as new. •Insufficient paver base was used. •The walk is dished and there is 1" drop between the old and the new. This presents a significant trip hazard. •The pavers are not set and are very wobbly. No paving sand was applied. •Two of the pavers were not put in, leaving a 4" gap between the walkway and sidewalk. •The edging strip wasn't replaced. My neighbor's office window looks directly across the street and he watched the whole process. He said a guy just came and kicked around the gravel with his feet, put the pavers down, and then threw the edging strip in his truck before he drove away. I asked the supervisor if he was going to fix it or if I should hire the original landscaper do redo it and he said he would take care of it. I sent him pictures of the problem. I emailed the company on November 21 to point out that a week later no work has been done nor have I had any communication from the company and that I am going to engage the landscaper to properly reset the pavers and deduct the cost from my remaining balance. I did get my sewer repaired and am moderately confident that they did a good job of that, however the process has been inexcusably bad and I still have to get my walkway repaired. This 5-day job is going on a month and a half and is still not done. It didn't help that the crews would disappear for days at a time with no notice to me, leaving my front door and mailbox inaccessible for almost a month.

The Jim Dandy Sewer & Plumbing team was professional and courteous. They completed the project ahead of schedule and exactly on budget. They even helped me file a claim for financial reimbursement of the project. Thank you Jim Dandy Plumbing & Sewer for an excellent job !!!

did a great job and didn't waste any time

Both plumbers were professional and courteous and got the job done to our satisfaction. If I needed plumbing again, I would consider them, but might call a couple of others first especially if it occurred on a weekend.

We had the intitial assessment and consultation but have yet to define the scope of work with pricing. No repairs have been performed yet.