J. Blanton Plumbing, Sewer & Drain

Nick came in to service a gas leak. He was very thorough and talked my tenant and I through all the steps and what he was doing. He was very professional with his services and explained in details wha was needed. Highly recommend him.

Shout out to Ronnie Levandowski who has guided us through several initial assessments in order to address plumbing repairs and improvements. He is friendly, polite, attentive and thorough. He shares his decision making about next steps which allows him to offers honest and appropriate options. Highly recommend Ronnie for your plumbing needs

Edgar showed up on time and ready to work... Great, personal guy who knew his stuff. Estimated I had approx. 30' clog from my sink, had it rooted out and done within 20 min. Excellent work. -Jon

Over-priced, dishonest, and unresponsive. Worst experience I have ever had with a company. TLDR: J. Blanton charged $2200 for 1 hour of work (by 1 plumber) to unclog and change the PVC piping under our kitchen sink. Multiple callbacks promised to discuss the charge were not received. A partial refund was ultimately provided - much smaller than requested or fair. Full story: Our sink and dishwasher had been backing up, and the J. Blanton employee (Lawrence) who came out to provide a quote made it sound like the repair would be a complex, 4-hour job. They required a 50% downpayment up front, and the work was done 2 days later. After seeing that it took only 1 hour, I requested a call from a manager to discuss the unreasonable quote. I was never called before my credit card was charged for the full amount, and I had to call more than once before I heard back from Damien, "the customer service person" (according to the phone receptionist). I asked if he thought the charge was reasonable, and he insisted that it was, since it was "a flat rate based on the job, not the time required." I requested a partial refund of ~$1800, and Damien said he would discuss this with someone else and call me back. He never called back, though. The next time I called, the receptionist told me they would provide a $336.85 "courtesy refund." I asked for another call from Damien and was told he would call, but once again, he didn't. I simply received an email with the final invoice (attached).

Absolutely horrible experience. They convinced us to sign up for an annual membership which supposedly includes 24/7 coverage. As part of it they suggested an annual check-up (we did not have any issues with plumbing). The guy who came in was completely incompetent and broke our water heater which started leaking after his departure. We called that night for an emergency appointment as we were worried that the basement would get flooded and they said they didn't have anyone available until the next day. Considering that the issue was created by their plumber this is completely unacceptable. during the visit I asked him to replace a valve on a drinking water filter and his response was "this is above my pay grade", which should have been a red flag. They basically send incompetent sales people to your house who try to upsell you on some new work and actually create problems that didn't exist. Stay away! We were persuaded to sign up for an annual membership advertised during one of their visits which supposedly includes 24/7 emergency coverage. Despite having no existing plumbing issues J Blanton reached out and recommend an annual check-up as part of the membership. During the check-up their technician demonstrated a complete lack of competence and caused our water heater to break, resulting in a leak that began immediately after he left. As soon as we we noticed water in the basement we called them and asked to come out right away. When we called for emergency service we were told no one was available until the following day despite the fact that their technician caused the issue. This directly contradicts their 24/7 coverage claims and is entirely unacceptable under any circumstances, let alone when the damage was of their making. During the visit, I also asked the technician to look at something in the kitchen and his response was, "That's above my pay grade." That comment alone should have been the warning sign. This company appears to send unqualified, sales-driven technicians into homes to upsell unnecessary services while creating problems that did not previously exist. The result was damage, stress, and zero accountability. Avoid this company. They are incompetent, misleading, and irresponsible

If I could give J. Blanton zero stars, or negative stars, I would. 100% stay away. Back in february our hot water heater went out and it was 14 years old. The previous owners of our home had the system set up to where the HWH supplied both potable hot water and ambient heat hot water, so it ran the water to the baseboard heaters, the radiators, and the radiant floors in the house. We had only lived in the house for five months when this happened. My husband was also out on military training, so it was just my young daughter and I in a very cold house trying to navigate how to handle this. We aren't from Chicago-we're from the south and only have experience with forced air heat. We called J. Blanton hoping they could fix the water heater. The sales person made it seem like it would be very hard to get the part to fix it and unlikely to work and convinced me we probably just needed to get a new one. But then he said that we actually needed to get TWO tankless water heaters-one for potable and one for radiant heat as using one wouldn't be code. He said this would cost around 14-15k. I asked about the potential of something that COULD do both and he said that would be a combiboiler and claimed it would cost me 27k to put one in, so we signed off on the 14-15k. I was in contact with my husband the whole time but again, he was away on military orders so I was trying to handle it, get our heat back on quickly. The sales person also said that we would have to have HVAC come and finish the job for us and it would be simple-they just had to purge the lines and then we'd be good to go. He said this was a perfectly normal way of doing things So they come and install two Navien tankless. Then I get an HVAC company out and they say that not only can they not finish the job, but that a tankless water heater cannot be used for ambient heat and we need to have a boiler installed instead. I called J. Blanton back and told them this and to their very small credit, they said they would fix it. They came back that day and installed.....a combiboiler. The thing they told me would cost 27k. Now I have a really hard time believing they just gave me 12k of equipment for free, but at the time I didn't realize they had even installed a combi boiler or I would have raised hell over this issue then. So we called the HVAC company back out and they said that they wouldn't finish another contractors job and they don't know anyone who would, that this is NOT the normal way to do things. I called a friend slightly panicked and they said they knew someone who would finish it for us. So we had another HVAC company come out who said normally they wouldn't do this sort of thing but because they're friends of friends they'd do it, and they hated that we had been without heat AT THIS POINT FOR FIVE DAYS. In February. In Chicago. They also were the ones who told me that a) they had installed a combi boiler with the potable side capped off, why didn't they just use the combi boiler for everything b) in no universe would the combiboiler they installed cost 27k but would have likely saved us time and money just to do this combi boiler and c) they didn't even install it correctly, so they had to redo some of the PLUMBING that this PLUMBING COMPANY did. It cost us an additional 2k to get our system up and running but we were so grateful to this HVAC company and will be lifelong customers because they worked for two days to get us up and running. The owner of the HVAC company actually called J Blanton to give them a piece of their mind, saying that J Blanton makes all contractors look bad and that people like them are the reason why people don't trust contractors. Then they called me and advised me to ask for some form of restitution because we got absolutely screwed over, and while my husband was away with the air force to boot. We have called and called and called. J Blanton always says they're going to talk to a higher manager and call us back within 2-3 days, but we never get a call, ever. They had the audacity today to try to call and sell me a bathroom remodel-are you kidding me? No way in hell will I EVER trust them again, I will tell everyone I know not to use them, and we're filing a veterans attorney general complaint against them at this point. We have given them every opportunity to try to make this right. We're not even asking for all our money back which is what one retired plumber advised us to do-just a portion to make up for the fact that they totally lied to us, ripped us off, and forced us to spend thousands more with another company to finish their job.

Fool me once shame on me, fool me several times, then I am the fool! I have lived in a high rise in a Chicago (Edgewater) building for over 7 years. I found J. Blanton Plumbing from the recommendation of our condos management. We have used them for most all of our plumbing services. Each time we have used them, the job was incomplete or done incorrectly. We had a service preformed to make our plumbing more accessible for us to use. (The building is over 50 years old). The first Blanton technician said the plumbing under our sink is all wrong. So we asked him to correct it for us. He created an octopus for plumbing that he said would make our water shut off much easier. I can not exactly remember what he needed to complete the job, he said he would be back to correct the missing component. (The plumbing did work without the item he was going to bring back). I called them back in about a week, and they said they would send him back out. They sent a different technician, he looked at our problem and stated the whoever did this plumbing did it all wrong. Naturally, I responded the company you work for did it. I put in an electric Hot Water on Demand. It wasn't working properly. They sent out yet a different technician and he spent several hours just to let us know that we need a new circuit board. The circuit board would take about 2 month's to get from Germany. I decided to purchase another on demand water heater so I would not be without hot water for the next many weeks. Blanton also installed it. It was a very short time before it stopped working properly. i called them back again to check it out. He said the one of the electric heating components was not working. I have never yet replaced it, but with careful adjusting of the sink and shower control's we do get hot water. I decided that we would never use them again. But I did. I received a call from Blanton that our water heater needed to be serviced which included flushing it out. A technician came out and also criticized the the way the plumbing was laid out. It also took a several hours to have it serviced. I wasn't completely happy with that visit either, and like all the other services calls, the cost was much higher than what i was told. I once again said that I would never use them again. But guess what? They have been contacting me for another annual service on my water heater. (I understand that a Hot Water on demand should be serviced annually). Due to my busy schedule, I gave in on one of their recent calls and scheduled an appointment for service. I had an appointment set for last week, they called the night before and said that they needed to reschedule. They had an opening for today Monday May/13, 2024. I received a call this morning that they will not be able to keep the appointment today and wanted me to reschedule. I refused, I told they that I took off last week and today for service. I told them that I have said that I would not use their services any longer. Very unreliable, each technician criticized Blanyton's other technicians work, and very overpriced.

Our 97 year old sewer line needs some love, but it's not an emergency situation, as everything is working fine and we'd just had the sewer rodded. I'd also already had another plumbing company come out to scope the line, provide an assessment, make a recommendation as to scope of work and bid the job. Having received one of those many J Blanton direct mail pieces touting their sewer services, we figured we'd have them come out and give a second opinion as to the scope of work and provide a quote for us to consider. The plumber who came out was professional, competent, and pleasant to deal with. The company, anything but. The price quoted to reline the sewer was very much on the high side, but not completely outside the range of what one might expect in Chicagoland. I told the plumber my wife and I would talk things over, consider our options, and thanked him for coming out. And then the onslaught began. The next morning, my wife received a phone call pushing her to commit to the project. I also received 2 phone calls, a voicemail, a text message, and an email, all pushing me to book the job with shady, high-pressure sales / scare tactics. My sewer was "at risk of backing up" and we could have "overflowing and costly damage to our property." They were "fully booked" but if I acted fast they could "still help me" because they "luckily [had] a spot available" if I committed quickly. On the morning of day two my wife received more text messages from multiple people, and I was contacted again as well, before she finally responded to tell them that the high-pressure sales tactics were a huge turn-off and the volume of phone calls, texts, and emails was bordering on harassment. All told, we collectively were contacted 11 times within 48 hours of the initial service call pushing us to commit. Conversely, the other plumbing company sent me one follow-up email four days after their service call simply asking if I had any questions or wanted to discuss the quote / project further. Notice a difference? Maybe these high-pressure tactics work on folks who don't understand their plumbing situation, or are in an emergency and over a barrel. It's a shame, I guess, because the plumber seemed good and I imagine their technicians would have done a competent job with the actual sewer relining itself. But I had no interest in working with this company on the project (and paying top dollar to boot) after seeing how they go about generating business and being relentlessly deluged with pushy phone calls, texts, and emails.

I requested J Blanton Plumbing to come assess and fix a stain on a ceiling in our home. They provided a verbal quote of $330, which we agreed to. After cutting a whole in the ceiling, they came back and stated the cost for the diagnostic would be $1,500 stating they had to cut 1/4 of the ceiling out. I had to pay before they would proceed so I had to charge on my cc. I told them it was a building issue so the building association would pay and I would prefer to give them a check from the building. They wouldn't start the work until I paid so I paid on my cc and they said if I got a check they could reverse the credit card charge. ***they never made the initial cut into the drywall an larger, they did cut two additional small holes for diagnostic. We were in a bind and the ceiling was opened so we agreed as they confirmed we could apply the diagnosic to the cost of repairs. They assessed and provided a verbal quote of services for $4,200. I confirmed they would apply the $1,500 to the cost - they said it was too big of a job to do that? So they verbally quoted me $5,700 for total job. I had no written documents at this time so they sent me an estimate via email. the estimate referenced cutting the ceiling and the plumbing work for $5,700. I agreed. I was able to get a check from the Association and for the $5,700 and they stated they would credit my card - it would take 7 days for it to reverse. Long story short, they completed the work, and never sent me an invoice until I had to call several times. When I recieved invoice it was $1,500 more then the estimate I had signed at the time of service. The invoice number on the one sent several days later and on the estimate recieved on the day of service have the same invoice number. How does an invoice get bigger? They are now refusing to refund my credit card. Get everything in writing and do not pay in advance with this group. They have been the worst to deal with with no one calling back. The one saving grace was the actual plumber who fixed the pipe did a good job. It's very unethical and a double version of switch and bait. There were two of us who were present for all the conversations. There are too many places that offer these services to deal with unethical business practices like this. Don't bother with them. It's an expensive headache. Do not use this firm!

My experience with J. Blanton Plumbing is similar to other reviewers here. I began working with them less than two years ago when I lived in an old building and we had a burst pipe. The technician was great, very professional and put in a lot of work to defrost our pipes and replace the damaged unit. In the end it cost around $1000 which I consider to be fair given his professionialism, attention to detail, and quality of work. He also reccomended the companies no drip club for free water testing and other assessmnets. This seemed to be a useful service early on. Since then things have changed dramatically. We moved into a new house that is nicer than our old one and though it is not far from our old place the neigborhood sppears to be much nicer. Initially, we had a few small jobs for J. Blanton and when the tech came he deployed the familiar scare tactics and outrageously high quotes. We wanted to replace two of our showerheads, tub spouts, and cartidges. Pretty routine stuff. He quoted us a total of $5000 for both. It is unbelievable to me that they had previously charged us around $1000 for a defrost and burst pipe repair that first time. We passed on the $5000 replacment and got another plumber to do it for $400. We have had no issues with it in the months since. More recently, we decided to use our 'No Drip Club' membership to get an evaluation of the plumbing and water systems at our new home now that we are settled in. Once again, we given quotes in the thousands of dollars for small jobs, some of which did not even seem to exist until their tech showed up and started messing with our stuff. For example, all of our toilets wall connections were leaking onto the floor. As homeowners we pay close attention to these things and never once noticed a problem. And of course, the tech claimed they all have to be replaced. Anyway, I do not find them to be a trustworthy company operating in good faith. It seems they base their pricing on their perception of their clients wealth rather than actual cost of labor and supplies. Definitly get multiple quotes and second opinions from other companies before working with J. Blanton.

The expansion tank for our hot water heater got a pinhole leak in the middle of the day. Seemed to be due to some corrosion. The system is about 20 yrs old so the whole unit was coming up on end of life. We called J. Blanton as they were the first plumber that popped up on a search. Shoutout to sponsored ads, I guess. It was the middle of a busy work day and we just needed a solution fast. J. Blanton came within 2 hours as they had some service folks in the area. Within minutes of arriving, the lead crew member went straight into fear mongering, pressuring, and upsell pitch mode: "The whole unit could go at any minute." "It's probably best to just replace the whole thing now." "The whole unit is probably shot." "We'll give you half off on the expansion tank repair if you replace the whole thing." At that moment we just needed to get it resolved and get on with the day. In reality, we had two options: replace the expansion tank and check if the whole unit was functioning OR replace the whole thing. We just agreed to replace the whole thing to get everything wrapped up before having to pick the kids up from school. Their approach left a bad taste in my mouth. Turns out they charged us 30-40% more than this service should've cost had we searched around for a few quotes and read some reviews. Upon reflection, we could have replaced the expansion tank first, and called around for some quotes for a better price. Additionally, they didn't offer any onboarding about how the new system worked. Lastly, they left a hole in the wall that we didn't notice until they'd left. It doesn't seem necessary and if it was, they didn't mention it. All in all, I'm grateful they got the job done, but I wouldn't recommend their services to anyone. If you're thinking you'll be replacing your hot water heater within 6 months to a year, I'd recommend seeking out a few quotes ahead of time. That way, even if you have an emergency situation, you have some folks you know you can call with a quote for comparison. And if you can, just replace it before you need to. Much less time sensitivity and more emotional leverage.

Avoid J. Blanton Plumbing, Sewer & Drain at all costs. My experience with J. Blanton Plumbing, Sewer & Drain has been a masterclass in incompetence and dishonesty. Their front-of-house staff are either outright liars or utterly unqualified to manage customer issues. For nearly 4 weeks, I tried to reach Kyle Dooley, the head manager, and instead endured an endless cycle of fake "escalations" that went nowhere. J. Blanton Plumbing, Sewer & Drain lied about filing a PDP with the city of Chicago. At first, they told us there would be no additional cost to start it -- later, they tried to slip in an extra $1,900. They never sent us the footage of our scoped sewer line as promised. When I pressed for the footage, they scheduled another "FREE OF CHARGE" scope. Nobody showed. Then they attached footage from a completely different property and claimed it was ours. Speaking with a manager named Damien was no better. While he initially seemed like he might resolve the issue, he ultimately told me we were "automatically denied by accounting" for a refund -- despite the fact I'd already explained the footage was not ours. Instead of addressing the truth, he stuck to the bad information in their file. It was a giant, frustrating loop of excuses, missed calls, and zero accountability. Given the misrepresentation, wasted time, and incorrect scope footage, I asked J. Blanton Plumbing, Sewer & Drain for an equitable $450 partial refund. They refused. That refusal speaks volumes about how little they value customer satisfaction. And if you try calling J. Blanton Plumbing, Sewer & Drain, be prepared for their torturous 30-second "What Would You Do With a Drunken Sailor?" hold music on repeat. It's awful. What would you do with a leaky faucet? Call anyone else. I ended up calling Bubba, Wayne & Tim Sewer Service instead -- they filed a PDP with the city for $100, rodded, and scoped the line all in a single visit for a much affordable price. Fast, honest, and competent. J. Blanton Plumbing, Sewer & Drain wastes time, money, and patience. Call Bubba, Wayne & Tim Sewer Service instead.

I found J Blanton in March when we had our first super heavy rain and our yard flooded. It's our first spring in the house so I was not aware that this flooding would even happen so I didn't know how many pumps we had in the yard or where they flowed. The tech that came out the first time was also clueless and just kept pumping the water BACK into the yard. Then he proceeded to pump it into my neighbors pump (which burned out there pump btw so they had to have it replaced the next day as well). Then we waited for another guy to come with a longer hose. Then they had to come out the next day and replace all 3 of our pumps because they were all "burnt out" okay fine.. $5,000 I thought the problem was solved. Fast forward to April (exactly one month after the pumps were replaced) another storm hits. The pumps aren't working. The yard flooded 5-6 days ago now and the water has been standing for that time. We had a tech come out at 6pm and start troubleshooting. He was ill equipped once again only had 15 ft of rod. He kept problem solving and "fixed" the problem 2/3 pumps started working. The 3rd is totally burnt out leaking rainbow color fluids in my yard. Now for 2 days I've been trying to get someone back out here and MORE storms hit so my yard is a swamp with thousands of dead worms smelling up our yard flooding into our neighbors yards and the problem STILL isn't solved. Then they gave me a window today of 8-5!!! Like I have all day to just sit here and wait around. 6 days have gone by, it's been 2 since the last "fix" oh AND WE PAY FOR THE VIP MONTHLY MEMBERSHIP $29 per month to be a "priority" which is clearly horseshit because here I am with a flooded smelling rotten yard and no resolution. Oh and my senior dog fell into the pump hole because they didn't replace the lid and you can't see in the murky mud swamp water. I have already called them 4x yesterday and 3x so far today. Maybe these reviews will light a fire under their asses. I regret using J Blanton.

Do not - I repeat - do not use J. Blanton Plumbing. From extremely overpriced services, to fear mongering sales tactics, I would not recommend J. Blanton to anyone. My husband and I bought our house and wanted a trusted reliable plumbing service - I had previously used J. Blanton when I lived in a high rise years ago for small jobs and I liked the plumbers so suggested we give them a call. We were convinced to purchase the $30/month "Drip Club" membership promising quick service, priority scheduling and with a small child in the house, we wanted to be prepared if any emergencies arose. What we didn't sign up for was being called on a weekly basis telling us we were "required" to schedule the maintenance visits included in our Drip Club membership. After asking 5+ times to please stop calling me and I would call them - I caved and scheduled our maintenance visits. Looking back - of course this is the case as it is obviously a gimmicky sales tactic, but with every single visit they somehow find significant issues that need to be fixed immediately to avoid basement flooding. I've seen this in other reviews, but this has happened to us as well - that if more than one technician comes out they consistently say the person before them did not do a good or complete job - making each job significantly longer and more expensive. The final straw for us was today - we had a sewer maintenance visit and this morning my husband noticed that the sewer cap was never put back on. We called at 8am and have not heard back - we've called 5 times and eventually have been told no one is available. Absolutely terrible communication and customer service - disappointing that a once great company has fallen so far. Also - shocking to believe that a company that gives a 4 hour arrival window can somehow never be on time.

I had a broken city sewer line. I was told they would do all the work to get this fixed as soon possible. I was the one who had to contact the city to insure the issue was fixed in a timely manner. I was not contacted when service appointments where made. My contact info was not updated after multiple requests. After canceling an appointment due to a funeral via the text message which indicated I could reply to. They showed up anyway. When I told the technician they where not to be on the property because I was not home. They still went ahead and worked on the property. They did not fill the hole correctly and laid cement when it was too cold to do so. The hole was caved in and cement cracked by the next morning. When they where done the technician then called me to demand payment after being told he was not to work on the property. He was told To just finish the job regardless by his management. When setting up appointment to correct the issue, and having to cancel due to rain and freezing temperatures I was given a hard time and they tired to tell me I could not reschedule the appointment for work on my property. On the day of the appointment it was once again raining they went ahead and laid concrete. Due to the rain the top layer washed off which means it's going to eventually collapse again. And I will have to fix the patch. I would never use this company again. It was a pain, and they have horrible customer service. Edit: I forgot to add they showed multiple unprepared for the appointment. Lacking the correct equipment. Or not knowing what was to be done on that day.