Roto-Rooter Plumbing & Water Cleanup

We had a plumbing backup and subsequent leaking under our house which we wanted addressed quickly. We called Roto-Rooters and they sent their technician, Rick, out within a couple of hours. He was incredibly friendly, knowledgeable and professional. He diagnosed our issues and fixed them right away! We’d definitely call them again for any needed repairs in the future.

Rich is super easy to work with and professional!

I had a backed up main sewer line that has caused a major plumbing issue in my home. Both the technician and field supervisor were very knowledgeable and professional. The were thorough with addressing the problem and able to explain what was happening as well as my options in a way that was clear and understandable.

Was told they'd arrive between 7-11pm; didn't show up and ended up canceling close to 11pm. Horrible service for an emergency situation with extremely poor customer service. Dispatcher gave me attitude when discussing the cancellation due to no technicians being available. Would never go to this company.

Don't know what happened. RotoRooter always performed really well. I had a sewer issue and initially taken care of exactly how RotoRooter has in the past. We found a fresh water main leak and the plumber called the office. Initially it seemed like they will arrive in the evening only to be told later that it won't be until noon the next day. Took another day off of work. Called this office to confirm the arrival. Promised that it will. Called in the late AM to confirm again. Again told yes. Close to 4pm, called. Told the plumber will be out. Asked about 24x7 service and they promised they will be out to fix. Got a call from their plumber near 5pm. Asking what is going on (really?). Said he has to find someone to help dig up the yard and will be there at 7:30. I asked 7:30am? He said yes. 3rd day - 7:30 came and went. Called their office twice and got transferred to their dispatch. Cancelled their service and wrote a long letter to RotoRooter corporate. RotoRooter main dispatch was professional and listened to the concern. Sorry RotoRooter. You failed and have just lost a long time customer!

Dealing with this Roto Rooter has been a mess. They came out and gave us an estimate on installing a vanity and replacing some piping in our new condo last year. Estimate was $700 including expenses, but I was going out of town and needed to put the work off for maybe a month, which I told the guy. No problem said the Roto Rooter guy, I'll even guarantee $700 max for the job since you guys are young and worried about the pricing. Fast forward a month I call and say I want the work done from the guy who had come over. They said he'd be there sometime between 10-noon. I set my alarm for 9:50 to be ready for the guy. I wake up at 9:40 am to a knock at the door, I'm in my boxers so I run and get dressed, answer the door at 9:45 and it's a different guy. I'm half asleep and I ask him to clarify that it will be the $700 maximum price I had agreed to with the other guy, he says oh I need to call the office then. He talks to the office and says we don't even know who gave you that estimate, we're hourly, do you still want the work done? I say yeah I guess, hopefully it won't be way over $700. So he works for 1 hour 20 minutes and then leaves for lunch at 11:20. He doesn't return until 1 pm from this lunch (I guess he was picking up parts too, but was told I wouldn't be billed for time he spent picking up parts). He works until 2:40 pm and says he's done. I hear him texting in there while working, but whatever. It's only $220/hr after all, why shouldn't I pay nearly $4/minute for him to tell his wife what he wants for dinner? So anyways, he's worked from 10-11:20 and then 1-2:40, so 3 hours of work. The guy says it's $770. Fine, not the $700 I had agreed to, but not insanely over, so they charged $770 on my credit card. A week later I get another bill for $95. They say the first bill hadn't included the parts he bought (a small pipe and some caulking), plus he undercharged for time worked (they claimed he worked nearly 4 hours). I ask to speak to whoever is in charge about how long he actually worked and so on. After like 4 calls to them, they finally have a foreman call me. I tell the guy the whole story and he has a bit of an attitude about it, but not a bad guy overall. He says he can't reduce the bill to the original $700, but he agrees on the 3 hours I say the guy worked + about $30 in parts + whatever taxes, so like $730. He says they'll get a check back to me for $40. Then I receive another bill from them, this one saying I still owe them $95 + a late fee. I call, say I spoke to a foreman and he said they owe me money instead. I get another bill with more late fees. This goes on and on, with me calling and them saying they don't know who I spoke to, they need me to talk to another foreman, no one ever calls. I call them again, at this point I have a stack of bills from them with ever increasing late fees, but meanwhile their foreman has admitted instead that they owe me money. Now it's nearly a year since the original work, I'm still getting bills with late fees and apparently I'm expected to call for the 20th time and keep trying to get them to act like a normal company and have records of which of their foremen called me, have their employees charge correct hours at their insane prices, etc. If they ever try to send my bill to collections, I'm going to sue these morons in small claims court. I should get $220/hr for the 5 hours or so I've wasted trying to get them to fix their mistakes and stop sending me bills.

Beware! Dishonest and unprofessional. Stay away! Here's what happened. Our rental unit has a leaking faucet. So we removed all the tiles to make a nice opening for Roto Rooter to come over and replace the faucet. We even bought a new faucet for the plumber. When I called Roto Rooter, I told them, "Hey, leaking shower, replace faucet." The plumber would arrived here knowing the faucet is leaking, saw the leaking faucet, the replacement faucet, and would figure, "Oh, I should replace the faucet." Simple right? I had to work that day so the duty of overseeing the work fell to my assistant. But that's fine, the work is pretty much by the book. No sweat, right? Wrong! Roto Rooter DID NOT replace the faucet!!!!!! I repeat, the faucet was leaking and Roto Rooter DID NOT replace the faucet!!! Even though I told them it was leaking and I have a brand new replacement part sitting on the shower floor. The plumber merely replaced the freaking the faucet value and called it a day!!! Who does that!!!??? My assistant (who unfortunately knows little about plumbing) tried to alert the plumber that there is a brand new faucet sitting on the floor, "Hey, I think you are supposed to replace this part..." Roto Rooter brushed him off, "No, I don't need that." Now, if we hadn't removed the tiles and if I had said, "Just do a quick and dirty job to stop the leaking." Replacing just the faucet value and nothing else might make sense, but it would clearly be a stop-gap solution. But we REMOVED tiles, BOUGHT a BRAND NEW faucet for him, and told his company ahead of time to REPLACE the faucet. This Mofo essentially ignored ALL of that and just did the absolute minimum!!!! On top of that, he had to go to the nearest hardware store to buy the faucet value, all the while he's on the clock charging me by the hour. And with a brand new faucet sitting right there, that he refused to use. Any plumber with a little shred of professionalism would have replaced the faucet because it is the best long term fix. But not Roto Rooter, they do the minimum, collect the money and went on their merry way. This is a classic case of someone taking the easiest route knowing it is just a temporary fix. All they care is that it stops leaking the moment they take your money. Whatever happens after that is your problem. And yes, it will be a problem down the road with the way they "fix" things. If this is how they handle a very simple and straight forward case, I can't imagine how they approach the tough cases. Their motto seems to be do the least amount of work to stop a leak and then leave. Yes, to the untrained eye, it may seem like they are a god-send; but what's important are things you can't see. And those are things that they don't give rat's donkey about. STAY AWAY.

Major rip off! I would have given them no stars if possible. Interesting facts...I learned the Roto Rooter plumbers are now charging $310/hr- $430/hr to snake your drain. I also found out that there are great plumbers out there who will do the same thing for $175-$250/hr. My story...this plumber came to the house wanting to charge $430/hr saying it was a commercial job (this is a single family home that they've serviced before), he then said it was usually a 1.25 hr job at flat rate of $369 (On the two occassions they were out this is what they charged.) When he started saying he wasn't sure he could get it done in that amount of time, rather that it could take 6-8 hours or maybe days I started to get that creepy feeling. I had asked for a hydrojet to get the job done faster, which he told me he brought, but didn't want to use...go figure. When we came to an agreement that it wasn't commercial work, he went to work VERY SLOWLY and inefficiently. He made a point of doing things like removing the hose in place to install his own hose, why? There was nothing special about his hose. He spent a great deal of time adjusting his seat and would stop constantly to slowly pick out the small amount of roots that were on his snake. When I watched him getting up over and over again to walk over and turn the water on and off I suggested telling me what he needed since I was there, but he said no, he needed to stretch his legs....he'd been there for less that 45 minutes. At that hourly rate my thought is he stays put and gets the job done. Of course when I ask him how close he is to 1.25 hours he tells me it's already 1.5 hours. Having told him on more than one occasion to let me know when he got to the 1.25 hour mark I told him he was done...though of course he had not come close to clearing the line. He took his time picking up his equipment and then said he had been there for 2 hours. It was the worst experience and service I've ever had with a service provider. I called the office 3 times from the time he arrived insisting on $430/hr, with the final call addressing the horrible experience and spoke with 3 different customer service reps, all promising to have someone call me back, but NOT ONE phone call from Roto Rooter. They obviously don't care about their customers. I say give a worthwhile company a try and avoid being overcharged and to aggravation and poor service delivered by Roto Rooter.

Roto-Rooter is not to be trusted. Beyond overcharging for services that weren't completed with zero accountability, our billing situation remains unresolved after a month. My property manager called Roto-Rooter because my rental had sewer backing up in the showers. When I received the bill, the only legible part was the amount due, $1,950 before tax--unreasonably high for the scope of work. There were several extra charges I couldn't read, so I called seeking clarification and never received a call back. After weeks of being ignored, the billing department helped me track down the manager of this mess, Frank, who said the invoice looked "fine" and that "these things get expensive". Shocked, I asked him to read the invoice and explain how the numbers added up to $1950. He wasn't able to. Frank suggested the technician, Angel, was at the house from 9:30pm until 1:30am and the charges were: $750 to snake the main, $700 to snake the showers ($350 each), and $500 to fix a wobbly toilet. He also falsely claimed that Angel needed to go out to buy a wax ring and bolts (basic items any professional plumber keeps on-hand) while in fact, the technician himself acknowledges there was no special trip to the store. He had the parts. So why the $500 charge? Instead of answering the question, Frank offered 10% off, which I declined as unacceptable. He then promised to loop in someone else who could help, but never did. By this time, my tenant contacted the property manager (who also had trouble reaching Roto) and explained the tub overflow/ drain valve was broken during the "repair". The tenants stated the Roto technician was there from 10:30 till 12:00 and had just used a hose to flush the showers--not a snake. Totally different story. At the end of my rope, I called the original number from the start of this saga. To my shock, the gal I'd been leaving messages for in the first place, Denasia, picked up the phone. She apologized for not calling back and said one of the managers would call me back that day. Never heard back. This is the worst customer service I've ever experienced. Not only have they lost our business, but our property manager's portfolio as well. Avoid a time-consuming headache and steer clear of Roto-Rooter at all costs.

AMAZING SERVICE! Had a random emergency issue in my home today (renter) and after contacting the company, a team of 3 arrived in less than an hour. It was a big job - but the three workers came, listened, assessed thoroughly, and got right to work. In the process, two toilets had to be taken out, sewage/water that flooded into two of the showers had to be vacuumed out, lines/pipes had to be cleared out, and all effected areas needed to the be cleaned up afterwards (which was a lot to clean up). They worked their butts off for hours until everything was done, no complaints or breaks (even though I could tell it was very tiring). They worked together without issue, communicated throughout (with me and my landlord both/they worked out payment etc with him over the phone for me) and were all super friendly and down to earth as well, which made the whole experience way less stressful. The company will also be sending another team member out in a couple days to inspect and mar a plan to fix any potential damage as a result of today’s issue if needed. ****TERRENCE, AMAD, and MATT were the 3 workers who did the job today**** Y’all rock! Thanks again!! P.S - I do have one small suggestion for management though. For emergency issues that happen to fall on weekends and that might require someone to come out and inspect for damage AFTER a situation like mine (from water damage) - Having whatever general documents your company requires the customer/owner to sign before someone can be sent out to do a post inspection - readily available somewhere for them to access and get signed as soon as possible without having to wait until a weekday/when office opens again would be really helpful and avoid any delays. In my case it’s Saturday, so I’ll wait until Monday, but would have liked that to be done today. It’s not a huge deal, Monday is okay too! But just a suggestion! Again thank you for the amazing service!!!

We had a backed up toilet on the day following Thanksgiving. I called Roto-Rooter mid-morning and was told that someone would arrive within 1-2 hours. At 2:00pm I was told the same thing, another 1-2 hours. Then at 4:00pm I was called yet again was told it would be 1-2 hours. Finally, around 6:00pm the service technician named Jude, showed up. I described to Jude that the toilet was backed up and that the clean-out for mainline was located under the house, which was accessible. He did not want to use this location, but choose to look for a cleanout outside the house. After spending close to 45 minutes looking and not finding it, in which I assisted him, he chose to use the one under the house. After setting up his industrial snake outside the house, again with me assisting, Jude went to start the machine and a part fell off of it that rendered it useless. He then had to call and wait for another technician to bring another machine over to complete the job around 10:00 pm. I was charged $655.00 for the service call. When I called the office on Monday to speak to a supervisor about this I was told by April someone would call me within 24 hours. A week goes by and no call back. I call again, speak to April again, who aplogizes and tells me someone will call back right away...nothing. I call back a third time, speak to April yet again who tells me the two supervisors are in a meeting but have been informed of my request, one of which will call me back right after their meeting concludes...nothing. I have been a homeowner for over 20 years and the lack of follow up to an upset customer from a nationally known company is astounding. Not only was I overcharged, but Roto-Rooter made no effort to respond to my calls or concerns. I will never use them again.

I had a very frustrating experience with Roto-Rooter and would not recommend them. I initially called about a crawlspace leak and was told the inspection would be free. However, after the technician arrived, I was unexpectedly charged $450 just for the visit. From there, things escalated quickly. I was told I needed pipe replacement and water mitigation, and their team began coaching me on what to say to my homeowner's insurance, which made me uncomfortable. They assured me these claims are "always approved," but that turned out to be completely untrue. When their mitigation team arrived, I was pressured into signing documents without being given enough time to properly review them. The entire process felt rushed and high-pressure. The billing was also inconsistent. I was quoted an estimate of $3,000-$6,000, but ended up being charged $6,225. After I complained, they reduced it slightly to $6,000, but refused to take accountability for the way everything was handled. When I tried to raise concerns, they completely dismissed me and instead threatened me with a mechanic's lien. They even claimed I owed $6,800 including "legal fees," and sent lien documents that had incorrect homeowner names on them--yet still used this as a scare tactic. In the end, I paid $6,000 just to be done with the situation because it caused so much stress and anxiety. Overall, this felt like a very pressured, misleading, and unprofessional experience. I would strongly recommend getting multiple opinions before working with them.

We made the mistake of not taking the sewer line insurance through our water company and, wouldn't you know it, when we started getting back-ups from our sewage line, it meant that a section of line that was patched before we owned the place had failed. 4 visits and one broken toilet replaced on their dime, later, Roto-Rooter finally diagnosed the problem and we signed a contract for them to fix it for a huge fee. We were told that it would be a 2-day job, The old addage that of good, fast, and cheep you can pick any 2? Yeah, well... Apparently, they didn't bother to schedule in advance a mandatory water district inspection and repeatedly failed to get the inspector out there after tearing up my yard and my street. The 2-day job stretched out to a full week, with holes, construction detritus, and heavy equipment in my way, the whole time. They also couldn't be bothered to communicate with me about any of these delays without me tracking THEM down, first. Did they offer a discount for my inconvenience based on their failure to plan ahead? You would think so, wouldn't you? But no. I hope the work was good, but it was neither cheap, nor fast. They don't charge extra for evening or weekend service, which is why they get 2 stars rather than one, but I will still look elsewhere for plumbing needs, in future. I will also be getting that insurance!

Please save your money!! PASS ON ROOTER-ROOTER. The City Passed, and so should YOU! After calling them twice to fix my lateral pipes, I decided to have them video tape the ABS Lateral Lines in my front lawn, so I can provided a copy to my insurance company for review... Lo taped the lines, except I couldn't see the video (blank, but read the story they gave me) Of course, when I called to inquire about the blank screened video, at first, he said, "oh no! It's YOUR computer, it can't read the thumb drive/video". Then I politely stated, "this is a brand NEW computer, only 3 mos. old, so it should read it". Then I called back in hopes of a better representative, and the next RR representative stated, "we couldn't tape the lines since the pipelines where broken." I said, "Sure, no problem, however, why did you charge my credit card if you were unable to take the video?" He had no reply. (remind you, they had charged me twice for coming out on two earlier occasions, so now it's time for some customer service, right?) They didn't call to tell be the lines were broken so they couldn't proceed, they just charged my account. Yes, the do the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM, and still charge you. I should have known when the City told me they dropped Roto Rooter as an approved vendor! I SEE WHY NOW! Please save your money.

Thanks, Ray of Roto-Rooter! Wednesday morning, I went into the garage and found the utility sink full of water - and water inside on the laundry room floor. R-R tech came out as scheduled and rooted out the sink drain line with a 2" cutter. Good news - it was the day BEFORE Thanksgiving and not on THE turkey day! Thursday morning, went into the garage - the sink was full of water again !! Uggg!! Called R-R as their service has a 60-day warranty. Now we're ON turkey day! Ray came out and advised that the 1st tech erred using the 2" cutter downstairs and should have pulled the upstairs toilet and used a 4" cutter on the big line. Situation - the downstairs 2" cutter was bid at ~$500 but the upstairs 4" cutter job is a ~$1.000 job. R-R has a policy that they initially come out and bid a job (at no trip charge) and gives one the opportunity to yea or nay the bid. Well, as the job was bid @ ~$500 (uggg!), (although it was for the wrong diagnosis / curative scope of work), we felt that R-R should honor their warranty. After several calls to HQ, Ray and R-R worked out something as between the 2 techs and their pay for their different jobs. Ray was here for 4 hours - he cleaned up and left - with no additional charge. Thanks Roto-Rooter! THANKS, RAY ! JohnD