Roto-Rooter Plumbing & Water Cleanup

Allen did a wonderful job fixing my hot water tank. He was knowledgeable and patient with all the questions we had. He skillfully fixed the issue for a decent price! Thank you!

Matt was wonderful, very informative and let me know what was happening step by step. I’ve had issues with my plumbing for a few years and had other companies out to snake my drains and then would leave. With roto rooter they took the time to figure out my bigger issue and gave me helpful tips to fix it.

I had a frozen burst pipe that resulted in the loss of water to my whole house. Matt S 8106 showed up right on time and fixed everything quicker than I could have imagined. Not only is he prompt and professional but a friendly and personable guy that made me feel at ease with the project from start to finish. I cannot recommend him enough.

BEWARE!!!! BEWARE!!!! BEWARE!!!!! This was the WORST EXPERIENCE EVER!!! I was told i had cracked pipes, and that my basement needed to be dug up. This would only cost me $8500! My neighbor referred me to a plumber who inspected my drains and found NO CRACKED PIPES that needed replacing. The problem was corrected, saving me $7500 To add insult to injury I was charged $159 because they removed my toilet to look into my drain. They said it's another $159 to put it back! They also had a bunch of "mandatory " charges that they had to add in the bill. This company ALMOST ripped me off for $8500. The plumber I hired said they receive a ton of calls from their customers, and manage to get there before the work is done, saving the customers $1000.'s Do what you want, but BEWARE! Don't say you weren't WARNED. Do your homework.

I would not recommend this company. We had a clogged toilet that backed up into our shower. A worker arrived, worked for two hours and claimed he "could not get it unclogged." His supervisor and another worker showed up, ran a camera through our pipes and showed us the black/white footage, claiming our cast iron pipes had crumbled and we were missing about 4 feet of pipe under our basement floor. As new home owners, they felt sorry for us and gave us a 10% discount and estimated the job to be $4,000. We slept on it and called another company to give us a second opinion. The new company said the clog was gone and ran a camera through the pipes. Their colored footage showed us that we actually have red clay pipes and no pipe was missing. The camera went all the way out to the street with no issues. Grateful we got a second opinion and were not taken advantage of by this company. Not to mention, they left our bathroom and basement extremely messy.

I had my main drain in the basement back up Saturday morning. The basement had about 3 inches of water I called roto rooter to snake the drain thinking they would do the job right being such a big company. Jamir was my tech and he was awesome. That's where the good stops. first off the price was outrageous $480 to snake 1 line and $850 to do 2 lines. after the first hour he was not seeing anything blocking the pipe using a 100ft snake. then the camera guy showed up to inspect for damage. No damage was found but he did find the clog at about 110 feet. The tech did not have a snake long enough to get to it or his snake pushed the clog deeper according to the camera man. I was then told I had 2 options from there either I pay an additional $855 to have my pipe jetted or have my driveway broken up and dig to the pipe to unclog the drain. keep in mind I had a local guy quote me at $93.00 but they couldn't come out till Monday and they said if they couldn't do it there would be no charge to me. So the tech at roto rooter couldn't get it unclogged but they still charged me $269.00. then the clean up crew guy came out and i kid you not told me it would be around $15000 to clean up the water. At this point i was at wits end and pretty upset. they all left without fixing my problem and a basement full of water and didn't even put any of the caps back on the pipes. none of the 3 of them wore protectors on their boots to protect my upstairs flooring or anything. i spent the next 4 hours bailing out the water in my basement then went to home depot and got a 100 foot hose for my high pressure washer and a jetter tip for jetting the pipes for $100 and worked my pipe for about a hour and got the clog removed myself. I then power washed the basement floor with anti mold and microbe cleaner mopped and shop vacuumed up the excess water and placed a few fans around the basement to dry the floor and as of right now have 2 dehumidifiers running. To sum this up roto rooter wanted me to pay a grand total of around $16,705 that i got done for less than $200.00 i would suggest finding a local company that wont try to take advantage of your situation. lesson learned for me.

Over the holiday weekend, out of nowhere none of the toilets or showers were draining. They were the only ones that were open and came out. The technician ( will withhold his name for privacy ) spent two hours inside and outside the house. He claimed that the cleanout pipe on the side of the house lead to nowhere and that this house doesn't have one. He also claimed there was not a cleanout on the streetside by the sidewalk. After talking with his supervisor (whose name I will withhold again for privacy) said they would have to dig around the side of the house and install a cleanout pipe to the main exit point. This would cost approximately $4,600. I was taken back as this house was a new build. I was also concerned when I asked if he could just snake through the main floor shower drain or take the toilet off and go that route since by looking at the plumbing diagrams it led right to the exit point of the house. He refused and said roto-rooter doesn't lift toilets or snake the shower drains. I managed to get ahold of a local plumbing company who came out this morning. After checking all the cap covers in the yard. They found the cleanout pipe. THIS WAS THE ONE THAT THEY SAID LED TO NOWHERE. This in fact did go to the sewer and was installed correctly. They also found the entry point at the street . It had to be dug up (About 2 inches under the grass) However, it was easily found since on the new concrete there was markings etched in to show this was the water line access point. I am not sure why Roto-Rooter could not find these points. After, several hours and cleaning from both ends along with camera work, they found the issues and clogs. The local cleveland company was thorough and talked to us every step of the way. They were stunned to see what Roto-Rooter wanted to do when it was not needed. The local company was approximately 3.5 times cheaper than Roto-Rooter. Roto Rooter seemed to only care about digging and adding the cleanout which was already in the ground.

Called about a blocked sewer, called Roto Rooter and they were out within 3 hours (the one good thing that happened; the only reason for a single star, it would be zero otherwise). The "plumber" that came saw the manageable mess in my base!sent and told me he had to call his supervisor, he did so and then waited for 45 minutes in his truck for him. Once the supervisor appeared he informed me that the mess on my concrete basement floor was sewage (duh) and that I should call my insurance company to see if cleanup was covered. I called my insurance agent and was informed that there was a $1500 deductible, the supervisor told me it would cost a total of $1700 to open the sewer and clean up, he was happy because I could get my insurer to cover $200 of the bill; how convenient. I felt this was just a tad expensive, but the supervisor was pretty adamant that the price was a GREAT DEAL and was pushing me to sign some forms, I decided to get another estimate. I remembered that an old family friend was a plumber so I gave him a call, he told me to call the city and have the test tee located so it would be easier/cheaper to clean my sewer. I called the city, they told me to call the county, I did and, they were out early the next day; the county located my test tee and found it was broken. It turns out that even if Roto Rooter snaked from inside my house they would not have been able to open my sewer, I was also told that Roto Rooter would have charged me to replace my test tee even though the sewer was the counties responsibility at that point. The county fixed my sewer and made sure it was open, I spent about $3 on bleach and about 30 minutes to clean my basement floor. That is a much better deal than the $1700 to snake and clean up sewage.

Edit: They commented on this review and asked for an email. I did that and they haven't responded to me over a week later. Tried doing the Service Feedback Survey on their website to see if they would respond to that but again no response. Truly never use this company, they won't do a good job and will scam you whenever possible and will make sure to not respond to you when you call them out on it. Never utilize this business. They will strive to take the most expensive option while refusing to explain why they didn't consider all other possibilities first. On July 16th, I called Roto Rooter to inspect a drain in my basement that wasn't draining. They decided that the only option was to dig up my front yard after snaked out the clean out rather than the initial drain that was the problem. They never looked at the roadside cleanouts provided by my city to see if the obstruction could be cleared from that angle. They intended to charge me an additional $8,822.10 for the basement on top of the $10,622.92 that the yard had already cost me. Another plumbing firm that was far more affordable and even did more than what Roto Rooter suggested doing for a lower fee came out to fix the obstruction in my basement. I believed that Roto Rooter took advantage of the fact that I am a woman living alone who was attempting to travel for business the following week. Even worse, Roto Rooter may have damaged a portion of my walkway when digging up my yard, leaving me to deal with a sizable amount of dirt in my yard and no instructions on how to handle it. I feel I was charged for unnecessary work. A competent service would have found other possible ways to fix the problem before digging up my yard.

When my husband and I bought our house, it didn't come with a garbage dispose-all. So, we went out and bought one and installed it ourselves. Five years later, we learned why we shouldn't have done that. Every so often, the trap joint would slip loose and water would fly out from underneath the sink. A hurried clean-up would ensue and I would find myself under the sink tightening joints. Four or so of those spills later, I succumbed to my better sense - I called a plumber. I filled out the form on Roto-Rooter's site yesterday. This morning, they called. The dispatcher informed me that Steve would be coming by in about an hour. She let me know that he would provide an estimate and that I could refuse if I didn't like it. I felt comforted. I've never liked technicians coming over without a clear understanding of the process - I don't want to be on the hook for something I didn't order. Steve showed up, a cheery and kind man. I showed him the underside of the sink and he diagnosed the problem in about 4 seconds. I had the trap backward. Basically, the dispose-all would shake the trap loose when we turned it on. He felt bad, he said, because it was such a simple fix and he would have to charge me something. He said that their bare-minimum charge was $125. I said it was worth every penny. About 10 minutes later, he had the pipes all fixed up. It was significantly simpler than the Rube Goldberg style plumbing I had done. I had used one of those under-drain kits and used my best Lego-building skills to install it. We tested the sinks out a few times and everything worked perfectly - way better than before. I would recommend Steve and Roto-Rooter any day. Thanks!

It is to bad I had to leave a star to these thieves. I called them because my sewer was backed up. They gave me a few options and when I when I went with the most expensive to make sure everything was working he then went to the basement and acted like he couldn't do the work and called his manager. When the manager came to my property he assured that everything was busted that my clay pipes were no longer because they were clay and that everything needed to be replaced. So for almost $9000.00 I assumed everything was getting replaced. With the pictures he sent to me you can see there is one pipe replaced and that it is hooked up to all my "old" stuff, my clay pipes he said had disintegrated because they were clay. Then when that was done they went to the sewer in the front and proceeded to tell me how all busted up that was and needed to be replaced and they could thread the pipe through. He also proceeded to let me know he could give me $1,000 discount because of the prior work and that it would be about $16,000. After I about fell over and decided we needed we needed to discuss this he still wouldn't leave my living room. I had to be almost rude to make him leave. But he really wanted to steal my money and practically wouldn't leave until he did so. You see I can say that because I then had someone else come out and give me a second opinion only to be told if they replaced it they would only be taking my money. The job that Roto Rooter stole almost $9,000 from me should have cost me about $2,000-$3,000. Thank you sir for not being thieves such as Roto Rooter. These people are thieves and will stand in your home and lie and steal from you. So buyer be ware

We have been happy to use Roto-Rooter for all of our plumbing needs for years. They have always been efficient and courteous. Our last project was the installation of a basement toilet, which became necessary as we became aware of a major dollar-draining leak! The two technicians arrived as scheduled, and gave us an overview of the problem and options as to how to proceed. After signing the work order, they began at once, keeping us up to date on their progress. Even though they were working with some "vintage" items from our older home, they successfully finished up, demonstrated the work, and cleaned up the area very well. When I checked the area the next day, I saw an area of wetness from the back of the toilet. It seemed to be coming from the water supply valve, which had not been part of the repair. We turned off the water supply and called to schedule a follow-up appointment. A new team was assigned the stop, as the original team was not available. Not an issue for us. They arrived on time and quickly evaluated the problem. They discussed how they would remedy it, and got to work immediately. They fixed the leak and reassembled the workings, demonstrating the results to us. There was NO CHARGE for the follow-up repair, and they apologized for not spotting the leak at the first appointment. Again, they were very courteous to us and tidy cleaning up. We have - and will continue to - recommend Roto-Rooter, and would definitely call them for any future plumbing needs. Hopefully, that will be many, many flushes far in the future.

NEVER USE ROTO-ROOTER! We just got through with getting our plumbing repaired this past week (with a different company). We constantly get roots in our main sewer and had to get it snaked regularly. We had a backup on a weekend, so we called Roto-Rooter. The kid Jake promptly showed up, made us sign a liability form to release him from being responsible if something should happen while he worked. He used a snake bit that was WAY too large for our pipe "to be extra sure" that it got everything in our [clay] pipe, but he was man-handling it so much that it was apparent that he was simply trying to break our pipe to have to get more money out of us (on top of the over-priced snaking job that was over $600 alone). His bit, sure enough, broke off in our pipe, and he left it there, along with a large clump of roots and left our plumbing like that. THEN, he had his boss come with a camera ("complimentary") and tried to tell us that we needed to replace a 4-5 foot section of pipe in our main line under our basement. Quote? $8,500. And his boss tried to run my credit right then and there to finance this project. Needless to say, that was a hard pass and we went to our usual plumbers to get a second opinion. Long story short, Roto-Rooter quoted us approximately $7,000 more than an appropriate price for the services necessary to get us back up and running. I don't usually write reviews, but if I can save someone money, time, scams, and headaches, I most definitely will. Pass on Roto-Rooter, trust me!

We had an unfortunate back up with a main floor restroom that we could not break clear. Called Roto Rooter as the backup began to flood and make its way down into our basement. It was a mess and quickly became not only damaging but a health hazard. We were quoted a couple of hours wait time. Well, that was a lie. We were called periodically through out the evening to let us know that the tech was still on another job... We did not receive assistance until the following morning, more than 20 hours after the backup. We were led to believe a tech would be out to assist and then repeatedly lied to with false updates. Call center rep tried to explain that one of the 2 techs decided to go home for the night. Not sure why they would schedule us knowing they were short staffed and not be upfront about the wait. We could have easily hired any other plumber to clear our backup and assist with the clean up, but Roto-Rooter insisted that someone would be coming out. Careless and deceiving from the 1st phone call till the last. If you are in need of emergency service please do not waste your time. It was an awful experience. The tech that did respond a day later did his job efficiently and thorough. I just wish he would have arrived when the scheduler/customer service rep told us he would. It was stressful enough to try and contain the flooding, but the false hopes of someone coming to aid us was the kicker. Maybe a couple less commercials and some more technicians would be wise.

We had our finished basement flooded from a broken water heater. Technician Charlie did a fantastic water mitigation job.. My wife and I signed the proposal between $12k and 18k Once complete, Roto-evil-Rooter billed insurance just under 18K. The insurance adjuster called me and said the invoice was very high for the work performed. Finally, Roto-evil-Rooter agreed to just under $13k on the final invoice The insurance even went up $1k from what should have been paid to them! Roto-evil-Rooter attempted to ruin our 1 week vacation in Florida . I received an email with a balance billed invoice of over $ 4k. I was extremely upset since according to insurance I owed nothing I called Roto-evil-Rooter and explained my position . 2 days later greedy management sent me a email with intent to lien our property! I filed a complaint with the ohio attorney general the next day My position is you can charge reasonable and custonary and not rip seniors on a fixed income off. The claims adjuster stated Roto-evil-Rooter were using unethical business practices . Two days later I get a call from Management, I owe nothing DO NOT USE Roto-evil-Rooter, Management put me through hell while on vacation for no reason. I am happy they changed their position, however Roto-evil-Rooter has ripped many people off for greed.