The Plumbing Ministry

The Plumbing Ministry has helped my family out with a # of jobs from a Sewer Lateral replacement to fixing a broken kitchen sink pipe. I've met a few of the guys and they've all been incredibly professional and very knowledgeable. Louis is very responsive and has always been very straightforward to work with. His pricing is also very competitive. I highly recommend their work and have had a wonderful experience with Louis and his company.

Very professional and work was completed quickly. We highly recommend.

We had a leak in October and I saw water tricking down our hill before the rain started. It turned out to be our main water line coming into our house from an old galvanized pipe. Our driveway needed to be pulled up, the gas company called.. there were many steps along the way and the job took several days from permit to finish. Jose and his team were fantastic, walking through each step with me and making sure I understand and was happy. Water is on and we are happy to recommend them.

I have used this company twice. I think they do good work, but their billing practices are questionable. I won't use them again.

They had to reschedule 2 separate times. Trench in sidewalk wasn't fully covered leaving a fall hazard and personal liability.

I posted the following review in July 2014 but the post is no longer visible. I'm posting again because a friend told me that they were considering using this company based on yelp reviews: If only it were possible to find words eloquent enough to dissuade you from calling the Plumbing Ministry! If you want to pay someone thousands of dollars for a job that's destined to fail because the underlying problem wasn't addressed, go ahead and call the Plumbing Ministry. If you want to wait around all day for someone to show who comes late or doesn't come at all, call the Plumbing Ministry. If you want to be told several days in a row (on the days that the plumber actually DOES come) that your sewage problem is now fixed and then have sewage under your house within a minute of turning on your water, then call the plumbing ministry. If you want someone who refuses to answer phone calls or emails or text messages to try to remedy the problem unless it's convenient, call the Plumbing Ministry. But of course, it's all worth it since he is there to tell you that "Jesus loves you." I actually was foolish enough to have recommended Louis and The Plumbing Ministry to friends and neighbors after he did work for me a few years ago. I regret that decision terribly. I was surprised to read the negative reviews on Yelp when I went to find his phone number again; I was foolish enough to have ignored those reviews and trusted that my initial experiences were a testament to a solid work ethic and professional expertise. Wrong on both counts. I'll give some of the details below for those of you who are still inclined to trust the positive reviews. 1. He failed to determine that the reason I've had to repeatedly repair my sewage pump (and replace it several times at a cost of thousands of dollars per pump) is because the waste line from the pump to the city sewer line wasn't installed properly in the first place. This was in spite of my asking him why I was having such frequent problems when my neighbors never had to replace or repair their pumps. 2. When my pump failed again (and the alarm he installed never went off- I discovered it because of the smell of raw sewage under the house), his team of plumbers did determine that the cause of the problem was the sewage line to the sewer main. As one of them said, "If I had put the pump in myself, I would have checked the line and recommended this be fixed. It should have been done before." Remember, the Plumbing Ministry plumbers were the ones who DID install the pump. 3. That first day, the plumber said he got everything working again, that I could use the plumbing normally but that the lines would need to be fixed soon but not emergently. After he left, I turned on the water, and thesewage tank promptly overflowed. I called and left urgent voicemails. No response, I called the office mid-morning. I was assured that someone would go out that day to fix it. 4. The first day, the plumber was two hours late in arriving. The second day he didn't come at all. No phone calls about it either. 5. I called that night and actually reached Louis, who promised me someone would fix it the next day. I made a HUGE deal about wanting someone to call me since I couldn't be on site and let me know if the problem wasn't completely fixed. I came home the next day. No one called. No notes, messages, voicemails, or emails and nothing in the mailbox. I turned on the water, and the tank overflowed immediately. Again. 6. I sent a bunch of urgent texts and emails to Louis, who said "it was working when he left yesterday." He said he'd send someone out before 9 the next morning. 7. After unanswered calls, texts, and emails starting at 9, the plumber arrived after 9:30. He said he was "doing me a favor by coming since he wasn't even supposed to be working" and that he wasn't here to fix the problem, just to figure out what was wrong. He was rude and disrespectful. He tried to tell me that the pump had been unplugged (which it wasn't but I didn't say anything to contradict him) and that was why it wasn't working. He said it was working now and tried to leave. I told to wait, turned on the water, and the tank overflowed. Then he said he "jiggled it" to get it working but now it was working. The tank overflowed again. Then he said it was failing because I wasn't giving the tank time to empty (but a working pump with an open drainage line can empty the tank in well under a minute, and he completely disregarded the fact that the tank was allegedly empty when I turned on the water in the first place). Then he said that the reason that the tank was overflowing was because the line was backed up (duh) but that he wasn't going to fix it since he had somewhere else to be. He said someone else would come later that day to fix it. It has been days since I was told that my problem was fixed. Louis hasn't returned calls, texts, or emails. call someone with a work ethic!

NOTE: Many of the reviews for this company are from real estate agents who are not invested in either the cost nor the actual need for repairs. Most of the other positive reviews include the phrase, "they found out I needed to replace blah blah blah..." No one EVER says, "he found that nothing further needed to be done." One reviewer even mentions that his first inspector said there were no problems but the Plumbing Ministry magically found that repairs needed to be done. Those are red flags to me. The Plumbing Ministry tried to get me to pay thousands of $$ for work that a second opinion proved was not necessary. Here's my story, I call it A Tale of Two Plumbers: We're selling our house in Alameda and we needed to get a sewer lateral certification, per city code, before the close of escrow. Our agent hires The Plumbing Ministry. The day Luis arrives there are other inspectors and contractors running around and it's very clear we're selling the house. He says nothing to anyone, films the sewer line, and gives me a dvd of the inspection. I pay him $150 on the spot. Fast forward 6 weeks - it's only days til closing. I learn that this is NOT AT ALL what the city needs and Luis KNEW THAT at the time. He acknowledged this on the phone and then said, "well, that's not what she asked for - she just asked for the dvd." He was difficult to get in touch w/ and then rude and sullen on the phone. He then emails me a quote for $2000 to have my sewer replaced and updated. He never actually said anything to me about whether the work needed to be done or whether he was just making shit up. Never discussed it at all. I call up BONAFIDE PLUMBING last night and he explains thoroughly what the city is asking for. He then immediately makes a call to a contact in the permit department and determines that the certification was done before I owned the place and that it's still effective. He picks up the paperwork I'll need for the sale and drops it off this morning at my house. $115. It was worth every penny to get my needs met so quickly and to be communicated with in such a professional fashion. When you ask for a termite inspection, you expect a pest report, not a guy saying, "yup, you have termites." When you ask for a tune-up you expect the mechanic to point out that your hoses are about to blow. When you complain about sore boobs you expect your doctor to check for cancer, not give you tylenol. Moral of the story: it's the job of the professional to know more than you do about what you need and to advise you of the best course of action! I got that from Bonafide Plumbing. I did not get it from The Plumbing Ministry.

This company deserves a NEGATIVE star review, but since we cannot do that we are sticking with 1 star. We have been dealing with this company for 4 months now for our sewer lateral replacement and testing, a project that should have taken 3 days. This is a dishonest company that uses tactics of bait and switch, miscommunication, and unskilled labor. They never finished what they were contracted to do and more than doubled charged us for the unfinished work. Here are the bullets points. -Project should have been around $2000 - we ended up paying $4250 -Misleading and miscommunications all throughout the entire project -Poor craftsmanship: +Fined by the City of Alameda for "discharge of sediment runoff" and "discharge of runoff water and ponding water associated with excavation activities flowing into the City municipal storm drain system" +Buried a barrel underground (found when our second plumbing company came to fix the work of Plumbing Ministry) +We were disconnected from the sewer for several days and when we inquired with a worker if we should be concerned, he said yes and said that he was there to clean up the poor work previously start +Took pavers and lost them and replaced them with bricks on the patio -Never completed the contracted jobin order for us to get a certificate and tried to charge us more money to finish the job -Took almost 4 months for a 3 day job and we still do not have a certificate Plumbing Ministry played a game of bait and switch and used poor communication to make this our worst experience with any contractor or business we have ever worked with. They have no integrity in their work. At this point we have hired a new plumber who has been working hard with us to get this project finished and we expect it to be completed by end of the week. During this process of locating a new plumber to finish this job, we heard from several companies that Plumbing Ministry has a reputation of using unskilled workers with no experience to do the labor, and the owner spends most of his time in Realtors offices trying to drum up business, instead of doing his due diligence to scope the work and better supervise his workers. This appears to be true from our experience with Plumbing Ministry. We are placing this complaint with Better Business Bureau as well, as it has been indicated that this company has treated other clients in a similar manner and are not providing services they promise and ripping people off. We informed the company that we would be filing a BBB complaint and they did not care.

Never, I mean never do any business with this company. Don't even think about it. Try a reputable company like Pipe Spy; it's not worth any money you might save. I, like my wife in the comments below, do not enjoy writing bad reviews as I know it does effect their business and was the reason I gave Louis (the owner) a chance to make us remotely satisfied customers after his company botched both our sewer lateral jobs. But, now I am here writing a review on a company I no longer want to think about. So here are a few more details on our dealings with Plumbing Ministry. It's almost amusing, if it wasn't so odor-ifically and ecologically painful. After 50 some odd days of fecal matter in our front and side yards that is directly above the Fruitvale Creek and after taking 2 half days off work, Louis sent me a check for $325. It should be noted I spent over $9000 on his horrific services. I left a voicemail message with Louis that he spelled my name wrong on the check he sent and that I did not cash it yet. After not hearing back from him (as always), I cashed the check. The payment was stopped on the check and I was charged $5 from my Bank. This was after he told me their communication could be better. He did not communicate to me that he was stopping payment and was sending another check! Amazingly classic! He is still costing me time and money and they are done with there work...and their repair work. So the real issue is a lack of communication both internally and externally with the company and their processes. In short, they had 2 different crews come out on each day and then did not check to make sure the they did the job correctly, like say flush a toilet and watch the water flow out the lateral? Speaking to Louis on the day he repaired his company's mistake, it is clear that he was not learning from his miss-steps and would not change his processes and would do this sort of thing again. I own a business myself, and if I made a huge mistake, I would not hesitate to pay all of the cost, especially if it was a customer that had had 2 jobs with me. I real could go on for days about this, but I am done complaining about this disaster of a company. I still have not spoken to anyone at the company who knows if they removed the feces in my front yard or just left it there. But least my toilet flushes now. Don't be like me, choose a good company that cares about it's customers.

I pondered about posting this review as it has been sitting in my drafts since October 2019: Me giving them 2 stars in more than generous after the horrific experience I had with the owner, the workers and the 2 LOVELY (sarcasm) women who work in the office. I can say the work did finally get done correctly but the customer service I received was absolutely disgusting. It all began when I pulled up to home and found out the workers had taken over not just my driveway but also my neighbors driveway and they had debris all over the place. I had to call the office and get that handled. But that's not the worst part. I received a text from the owner saying the work was complete and he needed full payment. I was at the sight less than 4 hours before he sent the message and we were no where near complete. I had someone else stop by and check to make sure everything else was cleaned up and squared away. The photos I added show how it looked when he demanded full payment. At that point one of the most disrespectful conversations I have ever had with a contractor ensued. I began be yelled at by the women who worked in the office and the owner. I let them know that they would not be receiving a payment from me until the work was completed. They then attempted multiple times to send me a "invoice" saying they needed a deposit for the work which should had been sent before the work began. I then informed the owner that he would need to meet at the sight the following morning so we can see what he calls complete vs what I call complete. He never showed and dodge each and everyone of my phone calls. I took off of my job in order to deal with this man. Once they said the work was complete I myself went by and doubled checked. I then proceeded to head to their office so I can put a face to the name of both the disrespectful office assistants once I arrived the room was filled with tension and disrespect. They then blamed me for why the merchant rejected the payment over night. Saying that they don't make transactions that large ($7500.00) and that's why they wanted a deposit. Which if they would've been up on their paperwork and paid attention to what was going on they would've sent over a invoice for a deposit. With that being said please run far,far,far,far,far,far away if you can from them. And if not make sure you get everything in writing and don't let them bully you around.

Full disclosure, the rating is based on poor communication, withholding information, and a lack of respect for their customers. I can't actually speak for the work, although to be fair it did pass EBMUD inspection. I don't actually know the quality, because I never saw it once it was completed. The BIG issue I have... I hired these guys to replace my upper sewer lateral. I came home the first night to find that my gas line had been turned off. I found out only because PG&E left me a note stating they had to turn my gas off due to the gas line being hit. PG&E came back at 11pm that night to finally turn it back on. I never heard anything from these guys about the incident. No apologies until I brought it up after the work had been completed. No attempt to rectify or even acknowledge the incident, which turned out to be a bigger deal than I originally thought. I learned from my neighbor, who happened to be around and who took some pictures, that multiple fire trucks were called out to to handle the situation. Luckily it was handled without any additional damage to the home. SMALLER issues I have... I was told on the phone that the work would ensure 20 years compliance with EBMUD - turns out that's only if they replace the entire sewer lateral...found that out after the work had been completed. When I was told by Louis, I was made to feel like this was my fault and that their employees know better than to give me this kind of misguided information. Additionally, I was also told by an employee that they guarantee their work for 11 years and that any issues would be resolved by them. Still waiting to know if this is actually the case, because Louis continues to dodge the question. Instead of responding to my question, I just got a call from their administrator asking to finalize my payment. Got it, I need to pay, will do. But at least resolve any issues I have before requesting your payment. Working with these guys just made me feel like they were all about the money and moving as quickly as possible. I had to follow up with them to come and clean up the mess they had left behind once the work had been completed. Again, can't really speak about the work itself, but if you're looking for some honest and open communication with your plumber...these guys aren't the ones for you.

The Plumbing Ministry replaced a sewer lateral near me, on a busy street, as part of a real estate transaction. The entire process has been marked by a total lack of professionalism, disregard for rules, and total lack of respect for the neighborhood. As I write this, they have left a large (12+ inches deep) hole in the middle of the road, filling with water, spilling gravel into the bike lanes. The hole isn't marked. Cars are bashing into it, and it will cause a bicycle or motorcycle to wreck. This is just the latest example of a total lack of professionalism or care for the safety of anybody. They illegally blocked parking with cones, then left them for days. They parked construction trailers in bike lanes, left a large pile of dirt in the sidewalk. They made no effort to get permits to remove parking or properly divert traffic. Neighbors, getting home from work late at night, had to remove their cones and junk from street parking. All the neighbors are totally sick of them. When they first showed up and blocked 6-8 spaces with cones, I called their office to inquire how long they intended to block parking. They lied and said they were not blocking any street parking. They left those cones laying around the street for days. Update in response to the owner's comment: His claims are false. The photo attached to this review shows the state of the patch as left by uniformed employees of The Plumbing Ministry. It was done poorly, with no compaction -- employees simply dumped bags of asphalt in the hole. I live across the street and watched this all. No asphalt was ever removed. The patch simply sunk because of poor workmanship. I'm pretty sure the owner knows this, because after neighbors complained to the City contractor oversight office, he or somebody else from The Plumbing Ministry office showed up to put a cone in the hole, and came back almost every morning to replace the cone after it was hit by cars. The final patch was done by *another* contractor. The owners comments seem to be simply another example of the outright dishonesty that has marked all my interactions with this company. The owner's comment are simply false. This was done entirely by the Plumbing Ministry. And I believe the owners knows this. Read the rest of the comments here. My experience is not an outlier.

EDIT: ***See the owner's response. Note the total lack of empathy or ownership for the mistake. Do you really want to do business with plumbers who don't even try to help when something goes wrong, especially when it affects somebody who had nothing to do with the job? I would encourage everyone who is thinking of hiring this company to think twice - read all the negative yelp and google reviews to see what you're really getting into when you hire the Plumbing Ministry. One review even notes that the only positive reviews are from real estate agents who want the bare minimum done. I would highly encourage anyone reading this review who has had problems with the Plumbing Ministry to reach out to the El Cerrito City Department, Better Business Bureau, California Department of Consumer Affairs, and California Attorney General's Office to file a complaint.*** My neighbors hired the Plumbing Ministry to do some plumbing work. This involved the company coming on July 24th and digging up the pipes in the street area between my neighbors place and residence. They then proceeded to accidentally cut our cable and wifi service line, which resulted in a brief interruption to cell service. As of today, July 28th, the wifi service still has not been fixed. The Plumbing Ministry has not offered to resolve this situation in any way whatsoever. They first tried to deny they had anything to do with it, but after confronting them, they told me they would contact the office and the right people to get this fixed. Since I had not heard anything from them and no work had been done to restore access, I called the office number for the plumbing ministry. I talked to the owner who was apathetic at best, denied all wrongdoing by stating that our cables were unmarked (which does not seem like a reason to cut them in the first place), and told me that there is nothing they can do. Wifi may seem unimportant to most, but as somebody who works remotely, I find the apathy and the lack of ownership taken by the Plumbing Ministry to be appalling. I believe my experience to be indicative of the work they perform and the service that they provide as a business.

When my toilet and shower drainage was clogged again, I figured it was time to find a good plumber to get the issue detected at the source and have it fixed for the long run. When it was clogged before, a bunch of roots were found that had caused the clogginess. Immediately I thought about Louis. I used his service before and initially got the recommendation from by my neighbor, a UC professor. Since I was happy with his service and efficiency, I decided to contact him again. When I texted him ( a way he prefers for communications with him/his company), he responded speedily and asked me what exactly the problem was and the inch-width of the pipe. He later showed up at the house per my request with the camera snake and showed me how the equipment worked and what he found out. It turned out that my pipe was replaced partially before and the section by the bath room near was still the old terra-cotta pipe where roots got in through the joint. Louis mentioned that drainage pipe is his area of specialty. He explained the issue distinctly and offered me pragmatic suggestion- having the old pipe replaced with cast iron instead of keeping it and ending up paying about $450 each time to have a plumber fix the clog. He gave me the heads-up about the length of hours for the work and reminded me to prepare for the noise created by jack-hammer digging. He also checked and made sure there was outlet outside for the crew. And he had his staff unclog/clean the toilet and shower drainage on the same day. His crew showed up punctually at the time/day we'd set up and completed the work smoothly. Overall, Louis and his crew have the efficiency and smoothness that suits my expectations for a good plumbing service. It'll continue to be the top one on my choice list.

Not fair that I can't publish negative stars. HORRIBLE! HORRIBLE! This is the worst company I have come in contact with for a long time. When they replaced the sewer line for my neighbor, they ripped up my front yard instead, tore out plants that had been growing for 15 years, and placed a large sewer circle in my front yard. This was after my neighbor told them not to. When I tried to contact the owner, he never once apologized for anything. He wouldn't talk to me, only texted. When I finally got him on the phone he was extremely dismissive. The only thing he would say is that they should not have touched my yard. After weeks one of his supervisors said they would not remove the line (because it cost more money), but they would bury it and replace the plants. It took over a month for them to do anything. They did buy the plant I requested, but only two small ones instead of the entire space they destroyed. When I tried to follow up, they continued to ignore me. Another neighbor on the next street said their neighbors had many problems with them as well. My neighbors were so upset and even with both of us complaining, they did not do much. They are a HORRIBLE company. If I could give them negative stars, I would. Do not use them. They are the reason I am writing my first negative review and I have been on yelp for years. To make it worse the boss ends his message with, "Remember, Jesus love you." He just uses that to continue being horrible to those around him. The other option was replacing the line and rerouting it or taking it to the sidewalk. That was ignored and no one ever made contact. You did not use shared space, you destroyed my front yard on my property line. Wish you had talked to me once like you posted on yelp.