Afford-A-Rooter

Tom R.

I initially used this company to fix my sewer line. They came out and fixed it on time and at the agreed upon price. Trevor was hard to get a response from and a bit flaky. I needed a couple of additional items repaired. I called the office to get someone else to come out. Jason came out and spent a couple hours. I received a bill for his work and it was totally out of line. He told me that he charges $150 to $200 per hour for his services. I've used several reputable plumbers over the years. I have never been charged $150 - $200 per hour. Beware of this company.

John S.

I really like these guys, and yet they have not done any plumbing work for me. What? Well, they came out once to clear the exterior sewer line, but I could not find the access due to it having been covered in vegetation. No charge, and he came back the next day when I had located it. He checked the line and it wasn't clogged. No charge... just an interior clogged line, and he explained why other issues were causing our other problems. You bet I'll call them again. You don't often find honesty like that.

Jordan J.

This was by far the worst experience I've ever had with a contractor. If you do end up hiring them, here are some tips:
- Get everything in writing
- Do not expect them to honor their promises
- Call the week before, the day before, and the day they're supposed to come to make sure they don't flake on you
- Hire a separate company to inspect their work
- Call your city to find out if the work needs a permit

I'll spare you the 900-word essay. This is what they did to us:
- Moved the appointment without telling us
- Lied about the work they would do
- Only did half the job (I only discovered this after another plumber looked at their work)
- Didn't know they had to get a permit to do the work
- Charged our credit card as a subscription (so it will charge every year)

Ace K.

I had a backed-up drain and water on my basement floor. I called them at 7:30 this morning. They said they would have someone here between 11:30 and 1:30. When I called at 1:30 I was told their guy was doing a different job that ""wasn't on their schedule,"" and they'd find out how much longer it would take. The guy called me to say he was dealing with an emergency at an apartment and would be here ""in an hour or so."" My problem was an emergency, too, and I waited 6 hours for nothing. They could have let me know about the delay but didn't. There's no excuse for that. I called a different company. You should do the same.

Jerry M.

I hired these guys to snake my drain ($99) and they promptly got their crappy equipment stuck in my mainline (dull blades and bent line). I had to crawl under the house and tear up my mainline so the two of us could pull his crappy line out. I got charged $540 and my line was still blocked. He tried to convince me I had to spend $7000 and replace the whole line - what a load of crap! I rented a sewer snake and cleared the line myself with no problem. So $540 for Afford a rooter to NOT unblock my line, another $50 to rent a sewer snake, $300 for materials to fix my mainline, and 20 personal hours dealing with this nightmare. Trust me do NOT do business with this company - they are not to by trusted!

Bill F.

Had the owner stop out for an underground Water leak , estimate was to repair 10' section of copper water line with Backhoe trenching to repair water main, $ 2800.00 on the day they showed up two men with shovels uncovered a leaking plastic sprinkler line in a hand dug 30"" long x 24"" wide by 14"" deep trench, approx. 20 minutes work. The lead man spoke almost no english so my wife's questions were not answered. They replaced 24"" of plastic sprinkler line, and filled in the hole , as they were packing up the backhoe showed up, not needed. They reduced the price from $2,800.00 to $1,800.00. I did not realize that laborers with shovels were valued at $850.00 per hour (although the entire job took less than 50 minutes) or that plastic sprinkler line is valued at $ 100.00 per foot. I would say this is a company to avoid, because i am certain if this had gone the other way and required more work they would have gladly raised my price. Extremely disappointed in this company.

Vanessa R.

To start with, I called several different plumbing company's and was very overwhelmed by the lack of quotes, not wanting to deal with my difficult plumping issues as well as straight bullying to take on their company. After reading reviews, I called very upset and the front desk lady was extremely sympathetic to my challenges, and said she would send her best man out... Luis.
Luis was one if not the best people we have dealt with during problems that arise as a home owner. He quickly and quietly came to our home, didn't wake the baby during a nap and completely solved our major plumbing issues and back up. He is one of the most stand up gentleman that I have had the pleasure of dealing with let all be great at what he does!! I recommend this place to anyone I know!

Teresa G.

Trevor is very knowledgeable about the plumbing industry, has his Master Plumber license with the State of Colorado, and strives to make customers happy. He and his company, Afford A Rooter, have an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. Trevor offered me very sound advice about a plumbing repair that I needed, and helped me to avoid more of a plumbing disaster than I already had because I had hired someone to complete plumbing repairs who wasn't a licensed plumber like Trevor. I appreciate Trevor's professionalism, honesty, and efforts to ensure that the repairs of my home sewer line were completed according to code, and that I did not pay an exorbitant amount of money to complete the repairs. Thank you, Trevor!

Nico B.

BEWARE!!!!

Hire this company ONLY if you want to risk being screwed over.

They outright lied to us and tried to bilk $8,500 from us for replacing sewer pipes that are actually 100% fine!!!

In brief, I recently hired them to do a sewer scope. I watched along with their tech as he slid the camera line in. He explained to me that every place where our original clay pipe pieces connect and are offset a bit look ""really bad"" and that because of that our whole pipe, going from the house to the city main line in the alley, needed to be replaced.

He also told me that there was a big gap in between where the house PVC pipe should connect to the clay pipe just outside the house and that sewage was pooling in that gap (right near our foundation) and so we needed to fix that asap also.

Finally, he also told us there was a tap break where our line connects to the city main line in the alley, which they would have to dig down over 10 feet to fix.

He wrote me an estimate of $8,500 to fix the gap, the tap, and to do a ""pipe bursting"" (aka ""trenchless"") full replacement of our clay pipe with all new PVC pipe.

As it happens, NOT ONE of these things turned out to be true!!!

Fortunately, after Googling and informing myself online, I found a 2013 local news report (link below) saying that the city will watch your sewer scope video for free if you get it to them in order to give you a second opinion. After promptly watching the Afford A Rooter video I sent her, the city employee told me our pipes are currently just fine. JUST FINE!!!! WOW!!!! The offsets at the clay pipe connections, she explained, are *supposed* to be offset like that (it makes the pipes more resilient to movement). Had the connections been offset *too much* that would be an issue. But they weren't; they were offset just the right amount.

She also watched a video scope they had on file of the main line and, from their vantage, she could tell that the tap connection was not an issue either. (In fairness, this one could possibly maybe have looked like a legitimate issue when seen from a camera running down our house pipe, so it's possible Afford A Rooter was being honest in their assessment on this one, but who knows).

In short, the city employee told us we should do a cleaning every year or two and that so long as we did that the pipes should last indefinitely long.

And when I hired another company to do a pipe cleaning, their tech watched the Afford A Rooter video and told me the ""gap"" wasn't actually a gap at all!! It was just a hard rubber/plastic piece that is often used to connect the PVC to the clay pipe. That's it. No gap.

So in the end, Afford A Rooter tried to screw us out of $8,500!!!! And Google and the city saved us.

Unfortunately, from what I've learned from researching and talking to a handful of other companies is that our experience is not so rare. It's the Wild Wild West out there as far as sewer companies go. And MANY of them are trying to screw people over (and are often successful at it - what do most home owners know about sewer pipes and offsets??).

So I decided to write this review to help warn and inform others.

Lesson #1: Always have the city double-check your sewer scope video if the company that makes your video tells you that you have an issue.
Lesson #2: For your sewer scope, always hire a company that ONLY does sewer scopes (or that does scopes and cleaning) but NOT sewer repairs, too - this way they don't have (direct) incentive to tell you something is wrong when it isn't.
Lesson #3: Always get MULTIPLE assessments and bids if it looks like you do need a repair. Before sending the video to the city, we got bids ranging from $8,500 to over $14,000!!!

Lastly, here's the link to the local CBS4 news article that tells you how to contact the city for them to watch and give you a second opinion on your sewer scope video:

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2013/05/15/wide-disparity-in-sewer-estimates-prompts-4-on-your-side-consumer-investigation/

Good luck!

Elise E.

These guys were incredible. Trevor was great to work with to do my estimate, and he explained everything thoroughly and answered my questions. Originally I had an estimate from Planet Plumbing and it felt like I was treated ""like a girl"". Trevor and his team were polite, respectful and even helped my roommate move some heavy boxes into the garage. They arrived on time, were kind and great with my neighbors working with them to move their cars for the excavation work. In the end they finished an hour early and ahead of schedule. Professional from start to finish. I'm overjoyed at my new sewer lines and not having to worry about tree roots and blockages in the future! Highly recommended.