Balkan Sewer & Water Main

Peter M.

Scheduled an appointment. Waited all day. Never showed, no call. Nothing. Find someone else if you care about your time.

George S.

My basement was flooded from some sort of sewer backup. George M from Balkan Plumbing was great- professional, considerate, and thorough. He managed to find and clear the source of the leak, which turned out to be more complicated than we had imagined. He is very experienced and knowledgeable and a pleasure to work with. They will be my go-to plumbing outfit from now on.

Thomas G.

After 6 (six) visits by other organizations over 4 weeks to address sporadic sewer backups, we gave Balkan a call mid day Saturday. By 6:30 PM George arrived. He reviewed all we had done, all the trials and tribulations and got to work. Now you might ask why I didn't call Balkan first: I did not know they served the south shore of LI.

George just left at 8:30 PM and did a fantastic, phenomenal job. He made sure everything worked and that the blockages were a thing of the past. I may be biased as I run the Queens Chamber of Commerce and Balkan is a member, but I understand now more than ever of why they have been so successful throughout the NY Metropolitan area. I WHOLEHEARTEDLY endorse and support Balkan Plumbing. If you want to know more, call me 718.898.8500. I mean it! Tom Grech

Monique C.

Can't believe how disgusting and unprofessional these people are. Avoid at all cost! I sincerely think they are running a scam with insurance to falsify reasons why your issue is not covered. Delovan who came to my house didn't even properly assess the issue before determining it was an internal ""issue"". They gave us a morning window for an emergency situation and didn't come until 3pm. When he explained to him that we had our plumber come and Roto Rooters come and they all explained it was a sewer issue he said he would get his snake and do the job. He went outside and drove off and never returned. How professional is that? His supervisor called me back shortly thereafter and wouldn't even give me an opportunity to speak and said it's not ""her issue"" and told me that I must have done my plumbing ""illegally"" and told me to call my plumber before she disconnected the line on me.

They are disgusting!! Avoid! Avoid!

Max R.

This past summer we discovered that roots from a city tree had inundated our sewer main-which we had just purchased along with the house-for years. Being first time homeowners in Astoria, we had no idea this could happen and certainly no idea about the expense involved in replacing a sewer main. Needless to say we were freaked out, but George from Balkan arrived, assessed the situation and after some preliminary work, put our minds at ease. He calmly and thoroughly explained everything about our system, the city's system and how things like root inundation can occur and how to fix and prevent it. He and his partner jetted the pipe and ran a video through it to show us how clear and clean everything became afterward. I would highly recommend Balkan for any sewer or plumbing issues. And ask for George!

LaMarr R.

The quality of work done by the technician was good; however; preceding the communication of doing the work needs to be reviewed. On the customer's end in terms of locating the technician arrival time was different than dispatch and caused disparaged in communication lines on various levels from the business side. I believe when putting forth service if it be by communication prior to arrival, in explaining the causes or in actually performing the job. There should always be high priority customer provided- to guarantee satisfaction. I was disappointed in the level of communication that was handled in a business sense in terms of giving clear direction of dispatch, which should have been done in a more professional manner on a whole. I would suggest more training in this area of staff with developing good people skills in addition to providing superb customer service with the ultimate goal of being of service for the homeowners and in combination of producing effective quality work ethics.

Debbie R.

Service was great When I first called to set up an appointment for a technician to come out with the camera to look inside my main sewer line. However if you are requesting ""A Report"" you must do it the very same day and be very specific in your request.
I had been calling for a week asking for my report and now I'm being told I am getting a video because I never requested a report.
Women answering the phone like to play words games.
Since I didn't tell them I wanted them to return to do the sewer repair they have been stringing me along. As it turns out the break isn't on my property but rather next door. So disappointed. Promises made but not fulfilled. I was considering recommending this company but now I'm not so sure.

After being told I would have the report & video today 7/6 it is 7:55 PM and I have NOT received anything.
After reading some of reviews I see this isn't first time that they have been non responsive.

I will continue calling them and posting until I receive my report and video!

Coquille H.

I am editing this review based on my current experience with Balkan.

Updated on 5/10: A manager never called.

Update on 5/5: I called and ask to speak to a manager because no one responded to my email from 4/29. After explaining multiple times why I wanted to speak to a manager, I was passed to someone else who asked why I was calling. That person, Sara, asked me repeatedly why I wanted to speak to a manager, ignoring my answer. She then said that according to their notes I cursed at their employee (when it was actually their technician, Miguel, who cursed at me). She didn't ask me what happened. Then she said, ""You're not going to speak to a manager."" She finally said a manager would call me.

Never in all of my life have I been treated this way by a company. I can longer recommend them.

Problem with service on 4/24: I'm having a rat problem and the exterminators can't figure out how they're getting in. They suggested I have a camera put into the sewer line to see if there's a break, so I called Balkan, whom I've used a few times before and have had positive experiences.

Their technician, Miguel Lopez, came on Saturday for my scheduled appointment (although he was late and hadn't communicated he'd be late) and didn't have a camera. He then began to argue with me about the details of a previous appointment and the one I'd requested, saying George gives special discounts he shouldn't be given because of the price I was quoted (I hadn't even made the appointment with George), and all sorts of illogical things. For example, when I told him I'd had it done before (Balkan to put a camera down my sewer line in 2016 when they replaced my waterline), he argued with me saying I had a snake job. He wouldn't listen to me at all and kept interrupting me when I tried to correct him. It continued to escalate to the point where he said, ""I ain't doing shit for you"" (which also didn't make sense since he wasn't even equipped to do it), and then he said, ""You can kiss my ass"" as he left.

I couldn't believe a service employee would speak to a customer that way.

I then tried calling the office a few times, but no one picked up. When someone finally picked up she immediately said I already heard about you from our technician and how you spoke to him. She began saying things that didn't make sense about my last appointment as well, which had nothing to do with the service I had requested. She wouldn't listen at all to what my experience was. She then began basically screaming at me that she could reschedule me, so I asked for her name and she hung up on me. I called back a number of times and no one picked up.

Previous Google Review:

My outside drains weren't draining well and my basement was flooding during heavy rains, so I called Balkan to diagnose my problem. George communicated very well about when he'd be arriving. He took the time to diagnose my issue, provide me a quote and gave me some pointers on how to maintain my drains. I trusted George's thorough inspection and diagnosis and felt confident Balkan could conservatively solve my problem. As a woman homeowner, I particularly appreciated that George didn't talk down to me. Balkan also replaced my main water line a few years ago and I felt they were professional, did high quality work, and provided great customer service. I believe you can trust Balkan will do their best to provide you excellent service; they take pride in their work.

Phillip C.

I'm a landlord of a small residential building in Bayside queens. I'm pissed off at myself for not getting water main insurance on my property . The building is over 100 years old and so is the water main which obviously broke a few months ago. I was a little lucky that it was only leaking in the street and not affecting my tenants which bought me some time to figure out what to do. I did some research called a few companies and got some estimates. This company came the same day , was there early and verified it was my line leaking in the street. The price fell into the price range I was expecting 6-8 k, actually on the lower side of what I expected. They gave good instructions about how to handle the DEP NYC water so they don't shut if the water to the house before they come in 2 days. Basically they got most of job done in one day as they said. Overall very easy to deal with for a good price. I Would use them again for a big job.
Thank you

Liora S.

George was great, he stayed longer than he probably needed to in order to ensure that the problem was solved. Wore a mask, cleaned and sanitized before he left, explained everything he was doing. I learned a lot! Thank you.