Barrera Plumbing Services

John H.

These guys changed out my water heater and did an awesome job. The guys were very professional and did the job in the matter of a couple hours. Highly recommend!

Celina J.

I had a gas leak in my house....wait till the clencher at the end... I called these guys and I was pleasantly surprised how quickly they showed up...with 5 guys. From that point on it was one lie after another. First they told me that he had to pay 5 guys to diagnose and fix my gas leak so that would be $450...but only if the gas leak was in an obvious place outside the furnace or stove (a total of 3 inches of pipe). I thought that as reasonable so I signed their contract. They found the leak and fixed it. That should of been the end of it, but they played bad guy good guy games on me and gaslighted me. They told me the small repair (took 30 minutes) did not find the gas leak and they would need a permit. So I agreed to the permit.
They wanted me to pay right away when I was on the way to my son's doctors appointment and I was driving (Ie, yes, I need three hours to take my baby to the doctor and then get home and get the right debit card out). They yelled at me for this and got abusive in tone and manner. I was called 5 times in a row while driving.

Then they told me it would be at least $1,500 for them to start crawling around in my walls looking for a gas leak...or I could cut out a big section of the wall myself. I was prepared to do this as a single mother and went to home depot to buy a saw because I was unwilling to pay $1,500 to cut out a three foot section of sheet rock.
I felt things were off so the next morning I called the city of Austin permit department. I was told no permit had been pulled. At this point I cut my losses and told them I would find someone else. They again became abusive and profane. I was shaking after the phone call (s).
The next plumber I called I paid $150.00 to diagnose the leak (far more reasonable)...and lo and behold...THERE WAS NO GAS LEAK. These guys were honest and said there was no problem at all.

Barerra Pluming actually told me there was STILL a gas leak in the house because $450 in 30 minutes was not enough money for them. (A small Y gasket was replaced on the heater.)
Who Knows, there may have never been as gas leak at all...because later I had the plumber check my oven again because I thought I smelled gas and she used a carbon monoxide detector and said the smell was not gas, just the new stove out gassing.

It turns out I have had similar cruddy work and extremely high prices from Barerra Plumbing before when I checked my records. I am in the real estate business and so use plumbers a LOT! stay away from these guys, dishonest and emotionally abusive to boot. Yikes.
The would have made more money off my business in a year by being reasonable, and honest.

Richard V.

Barrera Plumbing was immediately available to assist with completing a kitchen and bath remodel. When a family member's illness arose, Victor and crew were called in to do work I had started.

All went very well. They were very knowledgeable and efficient.

Definitely, definitely would call them back. Victor and Berrera office staff are already working up a bit for follow-on work not part of the kitchen and bath remodel, such as replacing a hot water heater.

Thank you guys for hustling me past a hump.

Lupe G.

This concerns a water leak in front of my unit...I live in a townhome. Our HOA was slow in having it looked at, so I called the City Water Dept.
Finally, our HOA sent out Barrera Plumbing, who said they had been out before and could not locate the leak. I led them to it and tried to fill in the sequence of events, but they were having none of it. Their strength is clearly not communication, and seemed to feel foolish about not finding the leak; they soon turned defensive. The workers resisted in engaging with me and the owner came across like a bully, which he may have felt comfortable doing to a female senior citizen. Besides, being weak in their attentiveness, I found Barrera Plumbing to be lacking in good customer service skills.When the owner, Victor, learned I was not on our Board, he strengthened his intimidation toward me. I am not on our Board, but if I were he would be taken off the contract workers list. Short of that, though, he will not be patronized by me, and will dissuade any that I know from utilizing his company.

Joseph K.

Just what to shout out to a great Team at Barrera! The boys showed up early like I would and were on there game. Did a AC check, diagnosed problem the right way! Fixed it and were back to being cool!
If your in need of some work at a fair Price, that is out standing and what to be treated right! Just give Victor a call 512-644-7174 AC 512-826-5665 You can tell him Joseph sent you. THANKS AGAIN BARRERE TEAM YOU GUYS ROCK!

John M.

General incompetence and insistence of getting paid for work that did not solve the problem.

Here is a little story - We had a problem with a hot water heater not heating.

- My tenant replaced the heating element but that did not fix the problem.
- Barrera replaced the new heating elements (after being informed of the work that had been completed), which did not work, which is not surprising because that had already been done.
- My tenant called on Saturday to report that it did not work. He reported that the on-call service was rude.
- Barrera came back out Saturday and replaced the elements, which did not work again.
- Barrera recommended replacing the water heater at $1200 to $1400.
- Sent someone to the duplex without calling the tenant. The tenant was at work and no one was able to let them in.
- Tenant called to schedule late in the day. Reported that Vic's office was rude and was told that the job would cost overtime.
- The tenant bought and installed a $30 thermostat, luckily saving me the $1200 of $1400 of an un-needed new water heater.
- I was billed $400 to twice replace $11 heater elements that did not fix the problem.

Peter D.

Victor is a man of integrity...we had two other companies tell our nonprofit we needed a total boiler system replacement, $20,000+. Victor came out and diagnosed the problem, fixed it on the spot and did not charge for finding the problem. Who does that? An amazing man building an amazing company. Trustworthy!

Marilyn M.

Highly recommend them. Been using them since 2006. Prompt. Courteous. Good communicators. Look you in the eye. Reasonable. I never feel like I'm getting gauged. Plus family owned. I like supporting local business.

Sean A.

We had a bad odor, a sewage like smell, that spread across the office.
We hired these guys to come in and address it. Initially a guy named victor came in and assessed the building. Our interaction with him was very casual and ok. He walked the site and inspected several rooms. We disclosed to him that the work has to be done outside of work ours. He made a recommendation and quoted the job to be about $140. They were going to drain the trap in our sink. He also mentioned that if additional work has to happen, there will be an extra charge. At the time, He did not have the proper equipment and had to send a separate crew to address the issue.
His crew showed up about 1 hour and 20 min late stating they were in traffic. they opened the Pee-trap by a crew member who was in training and not as efficient. No additional work was done beyond the drainage. The water was still not going down. The main crew member who was very professional and nice explained the process and the need for the trap replacement. Ok, No problem; we said! However, he said it is a special part and has to be ordered in. We asked could this be done after hours? He said It can be possible. He then, gave us an invoice for $226. Bare in mind, the problem is not solved. So, we asked very nicely from the crew member:" Victor had quoted us $140, did something change?" he said it took longer. It's $140/hour. all of this was ok. Still no issues until about 20 min later....
we get a very aggressive and unprofessional voicemail from Victor stating that: and I paraphrase" you did not hire a plumber out of a garage. If you don't understand that, we can not help you. Also, We can not get your part until next week".
We were shocked by his voicemail as we didn't think there were any issues. We had simply asked a question from the crew member which he handled very well. it was Victor, the owner, who had us very dissatisfied and offended. We will not be hiring this company any more. This type of unprofessional conduct should not be supported.
We always like to support local small businesses. But if they lack, etiquette like Victor...then no thank you!

Heather M.

I'm so pleased with the service provided by Victor Barrera and his team that they are now on my speed dial to help me with my apartment units if I have plumbing problems. Victor is particularly knowledgeable about on-demand hot water heaters, helping us successfully trouble shoot the existing units where others have failed. He is courteous and thoughtful, as are his folks. They show up, and most importantly, they see the job through and back up their work. Having lost our previous plumber to retirement, I did not think it was possible to find another who was as talented, fair and friendly as he, but Victor is our guy now and I couldn't be more honored to recommend him! In fact, those I've recommended him to have been equally as happy! Great customer service!