Central Plumbing & Sewers

Yordy L.

My wife and I recently bought a house in Oakland. We didn't want to be rushed to get the sewer lateral compliant before closing, so we filed the extension with the city. After livin there for about 3 months, we decided we should probably get it done before we got to close to the time limit on the extension.

kathy a.

Here is my story of working with Paul Croxton in 2008 for my house in Berkeley. I have removed one person's name which was the person who finally fixed what Paul and crew did wrong.

Anyone can have a bad day. Or maybe even a bad year. How do I remember so many details now, 8 years later? Because I wrote this all down at the time. Take my advice regardless of who is doing your sewer lateral work: Understand how water drains from your house. Then understand how those drains should connect to the street, and make sure your contractor connects all of these properly. If they miss it, and if the inspector misses it when checking their work (::COUGH!!::) then you'll probably have the giant hassle I had to go through.

This is my experience:

Approximately December of 2007, I experienced the first of the plumbing problems. When the washing machine drained, it backed up, flooding the laundry area. I called Roto-Rooter, they came and snaked the pipe. It cleared the blockage for the time-being.

In May of 2008, the same plumbing problem reoccured. This time I called Pacific Drain and Rooter Service. Nasir from Pacific Drain came to snake the pipe, but was not successful. He suggested I contact Chris from Chris's Quality Sewer and Drain Service. So I did.

Chris came out and tried to snake the pipe. His snake got caught on whatever was clogging the pipe, and he could not get it out. He had to cut part of my drain pipe underneath the house in order to salvage most of his snake. He was not happy... At that point under the house, we could not tell if the ""clog"" was inside the foundation, or just on the other side of it, outside the foundation. Chris recommended I call XXX YYYY of ZZZZZZ Plumbing.

I called XXX and scheduled an appointment. Prior to his arrival, I dug out a large hole on the north side of my house to expose the area where the clog was. I had to negotiate with my neighbors to let me leave large piles of dirt on their driveway. I dug much of it out, but not enough to identify what was going on.

XXX arrived, dug it out a bit more, and discovered the problem: the drain pipe which originates from the kitchen/washer area on the south side of the house, which runs along underneath the house, to drain at the north side of the house was not connected to anything! It was draining into the ground, and a large root had grown up into the pipe, causing my water backups. I knew the sewer lateral had been replaced prior to me purchasing the house, so I called my real estate agent to get information from them as to who did the work to replace the sewer lateral. I found the information:

In March of 2007, three months before I purchased the house, the previous owners had the sewer lateral replaced, which is the north side of the house. This work was done by Central Plumbing and Rooter. Central Plumbing and Rooter failed to connect the kitchen/washer drain to the sewer lateral.

I called Paul Croxton who runs Central Plumbing and Rooter, and explained the situation to him. He said he would address the situation. A couple days later, one of his employees arrived to view the hole and the drain. He said he would have to have to discuss it with Paul to get the job scheduled. He also said they would have to bust out some of the concrete in the drive way to make the connection between the drain and the sewer lateral. In the meantime, my neighbors had to live with very large piles of dirt in their driveway for many days. After the employee of Central left, I called Paul to discuss scheduling the job. Paul was very defensive with me, and we had a very unpleasant conversation. He became short-tempered and said he would rather have XXX of ZZZZZZ come do the work, and that he would pay XXX for the work. Fine, I decided I would rather deal with XXX, as my dealings with Paul were unpleasant.

XXX came out in the next day or so to do the work. Working with XXX was a joy. He's very good-natured and humorous. The work was done in a day, and he did not even have to bust out any concrete in the driveway! I recall XXX saying the job would cost about $900, and he would bill Paul at Central Plumbing and Rooter.

A little later I spoke with Paul again from Central Plumbing and Rooter to ask him if he would reimburse me for the prior plumbing charges I incurred when I had to get the pipes snaked. He said he would, so I sent him the receipts I could find. To my surprise, Paul sent me a check for those charges. I've happily never had to hear from him again.

Jonathan O.

Paul and his crew did a wonderful job on our sewer lateral work. You can hardly tell they were there at all. Would highly recommend.

Deb T.

How do you rate a company that makes an appointment to look at your water heater, doesn't show up on the date & time of the appointment, doesn't call to tell you they are running late, need to reschedule, etc & then when you the customer call to ask why they didn't show up & didn't call - you get no response. Oh, did I mention that this interaction was with the owner of the company Paul!!

Wow, must be very nice to be so selective as to who you feel like servicing. If your company is doing that well then why not just retire to some tropical island where you can be as unprofessional as you want. I hope you don't have kids to put through school.

Dede A.

Paul was put in a tough position when two of his employees called out sick on our original appointment date, fortunately he was able to aggressively hustle additional team members to ensure my closing date was not compromised and the Sewer Lateral Compliance was met. Thank you Paul & Team! -Dede

Jennifer Jo H.

Paul and his crew did a great job replacing our sewer lateral. He is an honest and through. He tested another line and happily confirmed it was not a problem reducing the work that needs to be done. And when it was all done everything was cleaner than when he started. He is now my go to plumber. Oh yeah he also had a price that was as good as or better than anyone else I talked to.

Aaron B.

I recently had an issue with my sewer lateral backing up. I knew it had been replaced right before I bought my house around 7 years ago but I didn't know who had done the job. I found out from the city permit department that it was Central Plumbing. I called Paul, told him of the problem and he checked it out within a few days. He said the job was still under warranty even though I hadn't originally contracted him and agreed to fix it asap. To be honest I did not expect him to be so accommodating and thought it would be a struggle to get it his company to fix the problem. He recently came out and diagnosed the problem and had it fixed in a couple of hours. I really appreciated him standing by his work and honoring his warranty. I would recommend him highly.

Tim K.

Paul made the sewer lateral compliance process easy. While other sewer companies said we needed to replace the whole line ($!!) Paul did his homework and realized part of it had already been replaced. He suggested testing it as-is and guess what? It passed! He was easy to work with. I recommend him for sewer lateral work.

Michael R.

We had an ancient terracotta sewer lateral that snaked around the house and was mostly under concrete. It was a constant problem and had to be replaced. We contacted Paul and he gave us a detailed bid and time schedule. He and his crew attacked the sewer and had it replaced on time and with no disruption. The work was excellent and reasonably priced. The garden was only minimally disturbed which was a great surprise considering the extent of the work. We highly recommend Central Plumbing, a great local business.

Rod F.

Competent, friendly, and cost effective. Paul came in with the lowest bid for my sewer lateral replacement , and completed the work quickly and cleanly. When he discovered other pipes that needed to be replaced, he quickly came up with another low bid and carried out the work efficiently. Moreover, Paul was respectful of our schedule and very responsive. I recommend him highly for sewer lateral replacement.