Dave's Custom Plumbing

Magda P.

I dealt with Dave's Custom Plumbing on 2 occasions:

1. First time Dave, the owner, came out to look at a corroding sewer line, he seemed professional and reasonable, and subsequently provided an estimate for the cost of replacing sewage line that seemed reasonable. He said he would return to perform video imaging and that altogether the overall cost for the esimate would be $275. Indeed, I was billed $275. I was very pleased with their service up to this time.

2. The second time I called them for a walk-through which I was told would cost $40, that they did NOT charge/hour, and that I would be given UP-FRONT estimates and would have to sign off on any additional work that needed to be done in the house. This time Aaron came out and during the walk-through proposed draining my tank, but did not inform me that there would be an extra charge for this or what this charge would be besides the $40 for the walk-through. When I was getting to write out a check, all of a sudden he told me the cost would be $145 and that they DID charge/hour!

I called the company back to complain 3 times in additional to several emails. The woman I spoke to was very helpful initially and told me that I was misinformed by Aaron, that he should not be charging me per hour, and that they would credit the $100. Then all of a sudden the next day they came up with additional charge of $60 for the initial visit by Dave, that was supposed to be free of charge per Dave himself, and was NOT included on the original bill with the video imaging!

Furthermore, the estimates I asked for during the second visit never materialized. It was a complete WASTE of money!

I asked Dave the owner to call me back to ask him for the additional estimates, to give me a timeframe for the work, and to explain how they were coming up with new charges for their trips--NEVER HAPPENED!

All in all, I think Dave's Custom plumbing proved unreliable in the end and I believe they are misleading the customers about their charges.

Gene H.

I'm not sure what to say. I called Dave last night at about 10:00 because we needed help - water backing up into the bath tub and we were taking it out by the buckets.

The answering service said that someone would call me asap. It's now 7:30 the next morning and still no call back. I can't say if Dave's is a great plumbing service or not, but they dropped the ball this time.

Mike V.

I have a toilet that will occasionally clog, and now we're renting out our house, so I figured I'd get it checked out to hopefully prevent clogs in the future. I called Dave's and:

-it was recommended that my ""cheap"" American Standard toilet be replaced with something more expensive
-they tried to snake my toilet and *failed* to get the snake down
-they left scrapes and scuff marks all over the inside of my toilet after their failed snake attempt
-they tracked mud all over my bathroom floor
-they charged me $40 for their ""excellent"" service!

I'd flush the idea of using Dave's plumbing.

Samantha M.

We just moved in to a new house and we had a big puddle right outside of our bathroom. I googled local plumbers and came up with Daves on yelp. Thank you yelp for referring me to such an valuable company. They were very professional and I was surprised that they were also pretty knowledgeable. I found out I had what they call a slab leak. The house was really old and they recommended several ways it could be fixed. In a few days, and lot of messy work, ripping and tearing out my carpet and flooring, we found the leak and fixed it and the puddle is now gone. Thanks Dave and Co. for holding my hand throughout this yucky process.

Raghu Y.

In two words, very poor service. Had a clogged main line... The plumber came last friday to fix it, and he ""snaked"" it from the side clean-out and not the main one... Charged 260 dollars for it, for two hours.
WIth in a week (exactly) the mainline got clogged.

Aaron came back and their Manager (who is the most ""non-customer friendly"" guy) wants to charge entirely again... I don't expect 6 months guarantee, but, not even a week for 260$??

As I started pushing him hard, he decided to abandon and they left. He wanted me to sign a contract to let them put a new clean-out in the front (near the main sewage line), and only then he would honor any warranty.

I turned around and called ""Rotto Rooter"". They fixed the problem and even gave a month guarantee..

What a crapp service ""Dave's customer plumbing"" is...

You would be happy with someone else.
What a

Eric S.

Our sewer backed up, so I checked Yelp for help. Finding Dave's highly rated, I called them. Aaron showed up right on time, checked the cleanouts, and determined that it was a city problem. He said he'd be glad to clean it out right then and there or charge me a diagnostic fee (less than 1/4 the cost of the job and very reasonable) so I could call the city which would take care of the problem in an hour or so. I opted for the latter, and
Aaron then showed me how to tell if the problem was the city's or mine, gave me the city phone number for future use, and then actually called and made all the arrangements for me. Service just doesn't get any better than this!!

Dina J.

My sub-pump broke. It was installed by Dave's Plumbing less than a year ago. He was sold a defective pump. I believe the warranty for labor had expired, but I was charged Zero by Dave. He sent a plumber to check it out the same day who determined the problem. The next day they installed a new pump. Superb service.

Paul T.

I had a clogged toilet. Based on reviews here, I thought I give Dave's Custom Plumbing a try. It was a simple thing and it took the guy 5 minutes to clear up using an auger.

He then walked around the house and told me I had to fix this and that. He said it would cost around $400-$500 to fix and he can get the parts right away. He made it sound like it was something urgent and that we're lucky that he is there and available. I Googled the item and found that it costs much less. I had a feeling that someone was trying to pressure me into buying something I don't need. So, I said no. He then went and charged me $160 for the toilet. That's $160 for a 5 minute job! Given, he has to drive out here and spent the time. But the rate was still a bit outrageous.

Sure enough, a few weeks later, the toilet (a different one) was clogged again. Since I was kind of suspicious at Dave's plumbing at this point, I called a different outfit - Bay Plumbing, which is also highly recommended by Yelper.

Harry from Bay Plumbing came out and proper diagnosed the problem I have with my two toilets. He correctly fixed both toilet by removing both toilets and reinstalling them. He spent 2.5 hours here and charged me a very reasonable $105 per hour. Most importantly, he took the time to diagnose the problem and fixed it properly. The other guy from Dave's just fixed the symptom, and then went on and tried to sell me an totally unrelated expensive job.

Oh, the kicker is, I had Harry from Bay looked at that $500 problem that Dave's guy wanted me to fix. Harry took a look at it and said it's not even close to requiring any repair! You can see my detail review of Bay Plumbing here: http://www.yelp.com/biz/bay-plumbing-redwood-city#hrid:QvytD5eW1H2pcL875pMavg

So, I seem to be the only one that had a bad experience with Dave's. My advise is, you TRY to get an estimate out of them before letting them fix things. And don't let them put you on the spot and pressure you into any unplanned repair. Do you research, ask for quotes, before agreeing to let them fix any ""emergency"".

BTW, I did try very hard to extract an estimate out of them before letting them start work. The phone operator was VERY skillful in avoiding to give out any estimate - not even a range. The guy here gave me a range, but the actual repair only took him 5 minutes and he took the rest of the hour here (that he charged me with) to try to upsell me something else.

Jennifer S.

Great job folks, thank you so much!

I was a customer of AAAAA ""Let Stinky Do It"" for several years before they were bought by AAA Plumbing. Every 3-4 years they'd have to come and auger out the main line to remove the tree roots. Time for it to happen again last summer, I call Stinky and AAA Plumbing comes out. They try to upsell me with everything they have, including a $6K solution with, get this, financing! Yikes. I didn't buy most of it. I did not like the used-car-lot, time-pressure feel of AAA.

Yesterday our pipes backed up. Only eight months after AAA did a pressure-wash treatment for a few hundred dollars. I called them and asked about the situation, but it's only warrantied for 90 days. Plus the lady on the phone sounded like she had been drinking. She didn't even ask what the problem was - I kept trying to tell her and she just kept on talking about how they could send someone right now. She could not be bothered to set up an appointment for the next day, when I didn't have a meeting at work, and told me to call again later when I was ready. Hoo boy. That's it, time to find a new plumber. Yelp to the rescue. I called Dave's. The lady on the phone was competent, polite, smart and handled my job scheduling. She informed me of the $25 Yelper coupon (thanks!), and tried to get what info she could about my problem. She made sure the schedule would work for me and told me the plumber would call 10-15 minutes before he arrived, which he did.

I met Aaron of Dave's plumbing today, right on time. He explained that I had a two-way cleanout valve. He did a couple of tests, we saw the problem, and he headed out to the street to do the snaking. I should also mentioned that he put on shoe covers while he was standing at the front door to come inside, and when the whole job was done - wait for it - he cleaned up my entryway tile. I dream about contractors who do things like this. Nice! He recommended a couple of things I could do myself to remove tree roots in the future, recommended Barron Park plumbing supply (they rock!), and when I asked about AAA, he said that a lot of plumbing shops pay their plumbers on commission. That explained a whole lot about AAA. He also told me why Dave's would dig up the main line should it ever need replacing instead of cementing it in (which is only a band-aid). Aaron really enjoys his work, I could tell. He genuinely seemed to enjoy talking about plumbing, getting a job all the way done right, and most of all, helping people. The man was careful to make sure his job was thorough and well-done - he ran the snake through more than once until it ran cleanly all the way through, and he ran all the water in the house for 10 minutes before he would call the clog removed, and said to call him if anything were to happen once he left. He was careful to explain what could be done if the trees eventually overcame the pipes, but said that there was no need to do any of that unless there was mud in the line (unlike AAA who was all ready to re-plumb the mainline *right now*).

The bill was under $200. Thank you to Dave & his super staff. You're my new plumbers!

Yolanda S.

I was very disappointed by the uninformed, misleading and contradictory information I got from the people at Dave's Custom Plumbing.

--The plumber they sent told me our toilet was not a high efficiency model when it is.
--He claimed our leaky tank could not be replaced, only repaired, which would be complicated and cost $487. In truth, the tank could easily be replaced for 1/5 the cost he bid to repair it.
--He claimed our company could get a rebate from the City of Mountain View for installing a high efficiency toilet (toilet + installation cost $500), when, as a business we could not. (In fact, the City of Mountain View has a free high efficiency toilet program for qualifying businesses but only through their own contractor: in other words, there was nothing in it for Dave's.)
--The plumber claimed they had a high efficiency toilet in stock, went to get it and came back empty-handed, claiming he had been mistaken -- the toilet they had in stock was a normal high-flow toilet, but that I had to pay a trip charge of $25 anyway.
--The receptionist claimed the toilet they had in stock really was a high efficiency toilet.
--The receptionist said it sometimes took days to hear back from the City of Mountain View since they were so backlogged, that it wouldn't be worth the wait.

I finally decided to educate myself and discovered that our existing toilet is high efficiency (and therefore did not qualify for the free toilet program from the City of MV), the part could easily be replaced and that I could do it myself for $100. Bill at Conleff Plumbing Supply in Santa Clara was instrumental in helping me ""do-it-myself"". Thanks to him, our toilet is working like new and I know where to turn when I have a plumbing question!