Dave's Custom Plumbing

Lisa G.

Dave has done a few jobs for us over the years and I've found him to get the job done and is very easy to deal with. Most recently he replaced our broken toilet. A piece of the new toilet broke soon after the install (due to a manufacturing defect). Dave loaned us the new part until we could receive a replacement from the company and fixed it without charging another service fee. I will definitely be using Dave's Plumbing again.

Chris L.

I am a highly respected general contractor in Palo Alto. I have been in business for 26 years and used most of the local plumbing companies at one time. I used Daves custom plumbing to replace sewer and drain lines under a customers house. During the time Daves Custom Plumbing was under the house the customers phone line stopped working. The phone line was all around the area the plumbing work was performed. My customer alerted me to the fact that the phone line had stopped working the day the plumbing work started. I checked the phone line myself and found it was in fact not working. When I was invoiced for the work Daves Custom Plumbing completed I paid the invoice minus the repair costs to run a new phone line. Daves Custom Plumbing refused to admit they damaged the phone line and demanded I pay the invoice in full. After realizing I was not going to pay the cost to repair the phone line, Daves Custom Plumbing filed a case in small claims court against me. When I showed up in small claims court to fight the claim, I was shocked to find three other parties in the court room that same day with disputes against Daves Custom Plumbing. Dave seems to be masking poor work by taking people to court. I started to ask around to see if any other contractors I know had had any issues with Daves Custom Plumbing. It turns out that three of my good friends who are very well respected general contractors had terrible experiences with Daves Custom Plumbing. Two of these contractors ended up in court against Daves Custom Plumbing as well. I also found out that Daves Custom Plumbing had not been paying the rent for his business wharehouse. It seems ironic that someone who is using small claims court to try and collect money that is not due, is in fact not paying his own bills. I would never recommend or use Daves Custom Plumbing for anything again and neither should you.

Liz M.

I've had 2 experiences with Dave's Custom Plumbing. The first was several years ago - we had Aaron install a toilet in our house on a floor that was not quite level (toilet needed to be shimmed) and he did a great job. So when we were having problems with a different toilet I called Dave's again.

A few weeks ago, we had a Kohler toilet that was running (water was draining from the tank to the bowl causing the tank to refill ocassionally). The refilling was wasting water and was annoying to listen to at night (toilet is in master bathroom). So I called Dave's and they sent someone over to take a look (not Aaron). The plumber spent not more than 25 total minutes at my house. During that time he made a few adjustments to the parts in the tank (maybe 5 minutes worth of work which included tightening one part and changing the height of one tube), and spent plenty of time listening to the toilet to see if it was still leaking (like 15 minutes). Only after about 20 minutes into the job did he start to complain about this type of toilet (he thought this particular Kohler toilet wasn't good ). And then he started suggesting that I replace the toilet if this fix didn't do the trick.

In short, if he didn't think he could fix it I would have preferred he tell me that before I agreed that he try to fix it (I could have saved $135 if I was just going to have to replace it anyway).

Moreover, within a day I heard the toilet refilling again so he clearly didn't fix it.

When I called back to indicate that the problem hadn't been solved, the plumber indicated I should replace the toilet and quoted me $625 to remove the old toilet and install it with a new one. However, the new toilet only cost $200 so we just decided to remove the old one ourselves and hired a different plumber to install it.

In short, I wasted $135 for less than a 25 minute visit to my house for which nothing got fixed. Look elsewhere for a plumber, I was not at all impressed with the service or the prices.

Peter C.

awesome service - came quickly, diagnosed the problem, fixed it. reasonable prices. dave is very friendly and respectful. A+.

Terra T.

Dave's Custom Plumbing is my go-to plumbing service. They have repiped part of my old house, replaced old toilets with low-flow models and fixed various leaks and problems.

I find them always fair and 90% of the time very competent. Like any service, it varies according to who you get. Aaron, John and Dave (the owner) are great! Once or twice some other person has showed up and they have been less great.

The price is not cheap but it is fair, and they are very good about asking if there is anything else they can do once they are on-site, to maximize your value for the time you've paid for. When the shower was leaking, for example, Dave went around to the other shower and checked, and checked a couple of other things, since I had already paid for him to come out.

Greg G.

I'm normally the type to fix everything myself, including plumbing, but when my water heater starting wetting itself all over the floor, I decided I should probably call a pro. I had seen some incredibly nice bathroom work at a friend's house done by Dave's, so I decided I would give them a try.

They were prompt, clean and very professional. I am a bit picky when it comes to quality of installation and I must admit, I was very impressed. The install went amazingly fast and they updated the entire setup to current codes with earthquale strapping and all the right connections. I'm not sure If I could have done it right myself, so calling Dave's was a good call. Besides, I'm a little nervous when it comes to natural gas!

Price was very competitive and there was even the added bonus of a ten year warranty on the heater they sold me. Frankly, a water heater should last well beyond ten years, but it's a little extra piece of mind in case it was built on a Friday afternoon and decides to fail prematurely.

Bottom line is that my experience was nothing but positive and will definitely call Dave's Plumbing next time I get in over my head on a plumbing fix.

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.