Economy Rooter, Inc.

Jim T.

I purchased a garbage disposal at the East Palo Alto Home Depot store and paid to have it installed.

Today Sergio from Economy Rooter installed the unit but noticed that the new unit was slightly smaller than the old unit. One of the existing connecting pieces didn't quite reach its mate. To modify the connecting piece, he wanted to charge $250 extra. It seemed to me like a very minor thing to do. I VERY reluctantly agreed to that since I needed to get the disposal back into operation. It took him less than 15 minutes to do that. His effective rate for that extra work was $1000 dollars per hour ($250 for ¼ hour of work).

I assumed that when I paid a fixed price for the installation it included making all connections needed to get the disposal fully back to working order.

It was a total rip-off. I'm very disappointed with Economy Rooter, with Sergio and with this whole experience.

Andy A.

I hired Economy Rooter to come out and inspect my Navien combination boiler / water heater and will not be preceding with the work. They are listed on Navien's website as trained on the units and I confirmed this via Phone.

(1) Plumber was not familiar with the units. I had to explain which pipe was domestic hot water. He told me it was the recirc pump, but I had done research and believed it to be the 3-way valve. He disagreed, but when I convinced him to call tech support, he admitted I was correct

(2) He told me there was no parts available but would follow up. No one followed up (and I have no hot water in my house right now!). I looked online and can buy the part with next day shipping from a number of sources including amazon for $33.

(3) The job was quoted at $1700. This seems very high and more than the labor to install the unit from scratch from another vendor. I called Navien and they confirmed this sounds too high. You can find a YouTube video online of replacing this within 30 minutes.

(4) They don't call me back reliably still.

After all this, I'm giving up and wanted to leave this feedback to avoid Economy Rooter for Tankless water heater problems.

Update: editing to clarify there was no mixup as George claims. I even tried calling him and offered to discuss but he has not returned my calls. To be clear, I was the one who told his staff to call Navien after they arrived and asked me which pipes were in vs out ...! A few week later and I can confirm I made the fix myself. Not easy but a DIYer who had never done it before it took me under 2 hours and the part was available next day via Amazon. As an aside I cannot in any way recommend Navien either - I will research support for any tankless before I purchase a new one.

Ximin S.

My water heater needed to be replaced in Jan/Feb 2022 and Economy Rooter through Lowe's did an awesome job! Jose is great. He carefully built a venting pipe for the water heater. The quotes I obtained from other plumbers for this project were much higher than Lowe's / Economy Rooter. By the way the first plumber appointed by Lowe's showed up for measurement then did not get back to me after numerous phone contacts in 2 weeks.

Amanda T.

We had our house re-piped. The team were professional and did a thorough job with passed inspection. I do recommend to be clear with what you want and make sure you have it written on the quote and if anything is to your dissatisfaction, the owners are more than willing to negotiate or work things out until it is fair.

Kiran V.

Economy Rooters Inc. - The BEST plumbing company in South San Jose - 5/5 Star Rating

The whole saga started with the kitchen sink/Faucet/Air gap/plumbing replacement project where I went to Lowes and Lowes passes this kind of project to internal vendor program and that vendor program in turn hands it over to local vendors. We were lucky that we were assigned to Economy Rooters Inc. for this project. They were super responsive and I felt very comfortable and confident about Economy Rooters Inc. from Day 1.
In fact, it so happened that Lowes dropped the ball and I got no further updates after the assessment of this project. When I called up Lowes, they asked me to call up Economy Rooters Inc. for further follow up as Lowes has been having issues internally with the new vendor set up program.

When I reached out to Economy Rooters Inc., the person mentioned that we should still check with Lowes before I proceed with ER Inc. (Economy Rooters Inc.) so that ""there isn't anything like stealing their customers :) "" I really liked that they cared for Ethics here! Moreover, once I got the confirmation from Lowes that its okay to proceed with Economy Rooters Inc. without Lowes interference (cuz' they slacked for 3 weeks due to the internal vendor program), the person over phone literally guided me with the dimensions and details before I could place the order through Home Depot at no extra charge. She was super nice and we just got lucky to have such nice contacts in a plumbing company. They even accommodated us for the very next day after the items arrived. I highly recommend them for any plumbing service.

Prices are very reasonable and fair. The plumber who came was very patient and knowledgeable. He wrapped up the whole work within couple of hours. He was the best plumber that we've seen who was down to earth and finished the work flawlessly!

We are super happy with their service.

Marcia S.

We are so happy with the installation done by Jose from Economy Rooter!!! He did a beautiful job, was fast and he was really nice. The toilet he installed looks great and works great! We highly recommend Jose and Economy Rooter!

Evelia M.

The garbage disposal went out and I had Economy Rooter replace it. They worked with me on the type of disposal I wanted. Jose did a great job, left the place clean and a working disposal. I would recommend them to friends and family.

Ram V.

I am writing this update to respond to George( the company owner's response ).
The technician did mention that the parts were left under the kitchen sinc before leaving my home. He didn't tell how many parts were left or any details of what was actually left. There were multiple small parts and I have no clue what was actually left. Nobody opened the cabinet doors under the kitchen let alone moving anything from under the kitchen. On the return visit, the new technician found a part missing and they started blaming me for loosing the part as if they had handed over part by part to me.
It is 100% their fault and asking for more money for installing a new part instead is the peak of this bad service.
I am surprised that the owner wrote( after almost 3 months ) the response to justify.

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Original review:
I used this company for plumbing disconnect and reconnect after the countertop replacement. They were hired for Homedepot for doing the plumbing work for me and it was all paid upfront. I had very bad experience dealing with them. When they came back to hookup the plumbing, the plumber found that one of the parts of the faucet was missing. All the disconnected parts were left under the kitchen sync by the plumber at the time of disconnect and nobody touched it. The countertop installers didn't vaccum that area and even the plumber saw the debris present there. The plumber called the office and explained. Initially they tried to find the replacement for the missing part and could not find one. Then the story changed. I called their office and the office lady started blaming me for the lost part and wanted me to pay additional fee for installing a different faucet. After the plumber left, now the drain strainer that came with the new kitchen sync went missing. I tried calling them to check and left multiple voice messages and my calls were never returned.

Nathan B.

Had a great experience with Economy Rooter who installed the new water heater we bought from Lowe's. Robert was fantastic and came out three separate times (one to give us a quote/suggestion for our small laundry room, another to haul away our old one so we could redo the flooring, and the last visit to install our new one) Robert was friendly and wore a mask the entire time, and notified me that when he unboxed the WH it had a few dents on the exterior, which he assured me were cosmetic and would not affect the heater itself. It's been a few days since the install and we have plenty of hot water.

In regards to scheduling, they have a text line in addition to a regular phone line, and sometimes you do have to be a bit diligent in contacting/following up with them. However as I've come to learn when you buy a home that this is the case with a lot of contractors/plumbers/etc. However it would not discourage me from using Economy again, since the job got completed in the expected amount of time. I especially appreciated them waiting to install till we finished redoing our laundry room. Everyone I encountered with Economy was friendly and professional.

Kevin C.

Our water heater stopped working on Monday. What a great way to start the week! I reached out to family and friends for referrals. Economy Rooter was one that one of my contacts had used recently, so I gave them a shot. Sev, who coordinated the meeting time with me, was very patient and communicative which was surprising but also a relief. Anyhow, Sergio came out to our place and looked over our old water heater and gave us 2 options, replace the water heater or replace the parts. Replacing the parts would have allowed us another year or two with the old water heater, so we opted to replace it with a new one. Sergio was able to get us a new water heater and installed it right away. The installation was meticulous and clean. He even made sure he cleaned the area where the water heater was.

I highly recommend Economy Rooter for my future plumbing needs.