Epipe

Marie S.

I know that many of our friends here in ""Leaky Niguel"" struggle with the decision whether to repipe or E-pipe. Epipe is the epoxy that is blown through your pipes. 5 years ago, we did our homework, counted the cost, and decided that it would be better to epoxy than repipe. Each of the issues have their problems, but epipe seemed to have less problems at the time. Four and 1/2 years ago we left for 10 days because they needed the water off for a week. The thing we liked was that they have a 10 year warranty. Since we had had 7 leaks in 14 years, we figured a 10 year break would be good. Well, 4.5 years later, we find that their warranty is to only repair the costs, not for any ancillary damage. That is after we read the contract. I guess if we had read that it didn't cover any ancillary damage we would have understood that they don't stand behind their product. We used Pipe Restoration, Inc., based in Santa Ana. Here is the compilation of our results:
Saturday, February 27, 2016 7:30 am - come downstairs to find water all over the surface of the kitchen floor, the eating area floor, and the dining room carpet soaked. We can hear the water coming out of the pipe. We shut off the water.
8:00 am - call Epipe, instead of our usual, reliable plumbers, to make sure they handle it and to keep the warranty intact.
8:30 am - get a call back from SOS plumbing that a plumber will be there
11:00 am - SOS plumber shows up at our door. We have already pulled out the drawers, with an open panel to show him where it is leaking. He wanders around our entire house for about 2 hours, upstairs and downstairs, with his listening devices, with the water both on and off, and about 1:00 PM he tells us that he can't determine where the leak is and he thinks it is a slab leak. We tell him to open the wall opposite of where it is leaking behind the cabinet drawers and he tells us that he ""is not authorized"" to open up the wall. He turns off the water and tells us to have a nice weekend.
Sunday, February 28th, I call Epipe again, asking them to send out a plumber so that we can have our water restored. I am told someone will contact me on Monday morning.
Monday, February 29th, finally SOS and Epipe come, open up the wall that we had requested to be opened on Saturday, find the leak about 1 inch above the slab, replace the pipe, rip open more of the wall, take the baseboards, find fans for the carpeting, and we have water restored by about 10:30am.
Tuesday, March 1st, Epipe comes by and adds a fan.
Friday, March 4th, Epipe comes by and removes the fans.
Tuesday, March 8th, Epipe calls and asks if we have more baseboard to match because they accidently threw away the old, wet baseboard.
Monday, March 14th, I leave a message, asking what the next steps are. The wall is still open, and the carpeting is still not set.
Monday, March 21st, I leave a message, asking what I need to do next. The wall is still open, and the carpeting not set.
Monday, April 4th, I leave a message, asking what I need to do next. The wall has now been open over 5 weeks. Later on that afternoon, a contractor that we had contracted with to work on our bathrooms, came to get his sub-contractors started. After he is done working on getting the bathrooms demolished, I pull him into the kitchen area and show him the wall that has been open for 35 days and ask how much it would be to patch up the wall. He looks at the jagged cut, and determines that there is black mold.
I call Epipe and leave a message saying that black mold has been found. I get a return call and they said that I need to call a mold remediation company, that they don't cover. He said when that was done, they would get their dry wall guys out to fix the hole. Hello? It has been 6 weeks, was anyone ever going to call? They didn't know we had black mold. In fact, it probably wasn't there before the leak and has grown since the leak. I take to their Facebook page, trying to get someone's attention.
Tuesday, April 5th, I call Epipe again, leaving a message, asking for help with mold remediation, and I receive a return call that it is not covered. I then told them that I would be sure to register my displeasure on Facebook, Yelp, Angie's List, etc. And the guy, said, ""Oh well."" Later that day, our contractor recommends a mold remediation service. I call and set up an appointment.
Friday, April 8th, Mold remediation starts to the tune of $3000. Kitchen cabinets all taken out.
Epipe blocks me on their Facebook page.
Thursday, April 14th, Mold remediation ends.
Monday, April 18th, we get a quote from our contractor to have our kitchen put back together: $13,500.
Thursday, April 21st, 8 weeks after Epipe tore open the wall to fix the pipe, the contractor that we have been working with for our bathrooms, has his subcontractor drywall the kitchen area that was dismantled by the mold remediation company.
Tuesday, April 26th, A mutual friend writes us an email, while we are traveling saying that

Ellen S.

After having 4 slab leaks I went this route and am completely satisfied!
The crew that performed my restoration were very professional and could not have been nicer! They also left my house in tip top shape and clean. I would highly recommend them. You will be relieved not to have to worry about leaks any more!

Norma W.

If I could give this company zero stars, I would. They are Zero unprofessional. I called for a repipe estimate, i talk with Virginia, at first she seemed nice but instead of focusing on my issue she spent 20 min trash talking their competitor and telling me not to go with them. I urge you to get more quotes before you go with Pipe Restoration, they are a nightmare. I could only imagine how awful they would be if we signed with them.

Suffices to say, I went with their competitor. They made me feel extremely comfortable and their company was very professional and completed the job in a timely matter!

H F.

I'm really surprised at the bad experiences noted because mine was almost flawless.
First off Tommy, our rep is honest and sincere. He does fight for you. So nice these days.
We had 3 slab leaks! 5 months being pushed around by insurance company so we decided to listen to our plumber and go this route. It's so nice to know the bomb under our houris gone!
The team was professional and worked as a unit.
Clean and courteous
We had a problem with out upstairs tub that forced them to have to cut a hole in our ceiling. They counseled with us first and explained why, then proceeded with out consent.
Octavio came back to repair hole and patch it up, I promise there is NO sign of a patch AT ALL!
Great investment
Great concept
Better than tearing out all your walls
Tommy was awesome
Management was awesome
Employees gosh I wish I remembered all their names
Two thumbs up!!

Jeff W.

DO NOT use this plumber. We were forced to by our HOA. They came on Aug 12 to do the job, now mind you we had no leaks to start. After they left my master shower dripped rapidly and two toilets ran constantly. I had to fix the two toilets myself as they took so long to come back. November, after 3 trips and nobody knowing what was done previously they finally installed a cheaper shower faucet. Now all my toilets are constantly dirty from the epoxy coming out and settling in them. makes me wonder what is coming out in the shower. I also talked to someone that said 2 years later they had a bunch of leaks. NEVER USE THESE PLUMBERS. If I could give them a minus star I would.

Leighton L.

We started have pin hole leaks in our aging copper plumbing which we had repaired, then the pin holes leaks started in other areas. We looked into replumbing the house but that would involve cutting multiple holes in the drywall and several days while the pipes were being replaced. We found ePipe and decided to have them install the coating inside of our pipes. The crew that came out to do the work were very professional explaining what they were going to do. The crew was very good about putting down plastic to protect the carpets and putting down other material over the tile to protect the tile floors. They even changed the main shut off valve so the house could be turned off while leaving the irrigation system operational. During the process they had to cut a couple of holes in the dry wall to do a repair but they sent someone over to repair the dry wall. He did an excellent job of repairing the dry wall you can't tell where he did the repair, he matched the texture of the wall. If you're having thoughts of replumbing your house I would recommend considering ePipe.

Jillian A.

I had a slab leak in my footing which was going to be very expensive to repair the traditional way. This process was even more expensive, but since I had a pipe leak a few years ago I wanted to avoid future leaks. I had only a couple minor problems with this, the first being that they replace your spigots with a new type that really don't want to turn off all the way. Apparently these are ones that now need to be used as per CA law. I had them replace one of the new ones & I still have to crank it shut ridiculously tight to get the hose to not drip. I just keep the end in a flower pot so as not to waste water if it drips. The other problem I had is one of my nozzles got ruined since there were still those little black balls from the sandblasting left in my pipes or hose & they clogged my hose nozzle. Their tech came out to unclog it, and it worked ok again for a few days & then more debris shifted around inside the nozzle & it didn't work so well again. I just bought a new one eventually. My advice would be to remove all your nozzles from your hoses until the epipe team is long gone & you have used your garden hoses a bit. No other issues so far & everyone involved in the process was very pleasant.

Melissa V.

I hired epipe on our plumber's recommendation. It has been a nightmare ever since the job was completed, or shall I say, not complete?? The procedure was completed Friday February 27th. Two hours after they left, and one hour before I was hosting a party at my home, water is pouring through my foyer ceiling. Explanation didn't make me very happy. 10 days later I am waiting for them to come and fix all the dry wall holes, I have to call 3 times to get this to happen.
Since the job was completed, I have two dripping showers, a running toilet, and a leaking kitchen faucet that can't get to seem either cold or hot water that I didn't have prior to the procedure. I call over and over and have been continually blown off. It's been 33 days since I wrote a check for almost $20,000 and am still trying to get them to fix the problems they caused.
Never ever use this company unless you like to spend time calling people and leaving voice mails and getting no response.

Steve S.

It's now been over two years. The initial service was all very professional, quick, clean etc. The leaks are sealed. The water pressure is low, much lower than before having the leaks fixed. Another problem came up recently, we were switching out our washer and couldn't get the water to shut off at the value. They put in a value without a ball inside making it impossible to shut off the water. We had to shut off the main and install a new value. Same thing happened when installing a new kitchen facet, the value doesn't shut off the water. All of the valves were replaced by this company and when I called them, they said that there was nothing they would do.
Looking back, I think that I might have looked into PEX plumbing. Unfortunately, I'll have to get use to the low water pressure and wondering what other things I'll have to fix. This company really should stand behind their work!

Christine F.

Frankly, I could not even focus on the work they did because I was to busy cleaning up the pee surrounding my toilet from one of the workers.