Gladiator Plumbing & Repipe

Nate D.

If I can rate them a NEGATIVE star we would!!! Dont use this company. Highly over priced. They say they are DIAMOND certified but has ALOT of disputes and complaints. They make promises saying they do satisfactory work but cut corners to make job easier for them to get to next victims. Communication poor on their end once they get your contract and money. Our pipes were not visible before then when they redid the work now its exposed cuz they were to lazy to put extra effort to do it correctly. When you call them to fix it they ignore you and hope you go away. Dont ever pay them the balance even though they tell you they will satisfy their work. Dont believe them when they say 100% guarantee. They only say that for them to be chosen to get the contract.
There is Alot more to the situation save yourself the headaches and use another company that has your trust and keeps their word. Its true there is always two sides to the situation... Dont ignore the bad experiences comments. Research and ask because we too believed the positive comments and the good sales pitch from James until they did the work and sadly the negative comment and situation is true and happen to us.

E L.

Background:

Home repair is like a domino that falls onto another domino that's next to it. You fix one thing and then a whole host of other things need to be repaired.

I have an old house that was built in the 1940s and it has additions that were built later. I noticed in the home's original bathroom that the galvanized steel pipe which connected to the sink was rusting. I contacted a couple of plumbers and the consensus was that I needed to do a partial repipe (i.e. on the oldest part of the house) and replace the galvanized steel piping with copper.

I contacted 5 different plumbing companies to get quotes for the partial repipe. Two of these companies never showed up at my house after numerous back/forth. The other 3 showed up.

Out of the 3 estimators that showed up James Bailey (Gladiator REPIPE Inc's project manager) was the most friendly and thorough. He took his time starting from the main water connection pipe on the outside of the house and went through the part of the house needing the repipe. He was thorough and explained everything (i.e. what he saw and possible issues that might be encountered during the job). He also went over Gladiator's approach to repiping in terms of materials used (type L copper, ball valve shut-offs, hot lines, water-based flux, air pressure testing to guarantee that there are no links, etc...).

When I compared James/Gladiator's estimate to the other 2 companies I noticed the following:

1. I was given clear price breakdown rather than a lump sum (for repipe, sheetrock repair, water heater service and code upgrades, main water line)

2. Gladiator had the highest amount of liability insurance across all categories (workman's comp, general liability, etc..)

3. The inspection permit and passing the inspection was part of the estimate/job

4. Gladiator was Diamond Certified (an additional point of reassurance)

5. price-wise Gladiator was on par with one of the other companies (but the other company had terrible Yelp reviews), while the third company gave me a much higher price for less service

At this point I decided to go with Gladiator.

Repipe Day:

On the day of the repipe James showed up on time with four of Gladiator's plumbers, as well as his foreman. They worked from 9am to 5pm (exactly as James indicated) and completed the repipe. This included the air pressure test that helped verify that there were no leaks. They also cleaned up the house and minimized the amount of holes done to the sheetrock and plaster (much of the old part of the house has plaster...great :-( ).

During the repipe I asked James if his people could also check the sewer drain lines (since they were in the crawl space). Upon checking the drain lines, they found that some of the galvanized steel drain pipes were leaking sewage (they took pictures to show me).

James went over the options with me:

Option 1: leave it as is (it would only get worse leading to eventual failure; sewage in the crawl space and lots of money to clean-up and fix it)

Option 2: add this work to the existing repipe permit and get it done in a day

I choose option 2 since it was the better long-term approach and it was more economical (i.e. since Gladiator was already working on my house).

The next day Gladiator's plumbers showed up once again and replaced the old drain lines of the house as well as santizied/cleaned the sewage areas.

The inspection:

The inspection process involves a ""rough"" inspection (while everything is opened up so the inspector can see the actual piping) and a ""final"" inspection (when all the holes are patched). Gladiator's office person (Cynthia) did an excellent job in scheduling the inspector, communicating to me the times of inspection, and making sure that one of Gladiator's plumbers was at the house during the inspection process. Any fixes that needed to be done were done by Gladiator's employees on the spot so both the repipe and drain line work passed both inspections (whohoo).

Hole Patching:

I have to say that Gladiator's hole patching guy was AMAZING. He patched both sheetrock and plaster with great craftsmanship making the patches look seamless (in terms of texture and smoothness). I only had to do a bit of touch up paint to get the areas back to original shape.

Conclusion:

Fixing an old home sucks, especially when it comes to copper repiping and sewer drain line replacement. James Baily made the process smooth and predictable. I judge a project on 3 levels: quality of work, amount of time it takes, and cost. Gladiator REPIPE Inc. checked all the boxes:

1. Excellent quality of work

2. Work done in a day per plan (this one is so rare...I've had so many other companies and contractors tell me that something will take a day and it ends up taking two weeks)

3. Cost on par with other estimates

I am very happy with James and Gladiator and will happily recommend them to anyone that needs repipe and drain line replacement.

Spencer H.

Gladiator repiped our house 2 years ago. This month, we noticed a leak. We called them, explained the issue and they came the same day to fix it... fully covered by the ""Lifetime Warranty"" they committed on the contract.

^That is the mark of integrity.

Dave U.

Gladiator Repipe with Yuri and his crew did a fantastic job on my house in Campbell !! I had been a Plumber for 35 years, have since retired. I know good work when I see it, and Yuri and crew did a great job, I cannot say enough for their great work. They protected flooring, clothes in the closet with plastic, coverings everywhere, not a chance to soil anything. They even wiped their copper fitting joints from any drips. My wife and I are really happy with their work, Thankyou Gladiator , a special thanks to Yuri and crew. I am going to refer Yuri with Gladiator to anyone who is in need of a professional Plumbing company, Gladiator Repipe has set the bar, that all Plumbing companies will have to set their sights on. Thankyou

J G.

We used gladiator for replacing a toilet in our home. Joe came and was on time and was very clean. He took care of business and was very polite. We definitely will call if we ever need help and recommend to friends.

Itje T.

I recently had Gladiator Repipe worked on replacing my water pipe. The old pipe was leaking and it was under a concrete slab. When I sent out a quote request through Yelp, Yuri responded right away and fit me right in. He was very friendly, listened to my issues and concern and gave me 2 options on how we can fix them. His price was very reasonable. And he is always very responsibe to all my questions and concerns. He had 2 crews coming to do the job. Jose and his teams did the whole repipe in 1 day. They worked very efficiently and explained the whole process to me. The second crew patched all the holes created during the repipe. This is a smaller crew so it took longer (2 days) to finish the work. But they worked very thoroughly and neatly. All the different textures were matched nicely to its surrounding. Both crews did a very nice cleaning job too after they were done. A week later, I found a small hole that was forgotten to be patched. I contacted Yuri and he responded right away. The next day they came and fix it right away!
We are one satisfied customer!

Cameron E.

I had a good experience with this business the last time I dealt with them, so when we had some additional plumbing issues we decided to go back to them. In addition we wanted to get a quote for doing a repipe on our house as they had mentnioned we might want to consider it.

First - they never responded to my request for a quote. I had to call to follow up. We scheduled them to come out and they showed up on time. The person who came out first was polite, but wasn't able to even really give us a quote on either the toilet that was having issues or the repipe project. He did a little looking around and scheduled someone else to come out later in the week. He told us they would scope the pipes as they were actually copper already, but it looked like they were installed improperly.

He said in terms of the toilet it would cost less if we purchased one in advance. In case he was right we purchased one the day before the next person arrived. He took a small glance the toilet to see where the leak was coming from and told us the cost to replace would be $600!!! We said that's crazy as we already had the toilet. He brought it down to the mid 200 range, which is high, but not crazy high.

In terms of the repipe the next guy didn't bring a scope and more or less just looked at the pipes again and quoted (verbally) a price of around $10K. Given that the pipes are already copper and had been replaced at some time in the past this is insanely high. He said a formal quote would come later (and it never did). They charged us 89 dollars for this even though their quotes are supposed to be free.

We will never do business with this company again!

Steve L.

Gladiator has serviced 2 of my homes, and the quality of work is great! Jose and his crew worked extremely hard during the rain and cold, and put everything back so well that you can hardly tell where they worked!

I'd like to thank Yuri for explaining the work and answering the many questions I had.

Michelle B.

The pricing, service and experience were all A+! We got three quotes and didnt need the other two. The logic and experience really showed, both in the quoting and options available. They even followed up after a month to make sure everything was as hoped. Highly recommend.

Chih Long L.

My story starts when our house, undergoing remodeling in the summer of 2017, sprang a leak through the kitchen ceiling whenever a toilet flushed on the second floor. We opened up the kitchen ceiling and found cracked iron drain pipes... certainly a homeowner's nightmare for sure!

We got four bids and chose Gladiator for two reasons - they came in the lowest, but more importantly, they were punctual for their estimate. (one of the other four bids was from a contractor who was more than an hour late in coming to do the estimate... not a good thing when I have to drop off a 3 year old at daycare afterwards on a workday morning)

We ended up doing a whole house drain pipe repipe; they were able to schedule it out within two weeks and got the work done in one day - impressive!

We discovered that one of our kitchen cabinets got scratched afterwards, so after communication with their office (they were quite responsive), they sent someone over a few days later to fix it; he was able to match color and paint over the scratches, to our satisfaction. While it would have been better if the scratch hadn't occurred in the first place, we were impressed by their responsiveness and willingness to work with us to make it right.

Overall, I was impressed with their punctuality, price, and most importantly, their responsiveness and willingness to work with us, and would certainly use them again in the future.