Montclair Rooter Plumbing & Heating

CC H.

Expert work. Reasonable rate. Exceptional responsiveness and customer service. What more do you need?

I'm truly stunned by a recent poor review -- this was the polar opposite of our experience and I can only assume there was a breakdown in communication somewhere. Is Josh talkative? Yes. But we found that a refreshing change from the often surly demeanor we've experienced with other service providers. Is he a rockstar plumber? Unequivocally, yes!

We had a clog somewhere deep in the pipes past our garbage disposal, and grungy water was backing up into our kitchen sink. With a hosted holiday party fast approaching, that's not a good thing! Called our usual plumber but he was booked for a week. Calls to three more plumbers went unreturned. Finally a friend took pity and passed along her secret weapon -- Josh. He picked up the phone immediately even though I was calling at 7:45 p.m. He was friendly, reassuring, and best of all said he'd be able to get here in 20 minutes! When I told him it wasn't an emergency and could wait until morning, he said not to worry, he'd be happy to handle it now.

20 minutes later, he was indeed here. He quickly diagnosed the problem (future note to self: do *not* use the garbage disposal as an actual garbage repository for pounds of food!), located the convoluted venting and drainage system in our older house, and climbed up on the roof to access the drain vent. He warned us that with our ancient pipes we might be in a bit of trouble and said he'd start with the lowest level of motorized rooter/snake thing to try to avoid potential damage. Lo and behold, within 5 minutes of his expert attention the drain cleared and the kitchen sink was again fully functional, and no damage to our poor pipes. Woo!

He's an upbeat, personable, and (yes) talkative guy who really knows his stuff. He took some time explaining how the plumbing was constructed in our house, answered a few really newbie questions from me and my husband, and was fun to chat with as well. Very competitive/reasonable rate (about half the price that Roto Rooter would have charged), and he gave us a referral discount thanks to my friend (much appreciated!).

I have worked with dozens of plumbers, electricians, carpenters, and the like (did I mention it's an old house?), and after just this one visit Josh ranks up there with the best of them. He's got our business going forward, no doubt about it.

Jabulile D.

This guy Josh is a joke, my nickname for him? ""Talkin' loud and sayin' nothing"".
I can't explain the positive reviews here or on his other Yelp page, maybe he is a decent plumber - though I have actually heard otherwise - but he is an absolutely inept HVAC tech. Beware that Josh has two businesses on Yelp, he is also listed as Piedmont Rooter Plumbing & Heating. Here's the sad tale, Josh spent 2 HOURS at my house, much of that time was loudly taking calls on his phone in my crawl space and calling for me to assist him in ""testing"" the unit - I was on a conference call with my CEO at the time, but he seemed not to understand this. He left with the heat still not working, still talking a mile a minute and making no sense AND charged me $215.00 for doing absolutely nothing. Josh told me it would cost an additional $500+ to fix the issues, 3 parts needed to be ordered and replaced but I could apply some of the $215 towards that total, gosh thanks, he also said the unit was in great shape so with the obvious inconsistency and high-cost, red flags started waving....I called Apple Heating and Air for a second opinion - explained my doubts and Bobby calmly and in a normal tone of voice, said he would check it out for FREE, FREE people, for FREE!!!!
Bobby fixed it in 15 minutes. FIXED IT IN 15 MINUTES and charged me....drum roll, wait for it.....$90.00 fricken dollars. Plus being exceptionally polite and unassuming - he also came at 9 pm after a long day but didn't want to leave me cold another night. There are amazingly good people in the world, there are - but this joker Josh is not one of them. I gave him the chance to refund the money and we could just assume this was a mistake and forget about it, but after being a master texter and calling and talking all the time while trying to get more money out of me, he has for some reason been struck dumb and silent, appropriate I suppose.
Stay warm out there Yelp Family!

Deborah S.

Josh just finished several hours at our home assessing, experimenting and ultimately fixing a persistent back up in our kitchen sink that had been acting up periodically (usually just before dinner guests arrived) for years. Others had provided temporary fixes, but Josh was determined to get to the bottom of it and provide a long term solution. He said it was the worst build up of decades old fat and coffee grinds he'd ever seen, and he's seen a lot. He was creative, systematic and persistent, not averse to getting dirty. He kept trying things until something worked. We are very grateful.

Brian C.

Got the toilet fixed tonight. Thank you Montclair Rooter Plumbing & Heating!!! Josh you rock!!! Showing up within hours of me calling was really appreciated.

Lawrence T.

Reasonable ~ Reliable ~ Confident ~ Trustworthy

I have my own house and some rental property - in other words I've had to deal with more than my fair share of plumbers. Josh was simply amazing. Worked with me both by text and phone to keep me in loop at all times.

Supply line the house broke - the amateur gardener in me hit it with a spade. Josh asked all the right questions from the get go - ""Is this an emergency, or can it wait until tomorrow?"" I have every confidence that if it was an emergency, that he would have been at my house Tuesday evening when I called.

Instead, he evaluated the situation with the information that I gave him, and assessed that it could wait a little. Totally reasonable.

When he was able to get to my house, he let me know what was going on and approximately the cost to fix. When he ran into other issues with the original plumbing, he just handled it.

I got a follow up call and felt like it was a very reasonable price for the work that was done. He left the old part for me to inspect (I was traveling for work) and left the work in a way that I could see what it was that he fixed. I am confident that I picked the right plumber.

I'm having him come back next week to work on my heater before the winter sets in. You don't get service better than this.

G P.

on second thought, downgraded to 4 stars cuz the prices jumped so much the second time around. still bugs me .... but the work is 5 stars.

Gary M.

Sunday afternoon plumbing emergency.

Yeah, been there, done that, wrote favorable Yelp review, but we couldn't reach the guy we'd used before, so based on what we read on Yelp this time, we tried calling Josh at Montclair Rooter Plumbing and Heating.

Josh analyzed, described, and fixed the situation. He explained in terms I could almost completely understand how in this case running the dishwasher and the washing machine had resulted in a sudden, dramatic, highly unpleasant backup in two toilets, two showers, and a bathtub. He also explained how some of the factors in the layout of the house and pipes have led to recurring problems, and identified some of the least intrusive ways to partially alleviate those problems.

Then the surprise finale: Josh cleaned and sanitized the toilets, showers, and bathtub, and did it in about a quarter of the time that we were expecting it to take us once he was gone (and probably one and a half times as effectively).

The several additional positive things I could add have already been said in other reviews here, so I'll save my energy and let the sentences I've already written and the five stars speak for themselves.

cat c.

Josh was an amazing help in remedying what I thought was a simple sink clog in my kitchen. When I called, he had a fully booked day but was willing to come to my house in the evening to take a look. After we realized that the issue was bigger than a simple P-trap cleanout, he went ahead and troubleshooted until he found the problem in the piping all the way in my basement. He removed a disgusting buildup of crud from my pipes in my 70-year old home and even cleaned up the goopy mess that occurred after unclogging the clog in the basement. (AND took away my gross towels for me!) Josh is so friendly, knowldegeable and helpful that I felt super safe to have him in my home with my two small children late at night. He even impressed my hard-to-please civil engineer Korean father who was present when we were being serviced. So much in fact, my dad asked to book him for a few projects for his own home. 100% recommend!

PS He is not a cash-only business, despite what previous a previous reviewer had stated.

Vinay I.

Agreeing with other reviewers, Josh is a star. On a late Sunday evening we had a crisis and he showed up within 30 mins, diagnosed the problem quickly, got to work pronto, and got the messy problem resolved. He definitely knows his stuff and makes sure you know it too :)

Fairly priced for the excellent service he provides. Definitely will call on him again - hopefully not in the next 5 years though!

Gene C.

The sewer pipe from my house broke and sewage was spewing into my back yard. Fortunately, Josh came within an hour, and even though it was late in the day and getting dark, he fixed the problem at a reasonable cost.

He is a colorful personality, but you'll put up with his eccentricities because he's honest, knows what he is doing, and gets the job done.