Mr. Rooter Plumbing of Greater Syracuse

Sally Z.

I am a commercial customer. I've use Mr. Rooter multiple times in the past and I'm finally fed up. I always request to have the first appointment of the day so it is to not disrupt my business. They are SO bad at communicating with the driver about appointment times. The driver basically just decides when they are going to show up or sometimes NOT show up. The dispatcher will call me to tell me the driver is on route so I will go and meet them at my location ONLY to wait for 2 hours for a no show. The driver eventually calls to reschedule and the cycle continues. Nobody has time to wait around for hours on multiple days on a plumber to show up. When I call the girls on the phone are apologetic but at the end of the day, how far does a sorry go when you hear it 100 times? I wouldn't be as upset if I didn't get the calls telling the driver is on route. Mr. Rooter, I hope you see my review and fix this. You are losing a loyal customer who would have always gone to you guys.

Caitlin D.

When our main sewer line backed up into our basement we contacted Mr. Rooter around 8:30 on a Saturday night. They were caring, responsive and were able to schedule an appointment to come out the very next morning. They scheduled a window of time 10am-12pm on Sunday morning to come and I received a call at 9:30am informing me that they were on their way and would be there in 20 minutes. Nick Buck was extremely professional when he arrived and spent 2 hours outside our house trying to snake the clog out (in the rain) with a smile on his face and was very polite. Nick then shared we would need to have water jetting to clear out the clog and left to go get the equipment. He was back in 10 minutes and cleared the clog in no time. Overall, satisfied with the service, professional and prompt staff and quality plumbing services.

Ron L.

Great job and excellent work. I had them install a sump pump and bring my house to Liverpool codes. I was worried about my concrete blocks but when he finished. You would swear the work was done originally.

Thomas H.

Fast friendly service. The technician was very nice and kept the work area clean. The technician did a nice job describing the problem and the actions he can take with the associated price.

Lolo D.

24/7 service, given a 2 hour window and the technician called and arrived within the first half hour. Professional, quick. I felt that maybe the ""worst case scenario"" was provided for an estimate but the service was fast and the technician respected that we wanted to have the minimum taken care of that day and to wait and see on the rest.

Lindsey C.

Great technical service and customer service! Greg and Chuck both came to our house, one to make an estimate, and the latter, to perform the work. We had a leak under our kitchen sink and it is now fixed! They were able to schedule the work the next day (though they could've even done it the same day which was awesome). They both were very professional, friendly, and I they sounded confident in discussing what they could do, would do, and ultimately, in the work they performed. We would definitely use them again and specifically request Greg or Chuck.

Dianne B.

Mr. Rooter came back today to fix the repair. The toilet was still leaking. Tyler came back with his supervisor John Wayne Together they were able to correct the problem. They were polite explained what the issues could be. They spent some time here to resolve the issue so thank you for your time and knowledge and ability to fix the problem. Bottom line the job seems to be fixed now. If I had one complaint about today it would be that we were told our toilet was a piece of junk. We paid a nice penny for that toilet and I did not appreciate our choice in a toilet being trashed. People buy what they can afford. I would consider using them again on a major plumbing issue.
Dianne

Jay B.

This was the second time I used Mr Rooter for unplugging a sewer line. Let me start with the good. I called them again because the service was good the first time around. The technicians are professional, empathetic your situation and take care of the problem quickly.

The bad news is sticker shock. For a couple reasons: 1) You cannot get a price quote over the phone even though you are left with the impression once on site there is a set pricing schedule. You are told the technican will discuss pricing once onsite. You can't even get a ballpark figure over the phone.
2) There is an expectation that you have to wait. In my case the technician showed up in a very reasonable amount of time.
3) It is now, when you have help on site, that you are told the price. You are less likely to turn them away because you may not get another vendor for hours. The consumer is passively held hostage!
4) The Web sites for corporate and the local franchise (?) have the language ""no overtime charges."" This is not true. For responses after 8:00 PM there is an additional $129 fee. I was told about this fee on the phone and it was something I was to discuss with the owner.
5. Total price for this visit was $320. Not bad [insert sarcastic tone here] for a 30 minute drive to my service call and 30 minutes of work! I own the wrong type of business.

I did not call the owner about the extra fee. I was pleased with the professionalism and service provided by the technician. I am not happy with the passive hostage taking over price because you have to wait until they are onsite. And equally not pleased with a $129 fee that appears to be in conflict with policy on the company Web site.

I will compete the price in the future. I will consider including Mr Rooter in the competition since I already know the price.

Edited review: Mr Rooter did follow up the service call with a telephone based survey. I expressed my concerns about the $129 fee of which they were aware. I was told the company is working on fixing the Web site which indicates they understand their advertising of ""no overtime"" is false. I did not receive any indication that they would fix charging me the fee as advertised. Disappointing. I had this at three stars but have since reduced it to two stars. The company appears to recognize the discrepancy but still make the customer pay.

Edited update 2: The local Service Manager has reached out to me and offered a reasonable explanation as to why pricing is normally not provided upfront. Dispatcher does not know what repair will be while the technician can truly assess the situation and provide a better price for the service required. They have also offered to refund the extra charge for emergency service. I feel better about my experience and have raised this to four stars. While I will still compete my future needs I am very happy with Mr Rooter's customer care approach which adds to the positive experience.

Joanna M.

On 10/30 John Wayne Stewart and an Associate visited our house, we were having slow draining and had a minor backup during a time of heavy use on one occasion. He almost immediately determined that it was a clog somewhere between us and the road. He said that he would fix it and it would be $382 for this visit. This is my entire week's wages, so I assumed a significant amount of work would be involved. They set to work and almost immediately stopped saying that it was unclogged but that was not in fact the actual problem. He had been condescending to me this entire time. At this point I was skeptical that he had any idea what the real problem was. The new theory was the bottom of the P-Trap in the front yard had broken out and was flooding the pipes with sludge causing the backup and would have to be replaced. His estimate for this would be $3500+ with no financing. I was not biting. To demonstrate the problem he shoved a long metal rod down the stack in the front yard and told me to feel the hole. I felt a sludgy bottom of a pipe. He warned that if this was the problem it would back up again within the week. Sure enough on the morning of 11/2 we awoke to a small river of sewage running to our sump pump drain in our basement. We were less then pleased and call Rotor Rooter again to come and clean out the pipe a second time and recheck the problem. Here my husband was available to listen and make his own opinion on the problem and John Wayne Stewart. He also had my husband feel the bottom of the pipe and as well he did not believe that it was broken. While he was still being extremely condescending to my husband and me even while I was not around. He then rooted the pipes again and instructed that if we did not get the P-Trap replaced this would keep happening. There were several times that he said ""He would bet the price of the job that the P-Trap had a hole in it"". Also he told us that this job had to be done by a licensed plumber in our area trying to force our hand. After he left we called several plumbers and the town and all instructed us that we could do it ourselves. So we did. Low and behold the P-Trap was in great shape, but filled with debris that he had knocked loose, whether or not this was intentional. This could be a running scam, since as a trained professional he should have been able to determine, as we had that the pipe was solid, not broken. This goes against all codes and values by Mr. Rooter. We will never be recommending your company to anyone because we just invested $1000+ to fix a problem that didn't exist. Thank you Mr. Rooter.

Beth W.

Mr Rooter-Tim, Nick and John Wayne (seriously his name) were awesome. They were professional, did a great job explaining, answering questions and most important they worked hard to avoid digging up my driveway. I will recommend them to anyone that asks!!