Repipe Specialists - Portland

Cari B.

Our home was built in 1911 and added on a couple times over the years. We had a lot of weird things under the house, including galvanized plumbing, and the wrong sort of PVC. Some days, you could wait nearly 10 minutes for a trickle of hot water to reach the kitchen, which is barely 30 feet away from the hot water heater. We received another quote to Repipe the house a couple years ago, but when contacted the plumber did not seem to want the job. I heard a commercial on the radio and thought that a free quote could only help us.

It is true that this company does have contractors that they work with, and we got PEX Plumbing. The initial salesman who came to our house was direct, clear, no-nonsense, and gave us everything we wanted in a price cheaper than the plumber with more things added in. Like most people, I worried about having multiple strangers in my home in a COVID world. I was assured that their staff are tested regularly and symptom free. It helped my concern that the doors were open all day, and I ran an air purifier with UVC-Light as added an precaution.

The day of piping came. The crew showed up on time. They obviously know what they are doing. It was like watching a well oiled machine. Everyone was courteous, respectful, their language is appropriate. They covered everything to protect from dust. Not a single drop of water was spilled anywhere. Throughout the day the owner of PEX plumbing came to check on things, making me feel that things were being done properly, a second set of eyes were on the work.

It's a noisy process, and I think there were 5-7 men there (which I actually expected), but they know each other well and work well together.

In the end they cleaned up a lot of their mess, and were done with the whole process.

We are thrilled and occasionally think we should have them back to turn down the water pressure (Lol).

We had a couple small issues that came out of this, both of which are specific to our quirky old house, and not their fault. Our only complaint is how they put the on and off valve on the hot water heater. It has made getting our walls repaired tricky, if repaired correctly we won't be able to turn on the water.

We are using our own handyman to repair the walls, so I can't speak to the drywall folks.

Our city inspector had no issues with their work, and seems to know them well and they have a good reputation with him.

In the end:

The price point was excellent, the people are easy to deal with, all of the work was done in a single day. We would totally do it again.

Ed H.

I had house repiping work done through ""Repipe Specialists of Oregon"" - but they don't actually do the work, they contract out to local plumbers.

If they assign you ""Davis Plumbing"" run away. Insist on getting a different contractor.

Davis Plumbing did an ""acceptable"" job on the actual plumbing/pipe replacement - but everything else about their work was shoddy. During this COVID-19 ""lockdown,"" the head of Repipe Oregon had an interview on local news talking about all the precautions their teams are taking. Davis Plumbing contracted through Repipe Specialists did none of them. (The interview is even posted on the national Repipe Specialists Facebook page.)

Davis Plumbing had zero regard for my personal property in the basement. Didn't make any attempt to cover items in the basement, let water just flow all over and clean it up at the very end, saturating multiple rugs requiring double washing to clean them - rather than just picking them up ahead of time. Thankfully, the only things actually damaged were just cardboard boxes (not their contents,) and a few rolls of toilet paper (although that is rather precious at the moment,) and a toilet seat that they did replace - although the one they replaced it with was very low quality. Yes, they just stood on our toilet seat rather than use a step ladder, getting the toilet seat cover nasty requiring multiple washings through the washer just like the rugs, then breaking it.

And now, I find that the wall patch they did where the water main comes in is leaking like a sieve when it rains. I'm in Portland. It rains a lot. I've just used every towel in the house to soak up water coming in through the basement wall where they patched. This started on the Saturday after they did the repipe work; I couldn't get a hold of anyone at Davis Plumbing, I had to call Repipe Specialists to get them to lean on Davis to get someone out Monday (two days later.) Thankfully it didn't rain in between. They came out Monday and redid the wall patch. Now it's Wednesday, and the first rain since then - and it's coming in even worse. Again, I wasn't able to get a hold of anyone at Davis - I had to call Repipe Specialists who are trying to get someone to fix it for me.

Patrick R.

They have the sales process down. Everything was explained well and I had a good understanding of the scope of work that was going to be done and how it was going to be done. The final product is great and I am glad to be rid of the original 1956 pipes.

The work process was a little bumpy as the City inspection found several areas of concern that had to be corrected to finalize the process. I am not a plumber but the issues seemed simple enough that licensed plumbers should have known. The cleanup and follow-through were also lacking. They left a large bag of trash in my basement, left a lot of old pipe cut up and left in the walls/hanging out of the basement ceiling, and the grossest part was finding a bucket with feces in it hidden under the stairs in our basement.

I think a lot of these issues would likely be solved through a better vetting of third-party plumbers that are used.

AJ D.

We in our home enjoy the upgrade to the piping in our house. We enjoyed the crew that did the upgrade and the drywall repair was excellent.
The rating is attributed to the outrageous threat to turn my account over to a collection agency for not paying the ""upon completion"" fee. We received this threating phone call over one year. We are not aware that there was a 5% charge completion fee and they never get in touch with us, call us or send us a bill. We thought that everything was paid. After one year, we received a threatening call.

Sharon H.

My 84 year old mother called Repipe Specialist because she had low water pressure. The salesperson talked my mother in to a $10,000 repiping job and a new water heater. They immediately sold her contract to a third party finance company and sub-contracted the job to a plumbing company that was too busy to do the work. She waited two months for the repiping. And, we had to call because they did not patch the holes in her walls. Fast forward to 10-months later! Now her hot water smells like sulfur and will stink you right out of the house. I called Repipe Specialist, they tell me they don't cover water heaters and will charge us $150 to make a house call to see if there is anything they can do. Repipe Specialist is strictly a front company, does not do any of work and does not stand behind their satisfaction guarantee promise.

Sean R.

All of the customer service was fantastic leading up to our house repiping the entire plumbing. Unfortunately when it came time to the actual job, my wife and I were very disappointed. The third party they used to re-patch the drywalls did not speak any English which made communication incredibly difficult. I would not have had a problem with this except they came in not knowing what they needed to patch, so trying to explain this was more problematic than it needed to be. Since Repipe Specialist worked on the plumbing leading up to the house outside, they left a 2ft deep by 3 ft. wide hold near the sidewalk. This hole was there for weeks. Being right next to the sidewalk, I found it to be unsafe for anyone walking down the sidewalk. Eventually we had to get on the phone after our job was complete and let them know this hole was still existing and so they sent someone to fix it. All of this still was not a big issue until months later we discovered there was a large un-patched portion in the drywall behind the stove that was never fixed. With further inspection, we found the shower valve was not replaced as it should have been. Got on the phone and company said too much time has gone by for them to fix these issues. Even though we just discovered it, they claimed we should have called much sooner to the time our job was completed. I can understand where they are coming from but I strongly feel this is poor customer service. Didn't realize I should be watching these contractors like a hawk when they were doing this project to make sure every little detail was completed. As a company, how do you not check all your boxes when completing a job? At the end of it all, I was happy our plumbing was updated, but I urge anyone considering Repipe Specialist to potentially look elsewhere. Too many job completion misses for me to be a promoter of this business.

G F.

Repipe Specialists is a broker service. They do not do any real plumbing work. They subcontract to actual plumbing companies to perform the work, and they take the payments from you. Strongly recommend reviewing the contract in detail and ensure that ""passing the city inspections"" must be part of the contract requirement in order to pay for the completed installation. I failed to do this and Repipe wanted their payment prior to the inspection date (which was 2 days after the installation). The financing company could not help because this requirement was not spelled out in the contract, even though it was discussed verbally.

The installation did ultimately pass inspection...

Lessons learned: make sure the contract has the inspection requirement. Unless it is in writing and agreed by both parties, anything else is considered ""chit chat"".

Additionally, ensure you know your rights on protecting your Personal Identifiable Information with any merchant. Info at https://justice.oregon.gov/consumer/databreach/

Anthony K.

I have used them before on a project that had some minor issues but overall was happy with their work so we used them again for a new job fixing our rental property that developed a supply line leak between the house and the street. The quote was not the lowest but they were able to come out right away and completed the project the next day. Very pleased with all aspects of this job so far. The hole in the front yard has not been filled back in yet but I don't expect any issues with that.

Eric L.

I had my whole house re-piped in the spring of 2017. After spending over $12,000 for the job we ran into our first problem. I went to connect a hose to water the lawn and noticed a stream of water coming from underneath the siding on the house. I called repipe specialist to schedule a repair. 20 minutes later I received an email from mr. Lear, informing me that it will cost me $195 service call to repair. WHAT!?!?!? So much for your warranty. To make matters worse, this is the first time using this hose bib, it's a ""Frost Free"" bib and has never been used or connected. If I could leave ZERO stars I would!

Will S.

Have a 1958 house with a hodgepodge of Galvanized, Copper and Pex. Low water pressure in the kitchen and if you flush a toilet while someone is in the shower watch out!

Knew I needed the house repiped and after 2 quotes from Plumbers I called Repipe Specialists. Super impressed with their sales rep. Honest. Straightshooter. The cost was half of what the prior 2 plumbers quoted.

Work was schedule out a month in advance. They showed up and did the whole house in one day. They scheduled the inspection the next day and Sheetrock crew 2 days after that...

Super seamless process and while it's not sexy to spend money on new pipes we know the bones of the house are rock solid thanks to Repipe Specialists!