Rescue Rooter

Janet K.

Late Christmas evening, discovered water popping up between floor planks. Believing that's not something that should happen, started calling plumbers. This was Christmas night, and I happen to live in the woods and there's not a lot of services nearby even in the daytime. On the third call, spoke to Rescue Rooter who agreed to send someone out from Washington State (no one from any nearby towns in Oregon responded to this emergency). Alex arrived within the stated timeframe, estimated the job's involvement and cost, then went to work. He did a fabulous job replacing our water heater, late this Christmas evening. Can't say enough good things about this experience - I'd recommend them to everyone and anyone and would use them again in a heartbeat. Good job!

D M.

DO NOT CALL!
I stayed home from work and waited for these guys for the entire 4-hour window I was given, and when I called them at the end of it, I was told they didn't have anyone available to send to me and they couldn't give me a time frame for when I should expect someone. No apologies, no attempt to right things with me. When I asked them what they would do to fix this problem, they offered me a measly 5% discount after telling me that the earliest they could reschedule would be 2 days later!
Seriously??? This is the worst customer service I have received in quite a long time, and I will definitely not be using this company at all.
When you guys (I'm talking to you Jack Howk) make a commitment to show up at someone's house, respect the time they are sacrificing to sit around and wait for you! Your behavior today shows that you think your business is more important than the customers that support it, and I don't do business with companies like that.

LizzieJ B.

I have a clogged drain from my tub/shower. This drain pipe is shared with my tub/shower and an old basement lavatory. The water has basically routed into the basement lavatory and overflowed on the basement floor. These are the only 2 fixtures affected by this clog. I called this company which specializes in removing clogged drains.

A nice technician came out the same day. I explained my issue but after testing the upstairs bathroom sink, he was convinced that sink, the tub/shower and basement lavatory were all connected to the same drain pipe. I didn't understand this assumption. Then he told me it will cost me $275 flat rate to do the work. WOW! He then quoted me $261 citing some difference of doing it from a shower instead. I stupidly agreed to this because I already took time off work. I have an adjacent crawl space where that drain is located and it has a cleanout and the p-trap for the shower. Also, there's the p-trap under the old basement lavatory. Instead, he told me he would access this from my bathroom sink (which was weird). Though the best access point is the p-trap on the old lavatory, he said he might break a part of the assembly (I think he said it's called the dead arm) and they'd have to pay for it. Okay, he's the pro and I'm paying more than I think I should pay. For one hour he snaked the wrong drain pipe. I finally had to show him what was going on. I asked him that the cleanout on that drain line in the crawl space should be a good access point. He told me this company does not access cleanouts in crawl spaces because plumbers have died getting caught with the snake machine in the crawl. WHAT? Okay. At this point, my confidence in this company is at a low point. He said he could access through the tub/shower's overflow drain. I didn't see what he did but he told me he couldn't get the cover off because it's a new fixture. WHAT? Then he kept telling me he didn't want to access from the old lavatory. Then he said he'd try the clean out in the crawl space even though before he said they don't do this. I set up a light for him and he wasn't in there long and said he couldn't get the plug off. Granted it's cast iron pipe so I imagine it would be difficult but I doubt he tried very hard and I only saw one plumber's pipe wrench. So he quotes me another $100 to replace any broken parts on the old lavatory (the materials of which might cost me $10 at the store).

At this point I said stop. I called a city plumbing inspector (I work for a local jurisdiction) and he said this is a rip off. Most licensed plumbers can do this for about $125 to maybe $200 if it's difficult. In the end, I'm happy that I paid nothing for 3 hours of a failed visit from Jack Howk/Rescue Rooter. I still have a clogged drain but now I saved money. If they charge this much money for one clogged drain, they better know which pipe, know how to work on old plumbing, and have the ability and experience to access it from any point. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY. You can do a lot better.

Morgan C.

Charles Shandera was our technician. He arrived on time, was wonderfully clean, did a thorough and quick job. I would definitely recommend rescue Rooter simply off of Charles's customer service. He was a pleasure to work with and took care of all of our needs.

Martin M.

I needed my garbage disposal replaced, it blocked and then leaked. I called rescue rooter and they came the same evening to replace the garbage disposal for $637. Surprised about the cost...9 years ago I paid $308 for the same procedure, I asked the plumber for a break down of the price in parts and labor. He said he did not know what the price of the new garbage disposal was. I had the job done anyhow as it was already past 6 o'clock. It took one hour to do the job. The next day I looked up the price of the garbage disposal on the internet. Both Lowe and Homedepot sell it for $140. I was shocked to realize, that I paid $500 for one hour of labor.
I will not use this company again and would not recommend it for lack of transparency in pricing and overcharging!

Dorothea A.

They were called to come on a late Saturday and were so flexible when we decided to reschedule to Sunday. They were on time, courteous and extremely competent. When it became clear that we were not dealing with just a clog, but with dirt in our line, which could indicate a break,they brought in a higher resolution camera? When it was clear that we were dealing with a collapsed section, they proposed a solution to our blown cast-iron laundry room drain pipe. We scheduled for the next day. However, on Monday, when Jack Howk came for second eyes on the job and it was discovered that the problem was worse than had been anticipated, and a further section had also broken, the staff at Rescue Rooter were extremely professional when we asked them to stop while we got a second opinion and competing bid.
Trenton was very good at explaining the problems to the second plumber and was super professional. The work that Rescue Rooter did for us was excellent. The Rescue Rooter crew was courteous, careful, and completely cleaned up after themselves.
I am so glad that we called them in. I will use them again, should I ever need this type of service again.

Tim L.

I made an appointment Thursday for a 4pm-6pm window Friday. I rushed home through traffic to get home on time. A few phone calls from their dispatcher warned they had experienced a very busy day and it would be delayed an hour or two. I was quoted the special to unclog a drain and was feeling I may have been bumped in order for bigger jobs. At 9pm, STILL no plumber. I called the dispatch number provided, couldn't get through, called again and got the next shift dispatcher, who now said the same number of customers were ahead of me as the other dispatcher adivsed 2 hours prior. She said there was only one plumber on, he was a long distance away and he had and additional stop before me, estimating another two hours - SEVEN HOURS LATE. She advised calls were first come, first served and I let her know I had an appointment since yesterday. She didn't know what to say after that. I cancelled and told her I will find another plumber. Extremely disappointing.

K S.

Um, I don't quite know how I could have been so stupid.

I don't mind paying for service but damn.

Well here is the cliff notes version:

What happened: very windy conditions here in the Columbia gorge blew out my water heater pilot light...no worries. Every one needs a cold shower once in a while...except my wife. She works hard enough at her job, the last thing she deserves is a cold shower. That was my premise anyway.

In my want to make her as comply as I can, I completely dis-regarded my home owner diligence. Usually I research my home repair issue before calling anyone. I mean that's a good way to get taken to the bank.

Ok...ok enough ranting. On with it.

The lady on the phone couldn't tell me in ball park figures how much it would cost to have the junior flunky come out and light my pilot light that had been blown out...yea thanks. I should send them a dollar as that's what I give all the bums. Should have know then what was about to happen.

She said he will show up with in two hours and he will call thirty minutes before he gets there...Yea right. I knew that was a load of bs. And of course he just showed up.

Hell, he was laughing before he even discussed this excessive fee. It should be illegal.

He knelt down at my water heater and spent an exhausting ten whole seconds priming the system and re-igniting the pilot.

ONE HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS!!!!

Then the putz had the chonies to insult me further by trying to give me a discount that I wasnt qualified to receive.

The whole time he kept telling me how this was the going rate and he was a little low.

What a waste of time that was. I want double my money back for your underhanded thievery. Wow...all I can say ... Beware.

Matt B.

These guys are the Comcast of the plumbing world. Two times we had them come out and they gave us a 2 hour window that ended up getting pushed to 6 hours later. They kept telling us should be there in the next two hours, until 10pm (scheduled to come at 5pm) we just called PRO DRAIN to come do it. They have a much better reputation on Yelp as well. Avoid these turds, they do not care about your time and they will lie to you all day long.

Jamila C.

Being a new homeowner I'm learning a lot on the fly about what I can build or fix myself or what I need to call a professional for. I'll admit I have a short fuze when it comes to plumbing problems and boy do we have a nice list of issues related to all of our galvanized pipes in our house. We called in Rescue Rooter first to solve a draining issue with our new bathroom sink. We were pretty sure the galvanized pipes were just corroded beyond repair. Rescue Rooter tech Gabe braved our crawlspace for an afternoon and replaced the drain, but also showed me the inevitable problem with the water lines as well. They were so corroded they were beginning to burst. It made sense to have him replace those lines too. Everything worked great afterword.

We called them in again to put in a proper drain line for our washer as the previous owner had decided it was ok to just dump it out a pipe in the wall, right to the ground outside! They came over to scope the job and quote it. They were perfectly on time and ready to do the job on the spot if we wanted. I wasn't sure about the timeframe or price so they let me think about it for a day. I had the job explained to me in detail and when I gave the greenlight they were again there on time with all the parts they needed. Gabe solved this one for me too. He asked a few questions along the way giving us options. He was quicker than he quoted me and finished the job just as planned.