Roto-Rooter Plumbing & Water Cleanup

Grant N.

If I could give Roto-Rooter Santa Barbara zero stars, I would. Roto-Rooter charged just shy of $1,000.00 to replace piping below my kitchen sink. I made it clear to the technician I wanted a full replacement. The technician did a decent job installing new pipes but left the shut off valves stuck and unusable. For the price I paid you would think they could at least swap the hardware and make them functional. But no, upon calling and letting the technician know, he said he could fix that for another $250.00. I also hired roto-rooter to change a fixture in our shower for over $400.00 and somehow the technician left the drain plugged for me to fix, or call another plumber. Beware!!! These guys are crooks!

Bryce A.

This story keeps getting worse.

Johnny, the plumber did a reasonable job. He seems like he did his job as best he could, though the one issue I have is that he did not quickly determine my toilet should be replaced and stop service to keep the bill down. Instead he sort of led me down a rabbit hole.

Dave, Johnny's Supervisor answered my call initially, accepted that the service was not exactly completed as it should have been and offered me a refund. Great! ... except I have yet to see any refund in my account now after 12 days.

Mike, Dave's Manager initially took my call and complaint and helped me get in touch with Dave when he was not answering his phone. This is what led to the refund. Now, the refund has not arrived, and NOBODY is answering phones. So I am stuck dialing the poor admins who are having to deal with my dissatisfaction, though it has nothing to do with them.

Ultimately, the issue here is a lack of integrity or even caring about doing their jobs well and caring for people.

I asked for a description of the service performed, where Dave wrote down that it is ""likely a mineral buildup"". This is really frustrating. It is a 3 year old toilet! I told you a make-up bag fell in and something was flushed. Either get it out, or tell me that your cost to get it out is more than a new toilet and I can replace my toilet myself. Period.

I was on hold trying to reach Dave while venting here. Dave just got back to me assuring me my refund, plus the remaining $250 refunded as well. This would be the best possible ending at this point, where the only $ cost incurred is the replacement of my toilet. The other cost (which is significant) is my time spent chasing this down and helping these folks to do the right thing.

I am told I will receive a call before 9am tomorrow with the refund processing. I will not hold my breath.

Page H.

I called Roto Rooter here in Santa Barbara to ask if they did leak detection, as I have a significant water leak in the outdoor area. They said they did and would send a person to evaluate the problem later in the day, but could give no price range or hourly rate over the phone because ""the situation had to evaluated"", and I'd receive an email with the appt time. I received the email a while later with an appointment time of 3 pm. At 3:30, I called to see if there would be further delay and was told that, yes, there was a delay of 2 to 2 1/2 hours, giving an arrival time of 5:00 to 5:30 pm. They had not bothered to notify me of the lengthy delay and I had unnecessarily canceled an appt away from my home because of the supposed 3 pm appointment. The new arrival time came and went with no contact from the company. At 7 pm, 1 1/2 - 2 hours after the new appointment time and 4 hours after the assigned time, an individual arrived. He knew nothing of detecting plumbing leaks, said that they use a local specialty business to handle such problems and that he would have the office make that appt. No need-I'd already talked with that company and so made my own appointment with them, no need for a middle man. I've used the local Roto Rooter in the past with mixed results, including leaving a mess after clearing a drain, and will not use the company again: very late arrival without notifying the customer, do not handle the problem described but said otherwise, sent individual with no knowledge of the described problem, and past experience with incompetence.

Tara L.

This is my second time having Ruben come to my house, he always gets the job done and answers my questions and is very nice. Ruben came by today because ive been having plumbing problems with my house from its old age, him aswell as alex and julio took the time to figure out the source of the problem AND were able to fix it in the same day! (I thought id have to make another appointment for that) thank you!!

James D.

I called these guys thinking they would be honest. My son flushed wipes and the main line to the sewer was clogged. I set up an appointment for an estimate for 9am. They wont quote you an hourly rate. I looked here at the reviews and became concerned. As the bad reviews said they did not show up at 9am. By 10am I called and cancelled. The reviews say they are late and scam you by overcharging. I found George The Rooter Man in Santa Barbara. Quoted me 105 an hour over the phone......was here on time.....fixed the clog in a little over an hour. $155 total. Thank God for Yelp. I almost got scammed.

Molly C.

Aaron did an awesome job for us today! We are so thankful! So sweet and very well trained and professional. Even did a sanitization for free. Thanks roto-rooter!!!!

Laura S.

Aaron is amazing!!! He totally saved the day after my kid flushed a bunch of stuff in the toilet. Made it here quick and super nice!! The day was saved

Mary M.

I should have checked Yelp before trying to use Roto Rooter. I scheduled a technician for an after hours visit to a tenant who was having an emergency plumbing situation. When my tenant told me that the guy hadn't shown up, I called to check and was told they didn't actually have anyone that could see us after all and then that he had gone home sick. This was almost 4 HOURS after the original call to schedule the visit. They should have called to give us a heads up. Really poor customer service. Definitely do not recommend this company.

Christina B.

SCUM!!!! Horrible, horrible. Do not call them, do not give them any attention. These people are scammers and real pezzonovantes. They give you an estimated technician arrival time of 1 hour, and then don't show up till hours later. Why? Because if they told you they'd be 4 hours, you would just call someone else. LAME BAD SAD!!!!

Tommy H.

Understand, I am giving 2 stars because Mario was nice and professional, and did a good job. Further, understand that we agreed to the ""estimate"" before the work began (our fault). However, what we did not understand was that the $285 non-negotiable charge covers work from 30 minutes to 3 hours. YOU CANNOT GET AN HOURLY RATE. So what this meant is that we spent $245 (found a $40 coupon) to have hair removed from a drain. We kind of figured that we would have been told if this was likely a simple repair. We figured that there must have been something more significant, as it just seems absurd to charge someone $245 with a coupon to remove hair from a drain. We should have not used them. We should have hired a regular plumber at $100/hour. We should have bought a new sink for that matter! Bottom line, ONLY use these guys if you have a job which is either a late night problem, or one what you know for sure will go close to 3 hours. Beyond that it is a complete and total rip-off. Since they would not work with me at all after our 20 minute repair on cost, I will never use them again for our house or any of our units. We were wrong in agreeing to it, but for them to continue to stick us with $245 after a coupon is just bad business.