Roto-Rooter Plumbing & Water Cleanup

Paul P.

Called for estimate. Was told they had to see job first. They came out and looked He said he would have to cut the pipes as they had a bend and he could not snake the drain unless he put flat pipes in. He then said the pipes were incorrect kind and needed to be replaced as I needed white instead of black He said about $400. He then said he saw a broken nut so he was adding another $65. His assistant said wasn't it $75 and the man said he would do it for $65. Small sink area and he just shone a flashlight. I told him it was too pricy and he said he had a $40 coupon and how did I want to pay. He was very 'rude' in how he spoke as though he was in control. I again told him that seemed high. He got down and started wiggling the pipes - the little clog was now involving new piping which was not in the quote of $475. He was not happy but left and sat in his van a very long time. I called a clog specialist at a quote of $140. Then I called another plumber who snaked and even replaced the water lines. Fixed the nut and no cutting to make pipe flat to snake. He called Royo rooter management feeling I was taken advantage of. The man was rude and said they didn't do work so there should be no complaint. He then asked if the man doing my job was a plumber. He said yes and there was a pause. He ended up hanging up on us. Sad as I was told no set price but depends on who comes out and what he wants to charge. A sneaky way to scope out if they can add unnecessary costs. To the elders and unknowing.

Frank L.

If I could give zero stars I would. I called her 24 hour service and got told I would be given a call from Chris. Three hours later never received a phone call. I took my sump pump apart and put it back together myself and fix the problem. It's sad when a company says her 24 seven and they can't get to you or even give you a phone call back when there's an emergency going on. Not only have they lost a customer for life but I urge everybody to call anybody else.

Maria C.

Absolutely phenomenal. I had a broken water heater, flooding everywhere, and the place where I had a contract couldn't come for two days. I called Roto Rooter at 8:15 and they were there at 9:30, putting in a new heater, talking to the insurance company, running fans, taking up the water, taking out dry wall, and they checked daily to see how it was drying. They took out anything they removed - they were remarkable.

Nice, nice people who wore masks, and they were wonderful.

Fantastic.

Anna M.

I wanted them to fix weakened water lines over furnace. After they never showed the first time, He wanted to change everything including new tankless water heater to the tune of $13,000. I guess they are desperate for business. After I told him no, he says I can just wait for leak to happen, then fix it. It was all or nothing. He would not fix anything while here. HE TOOK MASK OFF several times for long periods of time, and ask personal questions. I guess because I don't own a million $ home, he disrespected me that I'm not the only one with water leaks, but I was the one with recent water leak in upstairs bathroom that caused $25,000 in damages. I'm trying to be proactive. No respect or compassion.

Liz H.

WE were looking to find out what was causing our water to continue to run off and on all day. My husband thought that we needed a new toilet, so we thought that we would buy a new toilet and pay someone to install it. After some time, we called around to a couple places, and decided to call Roto-Rooter. The customer service was nice and friendly, we didn't have to wait for days for an appointment. Roto-Rooter came right out, gave us an estimate and gave us a coupon towards our final bill. It did not take the plumber a long to replace the old toilet. He was knowledgeable, professional and he was neat. Nice guy and great work. I would use Roto-Rooter again and I will recommend them over every other plumber in Rochester.

Ashley A.

We've used Roto-Rooter in Rochester, NY 3 times now for relatively minor plumbing issues. Their customer service people have always been prompt and kind to us. We also love our plumber, Jack. He's very friendly, honest, and thorough. We received quotes for issues prior to choosing Roto-Rooter from other companies, and one guy tried to tell us we needed all new plumbing to fix our water pressure due to the wrong sized pipes - about $4k worth of work. Jack explained why it was a scam, and fixed the issue for us for about $130. We'll be sticking with them!

Mark T.

I contacted Roto-Rooter to unplug an exterior 4"" buried gutter drain. The plumber that met me suggested using a Jet instead of a traditional snake. The cost was $200 more. I agreed but at no time did he ever tell me that they can't guarantee that they could clear the drain for the $619 estimate.

After less than 2 hours of trying to clear the drain I was told that this is as far as he could go. The plumber did call the office to knock $100 off the bill but if they had told me up front that there was no guarantee they could clear it I would have said no thanks and just dug it up and replaced it myself.

I also do not like the fact that the plumber wrote down my credit card number as Roto-Rooter in Rochester NY must not know that they should have a phone or tablet with a reader like the rest of the large company's doing service work. I would have paid him with a check.

Like the rest of the 1 star reviews I called to talk with a manager and was sent to voice mail. No one has called me back.

Rauncie R.

Beware of Roto Rooter
If zero stars was an option I would choose it.

On Friday October 19th 2018 my housemate and I were at dinner when we got a call that our plumbing was backing up again. I say again because the week before we had to move out of our house and into a hotel for 5 days while Roto Rooter did over $4,000 dollars' worth of work. In addition we had to have one of our trees taken out in order for them to do the work which cost another $800. They said the problem was a collapsed pipe in our front yard. Unfortunately we are new home owners and know nothing about plumbing. We know now that we were taken advantage of and I want to warn others to not be as trusting as we were. So back to what happened on Friday the 19th... the same problem that led to the expensive repair had occurred once again. Water and sewage was backing up in our basement. We called Roto Rooter while still at dinner and asked them to return. They sent a plumber out in a couple of hours who without even looking at the pipes in the basement where the back up was occurring declared it a city problem after looking at a camera in a pipe outside. He said that the pipes had shifted 150 feet from where we as home owners would be responsible. I was suspicious of this analysis and called the city of Brighton emergency line. The City had someone on call who came right out. First of all I want to say that he was a kind man who helped to calm our fears. After what we had already been through it was nice to have someone show up who knew what they were doing. This was apparent from the moment he came in. He took the time to check things out. He looked at everything. He had us ran water in different parts of the house and he showed us where the clog was by demonstrating that the drain leaving the house to the pipe they said was the issue was bone dry. He was not able to snake it himself because he did not have a snake that size but told us exactly what to tell the Roto Rooter guys who I called back to report to that it was NOT in fact a city issue. I told them that they needed to return to fix it immediately considering how much money we had paid them. On Saturday morning a plumber from Roto Rooter came back and did exactly what the city of Brighton representative had instructed us to tell them and our problem was fixed. We were so happy to have this problem resolved.
Thank you city of Brighton for all you have done for us.
In addition to all of the above they also broke a pipe that comes out of our house from the heating system, cut the line to our outside light when they were digging and destroyed our landscaping. We were not compensated for any of that nor did they respond to my request for them to pay to have the line to our outside light fixed. We finally had the light fixed and we are still working on getting our yard back to its former beauty.

Stay away from Roto-Rooter. After our experience I did some research and found hundreds of reports of people having pipes replaced that did not have to be replaced. I will not go into those stories because you can read them yourself. Just google roto-rooter rip off or scam and you will see not only stories of home owners but of x roto-rooter employees who left because of unethical business practices. In some states there have been class action lawsuits that people have won. I am considering consulting a lawyer to see if we could start one in the city of Rochester and town of Brighton.

Call the city first if you have an issue. They are working to try to stop people from being ripped off and they encourage people to contact them before allowing major work. I only wish I would have known this before spending money that we did not need to spend.

JustIn T.

Terrible customer service
Never answer their own phone - ALWAYS transferred to the answering service only have to wait for them to call again (even after they call you first)
The arrival was 4 hours later than the quoted service time that was booked in advance with them!
Never even an iota of apology for having you wait around 4 extra hours for them to arrive.
Only good thing about them is that once the service tech/plumber was there he was extremely nice, professional and efficient.
The rest of it is simply horrible and typical contractor customer service.

Ameer A.

I called Rotor-Rooter to fix a problem with the sewer backing up.
I had 2 other company ""snake"" out the drain to tell me there is no problem with drain. Both plumbers diagnosed that the tenants are flushing wipes down the toilet causing issues. I got a 3rd opinion. Rotor-Rooter came out and didn't diagnose anything but recommended that I pay $300 for a camera inspection at a later date. So I did. They also charged me $40 for travel and added another fee for removing the toilet. Thankfully they canceled the appointment 2 hours after the scheduled time and I lost a whole day of work. So I found a company that charged 1/2 the amount and they scheduled an appointment the same day. I will never do business with this company again.