Roto-Rooter Plumbing & Water Cleanup

Rien K.

Currently in contract to purchase a condo and there are leaks in the crawl space. Based on the home inspector, the waterlines need to be replaced. We have 3 days to decide to move forward. The goal was to get a quote on repair costs to leverage during negotiations. I scheduled early Sunday afternoon for the following day on Monday between 4-8pm. Received a call after 7 that they are moving the appointment to tomorrow with no remorse for rescheduling. No credits or no apologies given and a complete waste of time for myself and the agent. If you have strict timelines, want to work with people who are professional/respectful, I'd suggest going elsewhere. I will never work with or recommend roto rooters and gladly pay a premium elsewhere.

Gail M.

my gas water heater went out on a Friday night, I could not get anyone out that night so I kept trying to find someone. I finally contacted Roto-Rooter and they told me they could have a guy out on Sunday morning. for an emergency response, this seems pretty slow to me. I didn't care about the cost. so, Sunday the guy shows up, relights the pilot light and then tells me that this unit needs major work to the tune of around 1300 dollars. I told him id call him on Monday to schedule the work. on Monday I called the warranty people that I have with our house. they sent out an independent outfit to check on the water heater. it turns out that there was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH THE WATER HEATER. I WAS BEING MANIPULATED BY THE ROTO ROOTER TECH. never again will I TRUST roto rooter!! beware and always get a second opinion.

Jeff M.

They came out and quoted $517 to fix a faucet with 30 minutes of labor and an $80.00 part. Being construction project manager, that seemed a little steep to me. That is over $800 per hour. I'd do some research before you commit to the pricing.

Jane H.

Guy came out to a rental where my daughter had just moved into. Downstairs toilet would not flush. We were told that it had a major blockage and we needed a whole new toilet. Not ""fixable."" Charged $300 with coupon.
Property manager sent his own plumber guy out three days later and all it needed was a new flapper that would allow more water to come in to flush paper, etc. down. NO obstruction. Charged $77. We felt very taken advantage of........and OVEr charged by Roto Rooter obviously.
Customer Service did refund a minimal amount, but I would NEVER deal with this company again. Go with the ""little local guy.""

Caroline B.

Called yesterday at 6pm for a small gas leak under my stove. Dispatcher said someone would come yesterday evening. Got a call at 8:20pm that the qualified person could not come and that they would come first thing in the morning. 10am, no call, nobody came. Called back. Dispatcher said that they need to contact their master plumber, using her exact words. 5 minutes later, she called back and said that they can't help me and that I should call an appliance repair shop. I emphasized the fact that I already know there's a leak, that it's coming from or near the gas flex pipe, but yet she repeatedly said they can't help me. I called PSE, they came in a jiffy, carefully inspected my stove and connections and fixed it for free. Thank you PSE for your great customer service. NO THANK YOU TO ROTO ROOTER. First and last time I called them.

Jason C.

Nick startare was amazing. His advice was spot on and saved me hundreds of dollars. I'd use them again and every time.

Ramakanth K.

These guys are really expensive and a rip off. Please check other companies or handyman before hiring them.
Their flat rate and additional cost for a parts run is a total rip-off for an hour's job. Being a newbie I made that mistake of not checking with other companies/handyman.

Bridgette J.

Dec. 23
11:30am- Call roto rooter for a huge clog in the kitchen sink that Draino and a snake wasn't touching. Estimated time was about 3-4hours. Sorry kids, Christmas cookie baking is going to be delayed.
4:30pm- Called again, it's been 5 hours, wtf? Am told it'll be another 20min to 1hr but they'll call if it'll be more than an hour.
6pm- No plumber, no calls, wtf? Call again, new ETA is 9pm. Christmas cookies are cancelled. Kids devastated, tough cookies.
10pm- Plumber announces he's otw.
11pm- Plumber arrives and the real party starts.
He walks in and looks at the sink and gives me the ol' ""Yep. Clogged."" Then asks some questions about where the other plumbed appliances might be. I couldn't help but feel like he was putting me on the whole time like the sink is clogged, and he's having me verify the bathroom isn't when I know that it's not, then measured the longest route possible to map from the kitchen sink to the toilet and said, ""Grease clog. Gonna be $450 to snake it and $60 for enzymes."" Which seemed an incredible amount for snaking out a grease clog. I said I'd need to run that by our landlord and he instantly perked up and announced that he can't do a single thing without the landlord's authorization and that's ok because he should get home anyways since it's so late. While I was calling my landlord to discuss it with her, he said he would recommend I go to Home Depot and get a longer snake to do it myself but he will sell me some enzymes for afterwards so HIS TIME WON'T BE WASTED. Because, he explained, he's 56 you see and jobs are hard to find at his age and he won't get paid for coming out to my house if he doesn't do his job or sell me anything. To reiterate, I hadn't even confirmed that I wasn't going to be able to get ahold of the landlord for approval even at that hour yet. He was psyched to not have to do the work.

I asked him if those enzymes are going to fix my clog and he got visibly mad and said ""No"". I told him that right now my problem isn't enzymes, my problem for the past 12 hours has been a clogged kitchen sink with a bunch of family coming for dinner the next day, and it seems to me that we could both win here if he would be open to doing his job, but if he's not going to do that, then I'm not going to buy his enzymes and then we can both have wasted time and extra problems. He snapped his little notebook shut, said ""FINE. Wasted my whole night driving out here."" And flounced out as I said ""Merry Christmas."" He slammed his van doors shut so hard my house rattled and peeled aggressively out of my driveway. So pro.

All in all, this company ruined my family's Christmas dinner, baking cookies with my kids the night before, and we had to spend extra money to improvise on dinner. And while the rest of the family spent time together, my husband had to spend his Christmas fixing it himself (we opted to hire it out for a lack of time and logistics). Turns out it would have taken a plumber maybe 10min to fix with a regular tools, but took my husband hours accounting for trips to Home Depot during the holiday.

Never call these noodle heads.

Russell P.

I made a phone call to a Mountlake Terrace location on a Sunday afternoon, requesting a service appointment for the next day on Monday for a property I own in Ballard. I was given a 2 hour window for the appointment. Told my technician would arrive between 10am-noon & I would receive a courtesy call 1/2 hour before the arrival. At noon, with no call or technician, I phoned again requesting an update on the arrival time. Was told they were busy & didn't have technicians available in the Ballard area. I questioned why Was I given a service appointment the previous day? I was assured someone would call me back to update me on the situation. NO CALLS! On my 3'rd call to them, I was told "" if you aren't satisfied with our situation, I suggest you contact a different plumbing company"". Really?????? What about my appointment? I requested to speak to a supervisor. Supervisor apologized & reported a technician would be at the property in 25 minutes. I waited an additional 90 minutes for the service technician to arrive. By now, it is close to 2pm Monday afternoon. Remember, my appointment was scheduled for 10a-noon. The 2 technicians were professional, polite & knowledgeable. Got the plumbing problem solved at $507.56 As it was explained to me: all incoming calls to Rotor Rooter are answered in Chicago & dispatching is from there as well. Doesn't matter the local phone number you call. Chicago is answering! The technicians were able to show me proof that that had been dispatched ONLY AFTER I had spoken to a supervisor. Terrible service albeit the technicians were the only good part of the bad situation. I do not recommend wasting your time with a company that doesn't stand up to what it promises to deliver.

Chelsea W.

The pipe from the hose bib in my front yard broke, and to keep it from leaking, we had to shut off water to the house. I called a few different plumbing companies and Roto-Rooter was the quickest to respond and come out to look at it. Their service was prompt and they provide free estimates. HOWEVER, I spent all day in a runaround with them. First they said I should consider a leak detection (clearly the pipe was broken), then the plumber says he can't help me and the excavation team has to handle it (we had already dug it up for them). The excavation team quoted me $1,795 for the repair, citing the galvanized pipes--the pipes were clearly copper! They said they could have it done that afternoon (it was already 4 PM). How could something so expensive be done so quickly you ask? Well, our coworker's brother is a licensed plumber and he came out to look at it after that. Within five minutes he said: $60 in materials and 10 minutes to repair. He completed the repairs, and it works perfectly.

I'm sorry, but I can't see Roto Rooter's quotation as anything but robbery. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND SEEKING OTHER COMPANIES before proceeding to hire them.