Roto Rooter Plumbing And Drain Service

A handyman, who we deal with, recommended Roto Rooter Toronto to inspect the basement drain when it backed up. It was a partial block & the water was clear with bits of toilet paper coming up through the basement drain. Called Roto Rooter & their communication & punctuality was good. The supervisor came on Saturday afternoon to inspect the issue & checked our outside drain through the cleanout caps in the front lawn. He put the camera down the pipe & diagnosed the problem being a 1 inch gap between the exit pipe from our house to the clay sewer pipe. Also stated that the clay pipe was sagging & broken at the city connection. The quote given to repair the pipe connection, from the house to the sewer pipe only, was going to be $2800. I was told that I would have to contact the city to get them to check the city connection. I was uneasy about the water backing up & paid the $500 deposit to get it initiated to be repaired. I was told not to flush toilet paper until the pipe is fixed on Wednesday. After all of this, I checked Homestars to see what Roto Rooter's rating was. From previous reviews, the common repair for backups was to repair the outside pipe at the cost I was quoted & more. It didn't make sense to me to have Roto Rooter fix our end of the pipe, then have to arrange the city to come after & repair their end. I was going to call Roto Rooter to cancel, but then the supervisor, who had been out on Saturday, called to let me know they could come a day earlier for the repair. I cancelled the repair with him because I wanted to get a 2nd opinion & the high cost factor. He told me that he would be by on Tuesday to refund part of the deposit, which worked out to be $160, after the charge for the Saturday appointment was deducted from the $500 deposit. He said that he couldn't keep money that he hadn't worked for. Called the city, after cancelling the RR work order & an inspector came out the same Monday afternoon. He couldn't get the camera down the pipe to see what was going on at the city end, due to tree roots blocking the pipe. Another city crew was booked to snake the pipe & do a camera inspection. The report stated that the reason for the backup was tree roots. Even though the pipe has shifted due to age, it's not leaking & is draining as it should. To this date, which is over a week now, I haven't seen any sign of Roto Rooter with the balance of the deposit. Judging from the reviews, repairing the outside sewer pipe at a cost of $2800-$3000 is standard practice. In some cases, their repair made the backup worse. Giving incorrect/exaggerated info & soaking the customer with a high cost repair isn't good business. I'm taking the $160 loss & thankful that it's not $2800. Learned from this experience to not take a recommendation without doing research on HomeStars, etc., beforehand. They have lost my business for good & I would not recommend them to anyone I know.