Express Jetting

When two of my three toilets started backing up out of the blue and a plunger and line snake didn't make a difference, I knew we were looking at a bigger problem. I was referred to Express Jetting by the plumber friend of an employee of mine who doesn't normally do sewer line work. I called Phil Aleman of Express Jetting in the morning and he was out to my house by the early afternoon. The original quoted fee was $225 to run a camera through and then hydrojet the sewer line, but the cost quickly shot up to $1,250 when it was apparent that 1) my sewer line had tree roots entering it at many pipe junction points and 2) the length of the sewer line was over 180 feet from my house to the street. My wife had called a few other companies earlier in the day to get some idea of what it might cost to have this work done, but only one was willing to quote us a price ($180 for the first 80 feet, then $0.65 for each additional foot of hydrojetting; this did not include a camera analysis which some companies were advertising as being free but at the same time were not quoting a price for the work). I was shocked by the $1,250 bid for the work but since this was an emergency I felt I didn't have much time or choice at that point so I went with it. The alternatives would have been to 1) just hydrojet the line (no guaranteed roots cut), which probably would have lasted me 6 months to a year of clog-free operation (but I really didn't want to be "on watch" the entire time thinking that the roots were still there and a backup could happen at any moment) or 2) have a plastic liner put in the pipe from the house to the street (which Phil quoted me would cost $8,500). 5 hours later the work was complete and seeing how much was involved with it, I didn't feel as bad about the price (though I'm still stinging from writing the check; $250 an hour is a pretty high rate of pay). This is dirty, stinky, tiring, often frustrating work that even with my level of home improvement skill I felt was better left to the professionals. (Once I had a chance to breathe after this entire experience, I found that some companies offer the service for less - one was half the price! - but remember, you don't always get what you pay for, whether you're paying a higher price or a lower one. The true value of the job is in the workmanship and how well the company stands behind it.) Aside from the high price, the only other thing that rubbed me the wrong way was the fact that so much of my water was used for the job (I estimate 500 gallons - 200 to run through the line to try to unstick the rooter which got hung up on something about 200 feet into the line, and 300 to refill their hydrojet tank, which I didn't think was very fair, especially given that I'm in the top-tier payment schedule for my water company). At any rate, the work was done, the line cleared (as far as I know; I wasn't given a DVD of the cleared line like some companies give), my toilets flush, and I have a 1-year warranty that no clogs will occur due to tree roots. If I wasn't so under-the-gun with this emergency plumbing situation, I would have taken more time as I usually do and researched other companies more thoroughly - including Express Jetting for whom after the fact I found no reviews and no license info through the state (normally not a good sign in my book) - but sometimes you just have to make an on-the-spot decision and live with it, and that's what I did. (NOTE: Phil recommended adding RootX in 6 months to kill any roots that have since grown into the pipe and said that this should keep the line root-free for some time. For appx. $30 a jar, that's a BIG savings over having to re-hydrojet or re-line the sewer pipe...I just have to remember to do it!)