Quick Summary: Apollo Plumbing lied to me, overcharged me, and did not fix the problem despite two visits and several phone calls. Their proposed solution to a slow-running, partially-clogged sewer line was to dig up and replace the whole sewer line for ~$5000, instead of correctly doing what I paid them for (snaking out the main sewer line to break up the blockage). This is equivalent to having a flat tire on your car and having the repairman recommend just buying a new car (yes, that will fix your flat tire problem, but you’ll be overpaying for that solution). The Long Story: Several months ago, I bought an older home whose pipes seemed fine – until I took my first shower. After about 8 min, the shower water suddenly stopped draining, and the toilet started gurgling. Not a big problem, just need to get my main sewer line snaked out. Because I had just bought the house, I did not know if there were any sewer clean outs at ground level. Apollo said they needed to charge more to do a clean-out from the roof. I did not know this at the time, but a plumber can simply dig around where the wastewater line leaves the house. It should take a plumber with a shovel about 5 min to locate a buried clean out (if there is one), but Apollo did not mention this. I had to approve the much more expensive roof clean-out. Since I work on Wednesday mornings, I had to ask for time off work to meet the plumber. Wednesday rolled around, and I waited. And waited. And waited. I even waited a little longer than the appointment window, halfway into what would have been my lunch hour. Finally, I gave up, left Apollo Plumbing an angry voicemail, and went to work. A bit later, I got a phone call from Apollo where they did apologize, sort of. The plumber blamed the mix-up on his friend, who was helping out by answering the phones and setting up appointments. I didn’t like that the plumber just threw his friend under the bus, but he did promise to fit me into the schedule as soon as possible. Since I really wanted to get this resolved before the weekend, I agreed to a Friday appointment window. Since I have to work on Friday too, I asked a family friend to meet the Apollo plumber at my house. They were late again, but at least they showed up. The plumber went up on the roof to do the sewer clean-out with the drain auger. It made a lot of noise, which the plumber said was due to tree roots invading the sewer line. He used the machine to clean out the line for a bit, then ran the shower for a couple of minutes and said it’s all fixed now. He also went to my garage to do an estimate for a new water heater. According to my friend, he did it very quickly and did not want to write down the estimate because it was more paperwork for him, but he did give a verbal estimate of around $1500-1600 (labor and parts). He said it would cost more than the average installation (~$1000) because he would need to install new pipes to the water heater to comply with city code. When I took my next shower, everything ran fine – for about 8 min, when the shower water stopped draining and the toilet started gurgling. This was the exact same problem! I had paid Apollo Plumbing $265 and got no results. I called them and left another angry voicemail. After playing a bit of phone tag, the same Apollo plumber called me back on Saturday, a week after their service call. He said he would like to come that day to fix our issue … but he promised to help a friend move into a new place … and his wife would be mad at him for working over the weekend. He promised to come by my house first thing on Monday for no extra charge to fix the problem. This was a terrible apology, and I saw a pattern of him blaming others for his incompetence / laziness. But I decided to give him a second chance and agreed to meet him on Monday. The plumber insisted that I needed to be there, so I called my boss and asked for another half day off work on Monday. On Monday, the same plumber arrived and went up on the roof to use the drain auger again. He worked his machine for a while, then told me that he ran every inch of his auger line all the way to the city sewer line, but still couldn’t fix the problem. He needed to diagnose the issue with his camera that he can snake down the pipes, but this additional service would cost $150. By this point, I’d been dealing with this for over two weeks, and I was fed up and just wanted it fixed. I approved the camera service, expecting that he would provide me with pictures or live video so I could see the damage / problem myself. But he just fiddled with some equipment for a while and then announced that I would need to replace my entire main sewer line. He said that my sewer line ran straight back to a fence at the rear of my property, where it joined the city sewer line (his assistant even marked the path of the sewer line with spray paint). My line was clogged with roots in a couple places, and the roots had also changed the angle of drainage to completely horizontal. Both issues were causing the drainage problem, and the only solution was to replace my main sewer line for ~$5000. In retrospect, he never showed me any video or pictures to back this up. In fact, I have no proof that he even did the camera service at all, especially since everything it “revealed” turned out to be lies. At first, I completely believed him, but I could not afford $5000. So I had to wait on that sewer line replacement, and deal with very short showers, hand-washing all my dishes, and washing my clothes at a friend’s house. After about a month, my regular plumber got back into town, and I hired him to install a new water heater (the only thing worse than 5-min showers is 5-min cold showers). He charged me ~$600, about $1000 less than Apollo’s quote, and he did a great job. When I told him about my sewage woes, he was unable to offer any help because of his bad back. But he warned me that Apollo Plumbing had a reputation among other plumbers for overcharging people, and has for decades. I realized I’d been had, and I started digging in my backyard to discover the full extent of Apollo’s lies. I saw with my own two eyes that I had metal sewer lines that were still in excellent condition. There were tree roots, but I could not find a single spot where they were growing into the lines (the roots could not penetrate the solid metal). Also, the sewer line did not go out the back of my property, as the Apollo plumber claimed, but instead curved around the house to the front. There was also a sewer cleanout installed in the exact place it should have been, so there was no reason for them to work from the roof and charge me extra for that. I called a different plumber for a new estimate to replace my main sewer line. He came out that same day and told me there was no reason to replace it at all. He used his drain auger on my sewer line, found and cleared the blockage, and even installed an extension on my cleanout so that it could be accessed in the future without digging, all for $150. After he left, I took a long, hot shower, and the water had no trouble draining at all. And in the months since his one short visit, I’ve never had a problem with drainage again. Because of Apollo Plumbing, I was out ~$415, missed 8 hours of work, wasted about 20 hours of hard physical labor in the summer heat digging to find my sewer line (almost got heat stroke once), experienced hours of frustration dealing with them, and endured a lot of stress and worry about that $5000 estimate. I do not recommend Apollo Plumbing to anyone, and they should not be allowed to treat people this way. Please hire anyone else.