Drain Works

It was good experience. He showed up when he said he would. Stopping that drain is no fun either especially when you can't flush your toilets. I thought his price was a gift at $75. It took him a day to call me back. He was on time. It was just difficult to reach him but once he made a commitment he showed up. The man was a pro.

I use Eric whenever our apartment complex needs a drain snaked that is too deep/big for my maintenance techs to battle. Eric always answers the phone (and he texts, which is great), he's friendly and polite, and he does a great job. He's in and out quickly on all jobs and is honest when it comes to what the underlying problem is. I've recommended him to many people for his quality of work.

The first time I called he came out and fixed the problem 8/19.  The second time I was going to use his services, he said on two different phone calls he would get back with us and he never did.  Very disappointed that was on 8/26.

Overall it was very good, however they should wear covering for their shoes. Ice and mud was tracked in on the carpet. Technician cleaned it up, however I would have like foot covering.

The Drain Works servicemen were prompt, clean, courteous and their work was highly professional.  

I had this company out to unclog a drain to a washer.  They attempted to unclog the drain but could not so they gave options and an estimate on what else could be done, though it could not be done that day.  This first employee did a good job in explaining everything.  After calling the company to schedule an appointment to get the work done, no one ever got back to us.  Since it was the holidays and they may have been busy, I decided to give them another chance and I called again a week later.   I believe I spoke to the owner, who said he remembered the job and would call back as soon as he got off the phone with another client.  Hours later, I still had not hear back from them.  At this point I decided to go with another company who immediately sent someone out to take a look at our problem and schedule a time to get it fixed.  I felt it was very unprofessional for Drain Works to ignore and never get back with a customer.  It was very frustrating.  I will never be using their services again.

They gave me an estimate over the phone versus a song and dance about sending out someone to see what needs to be done and give you an estimate at that time.  I was asking for a simple service, so I didn't want to jump through hoops for a simple estimate.

Drain Works did an excellent job of cleaning out the main sewer pipe a few weeks ago and I wrote a review praising the work done by Carl. Carl took the time to look at my hot water heater and determined that it was leaking and needed to be replaced. He looked at the connections and said Drain Works normally charges $675 for a similar unit but could do it for $600 and I could tell owner Eric Larson he had inspected the job and $600 was a fair price. I called Eric Monday, Oct 29 and said that my wife could take Friday off to be there for the install. I asked that Carl be the one that does the work since he did a great job with the recent drain clean out. Eric said that we could expect Carl to arrive Friday between 10:30-11:00 am. All was well until late Thursday night when noticed a message on my phone to all Eric. On Friday morning I called Eric and asked what he wanted expecting to see his technician a few hours later. Eric said, "we called Thursday and no one was home so we couldn't come out." I reminded him that we clearly setup an exact time on Friday and that my wife scheduled a vacation day on Friday to be there for Drain Works. I also reminded him that the previous drainer clean out they did for us was scheduled for a Friday at 9am and after waiting until 10:30am Eric told we that he did even put the job on his schedule but he would call Carl and find out when he could be out. Carl did a great job and was their at 11:45am. Although the scheduling failure turned out fine then, the hot water heater installation dissolved into us having to cancel the "appointment". The owner Eric Larsen expressed how busy he was with two emergency jobs on Friday and was on his way to those locations. I reminded him my wife was home from work waiting for him to arrive and she would like to know when they would arrive for the scheduled work. Eric said he would call back with an update later that morning. At 11:45 Eric had not called back so I called him. He let another employee answer the phone and asked "what was the service location?" which was an amazing response indicating he had no interest in calling my wife that day and was very snarky and eventually hung up on me when I pointed out his poor record on meeting his customer's scheduling expectations. After posting a great review praising the Drain Works technician Carl, when he hustled over to our home after Eric forgot to put us on the schedule for the drain clean out, I felt compelled to correct the record on Eric Larson. You can not trust that he will schedule work correctly, or that he will direct his people to follow the schedule. And if he screws up, or gets a "better job" in your time slot, don' t expect to be treated fairly or professionally. He has very low people skills. His workers do great work but buyer beware regarding the owner, Eric Larson

See the detail above

We deduced that there was a clog down deep in the line somewhere, not just in the drain. The technician that came did a wonderful job. He cleared the drain out completely, he was on time, and cleaned up after himself. The price was also similar to others we looked at.

We had a horrible smell in our basement. We thought it might be a drain. Called Drain Works first thing in the morning. Very professional on phone. Asked me when it would be convenient for them to come by. Was told they'd be by 9-12:00. Got a call close to 9:00 from person coming to house. He explained he'd come by soon. Carl and Bill arrived and were very helpful and professional. Explained everything. Fixed our problem--yea! But pointed out another issue with a pipe that we needed to address. They put a temporary cap on that pipe They weren't sure that cleaning the drain would fix our problem. They were very precise about what we should do if it didn't and how to know if it wasn't fixed. I definitely would have called them back if it wasn't fixed. We would have had to have a more extensive drain cleaning. But they started with the easiest and cheaper way to fix our problem. Found them on Angie's list and am glad I did!

I think they are a they are kind of a low budget service which is probably adequate for quite a few people but we had a major problem. I don’t know if they were up to it so I had to hire somebody else to finish the work. Their equipment wasn’t up to it and it would have been fine for a minor problem but not for a major problem. They said they could subcontract the job but we chose not to. He came here when he said he would he here. His attitude was nice, he was a hard worker and tried very hard. The sump pump turned out to be good and it has worked fine since then. I don’t recall how much we paid them but it was quite a bit. We had more work to do after they left. They couldn’t give a complete service and were not able to accomplish what needed to be done.

They were on time, quick, and had a fair price.

Their service was good and they did what they were supposed to do. They met expectations and were friendly.

Great.

I called just a bit after 9 AM, explained my problem and he said he would have someone right out.  When I was concerned about having to work at 2, he said it won't be a problem.  I barely had time to make sure my dog and cat were out of the way and they were at my door.  Carl listened to my problem, which a lot of technicians don't, and then did a check and agreed with me that it was a clog in the main line.  He quickly cleared it out.  It was so nice to have someone listen to me and believe I know what I am talking about.  Being female, I don't always find this.  Plus the cost was less than I had feared. I hope I don't ever have issues, but will not hesitate to call them when I do.

We had contacted a competitive plumber on Saturday (05/12) morning after discovering seepage around the main sewer cleanout valve.  The representative that arrived told us that he "would not recommend cleaning from the inside because it would be messy and more expensive".  He sheduled us for an outside cleanout on Tuesday and left us with a proposal of $1100 to dig and install outside and $282.00 to clean out!
I am so glad that I did not go with this plumber!  After several referrals I contacted Drain Works who attended the immediate problem area and only charged $125.  Had I stuck with the first plumber they would have come out with the BIG guns and charged us $1300+ .

Saturday: Clogged sewer line which was cleared.... so we thought..Sunday: Sewer line again was clogged, they came out within the hour. This was a no charge call. Upon their arrival I noticed an area in my yard which had standing water. Yep, bigger problems. They helped clear the line again, while I started digging up my sewer line to find the problem. I had dismissed them and kept digging. I brought them back out on Tuesday and they repaired my sewer line and put in a clean-out, outside of the house. Thinking this "might" have fixed the problem, I thanked them and moved forward....The installation of this outside clean-out which cost considerably less than another Plumber, yet I also did most of the digging myself.This also opened up an opportunity to run a camera through and find out why I kept having this backup problem.Next visit, camera wasn't available, but they came out and used a different cutter from outside. This outside location gave us additional reach in the sewer line to make sure it was clear all the way to the city main. The clog was "at" the main, which we were not able to reach previously, because it was over 125'.Long story short, I am very happy with their work. They didn't throw the most expensive thing at me up front, which another plumber did.I am very happy with Drain Works.

I would use them again in the future.

They installed for big floor drains in the patio that carry water from the patio probably about 150 feet out to the public storm drain.  When I brought the house, those drains did not drain down and that water would build up like a swimming pool.  I had it come in through a slider door of the patio, of course a slider door not meant to be waterproof so I had water sweeping in around the door.  I had to get something done to the drain because I had carpeting inside the slider door.  That’s when I hired Drain Works to come out, look at those drains, and tell me what my situation was.  They came out and cleaned out the drains to take care of that immediate problem.  I had to take of it fast because it was one of those drains that would have filled water in my house.  There were pros and cons in their work that stood out to me the most.  The pros were that the person who came out seemed to be knowledgeable.  He seemed to know what he was doing.  He did work fast.  He didn’t spend a lot of time messing around.  He came in and got to business did his thing and left.  Since he came out and did the work, I haven’t had an inch of water back up.  Therefore, what he did was effective.  For $400, I seemed to have got what I wanted which is jetting out the drains that led out.  The con was that when I made the appointment with the person that came out to work, I had asked him about sending cameras down into those drains to carefully see what was going on.  I wanted them to see where those drains were because all four drains go somewhere and I had a couple of possibilities where it could go in my yard.  I sort of wanted to know what was under there because as a new owner of this house, I didn’t build it as in my previous residence.  I was very interested in getting a camera sent down and it was agreed that it was going to be done.  It was agreed that they would then clear out whatever blockages they find with the camera.  When the gentleman who came out did not send the camera down, he sent the water jets down.  He said that he didn’t need a camera and that he can hear it.  He said that he can make out by the sound where it goes by, listening to one drain and since he knows where his jet is, he can hear it.  That is in fact how he did the work and he was good.  He told me from what he could hear, what he could see, and where the water came out.  He in fact helped me make a little map of what was underground.  That was very helpful and good.  He did not do the camera work that I thought I was getting when he came out.  He did get me to the result I wanted but he didn’t do it the way I expected it to be done.  I was a little put off by the fact that this person who was the worker and not the manager came out and made out a different decision as to what would be done.  His decision may have been the appropriate one and it did get me where I was going but afterwards I thought that he didn’t do any hi-tech camera work, all he did was put in a hi powered hose in there which made me feel that a price adjustment was in order from had been bid to me over the phone to do this job.  I did in fact called back and spoke with the gentleman with whom I had made the appointment.  I told him that the person who came out didn’t stick any cameras in, all he did was water jetted it out.  He said to me that I had longer runs as he had anticipated and so his worker had to spend a longer time.  So he told me that his time made up for the cost for what would have been the cameras.  I didn’t fight him about it.  I did get what I wanted and I had been willing to pay that amount of money upfront to get what I wanted so the fact that they did a difference in the end was okay.  However, I was a little put off.  The worker who came out was a little scruffy looking.  He did his work and everything but I expected just a little bit hi-tech higher level of service and what I got was a person who came out in a big truck, who hooked up to my water supply in my house and sprayed really hi powered water through my drains.  I expected a better looking, a better-groomed individual to come out and I didn’t get what I thought I was going to get.  It was summer time that I did this and I haven’t had a second’s trouble with the drain since then.  So that’s an important thing that my drains haven’t backed up.  In terms of the problem I was having, he fixed it.  I was not impressed with the level of their professionalism.  The service that I got was not the service that I had called the people out for and when I called back, the response was not satisfactory.  He did tell me that these drains would have to be cleaned out periodically because it stuffed with debris.  It was a long run to the sewer but the water was not going 100 miles an hour so stuff tends to precipitate out in the drains.  The dump in the drains over time reduces the capacity of the drain and the water was left up with no space to go and therefore backed up on my patio.  This was going to be a routine maintenance with this home.  I appreciated that information and knowing that’s how this system works.  I asked him if I really should be attentive about making sure that no leaves or other things get swept off the patio because it might block the drains and he said yes.  I appreciate knowing that because that has helped me take better care on the patio that I otherwise might.  However, bottom line is that if I need somebody clean these drains again, I probably will try somebody else. 

See above

When I called in at 10AM, the office was courteous and professional.  He said he could have a technician at my house between noon and 1PM.  At 12:30, the technician arrived, and very quickly was able to assess the situation, lug the auger downstairs, and snake our line.  He was friendly and we talked while he performed the service.  The price ($100) was less than half what some of the major plumbing companies that take out big ads in the phone book charge.  I will definitely use them whenever my main line becomes blocked with roots.

The techs also offered on-the-spot pricing for replacing our hot water heater and a suggested time frame for the life of one of our toilets. We live in an old neighborhood where many houses have clogging problems. Their prices were about half of what other plumbers we've used in the past have charged just to come to the house, and the techs were very pleasant.

Excellent.

They were excellent. They came almost immediately, and he had the work done in around 10 minutes. He was very clean and he did not linger when the work was done. We couldn't be happier with his work, and will absolutely be calling him the next time we need help.