Roto-Rooter

Drain line in the basement in Dad's house was blocked, causing backup through the floor drain. We had a plumber respond first thing Monday morning, he indicated the likely location of the blockage, recommended calling a drain cleaning service with specialized equipment. I called Roto Rooter while the plumber was at the house, a service call was scheduled for a 2 hour window in the afternoon. The provider was slightly later than the estimated arrival time, but got to work quickly on arrival. Provider was able to get the caps off the clean outs on either side of the basement, even though one of them had likely not been removed since the house was built more than 50 years ago. Service provider quickly located the blockage, cleared it and cleaned the line all the way to the street. Technician left the work site clean and even offered to help clean the mess from the original blockage. Total job took approximately 1 hour. Exact details of all the work performed was documented on the repair ticket, which will help if a service call is required in the future. I will definitely use this provider for work in the future, and will likely contact them to clean the drains in my house, which is over 80 years old.

Roto-Router was very professional, very responsive, quick to get to my house and very organized. They have a successful system and their people know it well. They are in and out quickly and their pricing structure is well set. They have a professional book which shows you how much each item costs and offer "membership" incentives, etc... The only negative I have about the company is the cost. Plumbing repairs are just expensive. However they did help me out with some of the large bills my circa 1910 plumbing was costing me. I think they genuinely felt for me and my plumbing woes. (I have had them come multiple times.) I felt they were trustworthy. All of their workers are very professional and courteous. I would suggest them to anyone.

First of all, their appointment was not always guaranteed when you make it afternoon. I was very disappointed at them because they didn't show up twice in a row and I wasted my time. First day, they said they would come to estimate the cost at or after 2 pm but they never showed up. I called them to double-check the appointment and they said the service person would come after 2 pm and I just kept waiting until 3:30 pm when I got a phone call from the dispatcher telling that they are taking too long at their previous appointment and are not coming today. On the next day, I asked the dispatcher to call me when their previous job is finished and they are leaving for my appointment, as it is at my new house and would take me ~30 minutes to get there. They called me to tell the service persons will leave soon so I went to my new house but then they called me again to tell they have to cancel that day. At that time, the dispatcher told me that they could not promise the appointment. I couldn't believe my own ears when I heard this. This is how they do their business. They make an appointment but it is not always promised. I should have forgotten about this company and used another but I couldn't reach other plumbers referred by my realtor. Thus, obviously you should make an appointment at their earliest time of the day with Roto-Rooter, or go to another plumber.
The labor cost for two service persons is $120/hr including their shopping time for parts
(they took 1.5 hours for shopping at the nearest Home Depot of 15-minutes driving distance). The reason for this delay was that the Home Depot clerk was unable to locate the parts and took a while to carry them from their storage and process the steel. When I said to the service person of Roto-Rooter, "You should have called the Home Depot beforehand to see if they have parts" he denied this accusation very aggressively but agreed to give me 30-minutes discount.