GARY'S ROOTER & PLUMBING SERVICE LLC

BUYER BEWARE! Gary's was by far the worst choice that we have made with contracting services in town. We initially called Gary's Rooter & Plumbing to assist with a minor leak on our toilet at our home. Jeremy (Gary's son) arrived to our home and quoted us $200 for materials and 1 hour of labor ($142 per hour). He then offered to reinstall a new toilet for the same price. I confirmed that we would only move forward if the cost was the same to which he agreed. Upon installation of the toilet, we received an "invoice" for $627. We then spoke with Mary (Gary's Wife) regarding the 80% increase in cost and in the middle of our conversation Gary took the phone and began cursing us out saying "You better pay me my F$%#ing money or else" "If you don't pay me right now, I'll take you to F$%#ing court". Keep in mind that the "invoice" which was a hand written note on a restaurant ticket showed no terms and this conversation took place 4 days after completed service. If you do have the misfortune of working with this company, I highly recommend requesting a formal quotation and be prepared to receive the brunt of Gary's anger management issues and intimidation tactics if the invoice is significantly higher than quoted.

Terrible! They never finished the job they were paid to do!

very bad, the clean out was done, they stop work because the owner demand more money.Was unprofessional and treat me very badly on the phone and use bad language at me, was paid in full and paded the insurance money to make money, Off me and i i had to fix the pipe and put the vis-clean my self was put bad the insulation that was taken out as well.

To begin with, what he did not solve the problem. I still have standing water in my lawn. The drains he put in were mismatched, one was too high and the other was at the bottom of a little hill which got covered with mud and covered the drain opening. When there was still standing water on the patio, he said it was because of a bad slope. Had he told me that before, I wouldn't have had him do anything. If it was a bad slope, what he was doing, wouldn't have solved it. To 'remedy' the standing water, he dug a trench in the yard. You'd have to see pictures to appreciate this. He also left the yard in a huge mess, and I had to hire people to fix it. He worked after dark two night in a row, and had his family with him on my patio. He worked by the lights on the house. I paid part up front and on a credit card. He kept my credit card number and charged me for the remainder even though the work was not done properly. I went to the contractors board, and when they showed up, he didn't show up. He blew us off. Our only choice is to go to small claims court, and I don't time to have to do that.

This job took 5 weeks instead of the 2 weeks it should have. As a direct consequence of the behaviour of the contractors, I had to give 2 of my tenants one month rent concessions which cost me $1200. Additionally, one of those tenants hired an attorney who threateded to sue me because (according to him), the plumbers had threatened his client and had entered her premises illegally on 3 different occassions.
At no time did a journeyman plumber EVER go under my building. The owner of the company, Gary Mustin, was out of the state on a family crisis the first 2 weeks of the job. He did not hire a supervising journeyman plumber to cover in his absence. He did hire an elderly journeyman plumber to stand by during three different building inspections, but this man never crawled under the building on a single occassion.
Because of the amount of piping installed under the building, we were expecting "sweeping 90s" to be used on turns in the pipes, not sharp 90s. A sweeping 90 makes a 90 degree turn, but gently, so there are not sharp turns where sewage can get hung up. Gary instructed his crew to use sharp 90s under the building, in every instance, as 1) it is a cheaper pipe to install and 2) use of this design is sort of a built-in work generator for the future.
During the bidding process, I felt Gary's bid came in rather high and I discussed this with him. He justified his bill, in part, by telling me that the hook up of the new sewer line had to take place within an existing manhole, which required the building of a special box to contain the new hook up, and much more extensive boring thru extensive thick concrete, like 3-4 inches. In point of fact, the line ended up run to a completely different place in my parking lot, and was directly cut in to the city's main sewage line. This meant that the special box that Gary said was needed was not built AND the boring done amounted to 1 1/2-2 inches, considerably less than he had stated. Finally, he had also told me that to do this hook up that he would have to hire traffic control flaggers. I was present on the day this work took place, and there were no traffic control flaggers on site, ever. Furthermorre, I was never consulted on the move of the location of the new sewage line. I was told it would run diagonally across the lot, which I agreed to. The first I knew that the location had been changed was when I showed up one morning to check on things, and half the trench had already been backhowed out in a completely different place.
Another really special part of Gary's work: I was told that the tenants would be unable to use their water and sewer fro 8-4, Monday thru Friday, but at the end of EVERY workday, the pipes would be reconnected so tenants had full services again.
What did, in fact, happen, is that the one apprentice who had the most experience was pulled off my job and sent else where on other jobs. At the end of the work day, the other apprentices either did not know how to reconnect the pipes OR were unwilling to do so. So, for a minimum of at least 3 nights, the 12 apartment dwellers used ALL services in their apartments, and it all flowed directly under the building. Futher, Gary bought a residential rated sewage pump (ie. for a single family home) and used it to attempt to pump sewage on some occassions when the primary sewage line was not hooked up. The sewage pump promptly burned out. He attempted to bill me for this pump (a Liberty Pump, LE40 Series) which Amazon sells, shipping included for under $240. Gary billed me $795 for this item on his bill.
None of the sewage dumped under my building has been cleaned up. Cut out chunks of old pipe that my contract specified had to be removed are still under the building. The building inspector required Gary to replace the vapor barrrier with 6 ml. plastic; he used 2 mil. I have a gaping hole in a storage room with pipe exposed that was to be filled in with gravel and has not been. An area in which concrete had to be removed and then replaced after pipe work was completed is disfigured; Gary used a backhoe to pull out chunks of concrete not a jack hammer. And finally, he has billed me for $26K in "extras" (including $12K) in sewage cleanup on top of the original $41K contract. There is presently, at this moment, a 5 gallon paint bucket sitting under this building (far away from the inspectors path) that is completely filled up with raw sewage. Gary informed me that it was my reponsibility to deal with this.
Run, do not walk, away from this guy. He lies, cheats, and I am going after his license with the CCB. This wasn't negligence; its was outright fraud.

UPDATE: Septermber 12, 2013: just had an electrician spend 2 days at this building chasing an electrical current "leak" showing up the showers of 4 of the apartments which Gary's work affected. (Tenants complained of feeling tingly when showering!) He finally located an electric leak from a wire in the wall that Gary had open in one downstairs apartment. The electrician said he could not guarantee this was the cause of the problem, but once he discontinued power to the breaker serving the electric ceiling heat, there was no more leak. He stated it was probable that when the plumbing work was done, they nailed or stapled thru an electrical line and those lines are right next the water lines. The only was to verify Gary was responsible was to open the wall all over again, and since the problem  was solved, I wasn't about to do that.

At the Oct. 2012 visit, cleaned out drains, but left a mess behind. 
Thought it was ok & the price was very reasonable. 
Called them Feb. 17 as they are 24 hr. service, to come back for the same drains.  They
had been told on the first visit that many years ago the pipes required a
very long "snake" to completely unblock.  They did not use one in
Oct.   Pipes are again backed up.  To come out the next day, i.e. Feb.
18, Presidents' Day, they would have charged double.  So, they said they'd be out between
7-8 a.m., Feb. 19.  When still a no show at 8 a.m, I called & it
was as if they had no idea about the work order.  Said they'd send
someone right away.  By 9, still no plumber.  When I called (they didn't
let me know they were tied up), they said they didn't know when they
could get here.
They are now on my list of service people NOT TO CALL.

The first time I used them was when I had a major flood in my utility room.  It ended up being a hazmat job cleaning up the linoleum.  My insurance company recommended that I call ServePro who specializes in cleanup after floods and fires.  The plumber who they called in was Gary's Plumbing and I was impressed with them all the way through the unpleasant project.  They were great to do business with.  I will absolutely use them again.

When you have a gas hot water heater, you need a plumber to turn it off and on.  He would show up and turn it on in the morning so that I could do laundry and shower. Then he would  come back later, when the work needed to be done, and turn it off again.  They were great!

Jeremy came out and located the cleanout on 10/28/2011. I paid $94.00 for that visit. He dug out the area, saw the scope of the work, and told me it would cost $300.00 and it would be in the same spot but 4" above the ground. When the office called to schedule the work I verified with the receptionist and with Jeremy that they were charging me a flat fee of $300.00, and not an hourly rate. Jeremy got on the phone and said "I have done this many times and even if it takes longer or we run into any problems,  I am not going to charge you more than $300.00. When they were done they handed me a bill for $506.00 and I handed them a check for $300.00. They took me to small claims court and the judge was apologetic but said the burden of proof rested on me and since I could not prove that they told me $300.00  then I lost. The actual work was a nightmare as they did not do anything that I asked, did not dig their mud onto a tarp ( which left a mess), would  not backfill the space under the new pipe ( it should have rock supporting it underneath), moved the location of the cleanout to right in the way of my walkway (without asking), did not even bring it up to the suface but left it 5" below (not what we had discussed), and trespassed through a closed gate into my backyard supposedly looking for an outlet, even though I was home and they could have simply asked since their work should not have taken them into that part of the property. RUN away, dont walk, as fast as you can!!!

Called Gary's about 8:30 a.m.  He was an hour late for an 11:30 appointment.  Everything else went perfectly.  This is the second time I have used Gary's; the first time was on a weekend.  He is very helpful.

They did not know what they were suppose to do and the guy who came first had little experience and did not seem to care whether it was done right or not. My husband told him numerous times that it needed to be ran through 3-4 times and he still only did it once!!

Company was called on Friday, 12/18/09 and asked if they would send a plumber to install a dishwasher, fix a leak under the kitchen sink, check upstairs bath tubs (and repair as needed) for leak that ended in kitchen ceiling, fix the leaking spigot outside the house, and install a new kitchen faucet. 1 plumber and 1 apprentice arrived late in the afternoon on 12/21/09. The plumber inspected the leaking situation from the upstairs bathrooms and told us that it would be okay as long as we didn't fill the tub up over the over-flow valve (it was not connected to anything and ran straight into the wall when filled up high). He also said that it might be the shower fixture itself, leaking into the wall. They recommended that we leave it alone. After unpacking the dishwasher they determined that they would have to go to their office to pick up a pack of parts that they needed in order to finish installing the Sears Kenmore Dishwasher. I asked them if I would be charged for the drive time to and from the house and they said no. They told us that the install would be a 1 hour job/charge maximum. Upon returning from the office, the licensed plumber did not come back and two young men returned to finish the install job (and I thought the leaky sink). The man who signed the invoice, Jeremy finished the dishwasher install. I went over to see the finished work and asked about the leak under the sink. Jeremy told me that the leak could be coming from under the lip of the sink which sits on the counter top and has very little caulking. He convinced me that this was probably the reason for the leak. It wasn't obvious to me that he had actually checked under the sink, nor did he offer to fix it. When I pressed him about fixing it, he explained that he was running behind and couldn't do it at that time. Putting in the new faucet was also out of the question. I was charged for 1.5 hours - 1 for the install and .5 for the other things above. I paid in cash and he left. I didn't feel that I got my money's worth on that. After he left, I went into the kitchen to use my new dishwasher and realized that it wasn't plumb with the floor (I got a level out) and the right side of the door banged into the wooden underside of the counter. The work seemed like that of a novice who really should have had a more experienced employee showing him the ropes. The worst part? Not the poor workmanship. It was the (non)response that I received from the owner of the company - Gary. As soon as Jeremy left and I discovered the misalignment of the dishwasher, I called the company's main number and explained the situation. I asked for Gary to call me and that I would like to have a person with more plumbing experience come out and take a look at the dishwasher and the leaky sink. I called on 12/21. I called again on 12/22. I called a third time on 12/23 and was told by Christine (the receptionist) that Gary was (again) in a meeting and would call me when he was freed up. I explained that I'd been told that before, and that I believed that a leaky sink, a banging dishwasher, and an unhappy customer should warrant a call back more quickly than 3 days. Her response - "You are welcome to call another plumber". Christine told me that she couldn't help me, she'd already told me that she had no new information. I asked her to listen to me (I was attempting to tell her about the message I was going to post on Angie's List) so that she could pass the information along to her boss, but instead of listening she actually hung up on me. I called back, and she placed me on hold for 3 mins. When she came back on I told her that I thought her behavior was extremely rude and asked if she'd had any training on answering the phone and helping customers. I admit that at this point I was pretty upset (can you imagine?!) and I could have handled myself better. But, I'm sure that many of you can understand that being treated so disrespectfully by a receptionist and trying to get attention from a business owner who is unresponsive to his customers' concerns, can really put a person's blood pressure up. I can't help but wonder if my service would have been much better if I had paid with my credit card, and not cash. Christine did hear me say that I would be posting my experience on Angie's List and that if I didn't hear from someone soon, I'd go to all the plumbing supply stores in town and leave them a copy of the experience too. Believe it or not, she then started to yell that they would have their attorneys sue me for slander. Then she slammed the phone down. 5 mins later Jeremy called me (first call back in 3 days from anyone who actually does any plumbing work) to tell me that if I went ahead with my posting they would sue me for slander. I managed to get him to stop talking about lawsuits and to instead talk about plumbing and the poor job that he left behind. He agreed to return for no charge and adjust the dishwasher so that it no longer banged against the counter. He is supposed to come later today. I am going to assume that he will keep his word. He also told me that he didn't like me and that's why he wouldn't fix the leak on Monday (not running out of time). Bottom Line: There are many plumbers in the yellow pages. Based on my experiences detailed above, I would not recommend this company to anyone. Call someone else if you want it done right the first time.

on Sunday 10/11/09, our main water feed sprung a leak. Aaron was there in 2 hrs, dug a coupling out and patched it temporarily. Monday he brought 2 men in, found 2 more leaks, excavated 15' of pipe that had 10 years of poor repairs ( it looked like a kids jungle gym) and repaired it. in the process , they found, plumbed, and boxed a lawn sprinkler valve that we didn't know about.

I put N/A for punctuality because I wasn't present while they were working. When I first contacted them they told me they charge $86/hour for plumbing work and $68/hour for drain cleaning work. I told them that sounded great that they charge less for drain cleaning work and she agreed. They did charge me the $68/hour for the drain cleaning, but they also charged me the $86/hour for plumbing while they were cleaning my drains. They were charging me a total of $154/hour for the drain cleaning! They never informed me that they charge time and a half after 5:00 and the guy who was doing the work took so long that he went after 5. They never asked my permission to stay after 5 and never told me about the extra charge, and I never would have authorized the work had I known all of this. They have been unresponsive to my calls.