Charles Pierce Plumbing

Charlie arrived to take a look at the problem within 24 hours of being called since we could not use any of the plumbing until it was looked at and fixed. He was recommended to us by several people in the area, and used to work for one of the other main plumbing groups in the Oxford, PA area for years before starting his own business, but we had not personally had experience with him previously.
Our plumbing had suddenly ceased working the day before while doing laundry, when water came pouring out from UNDER the toilet in the laundry room. The water was not draining fast enough down the sewer pipes. When Charlie first arrived, he tried using snakes in the lines, which only partially worked.  Main problem with using the snakes was lack of access points from which to run the snakes. He indicated he would come out the next day and dig down to the pipe where it exited the house, remove the pipe there and install a pipe T as an access point to make future problems of this nature easier to deal with. My husband and I did the digging ourselves to save time and reduce cost. Charlie arrived promptly the next morning, and immediately determined that the old orangeburg pipe running from just inside the basement wall and out into the yard, had almost completely collapsed, providing only 1/2 inch of space for contents of the pipe to flow (and which had become completely blocked). He cut out a three foot section of the pipe, installed new PVC from inside the basement to the new PVC T, ran the snake down towards the septic, and got the lines open again. He then gave us the option of stopping at that point, and leaving the rest of the old orangeburg pipe in the ground, or going ahead and getting it all dug up and replaced, which is what he recommended, since it was in terrible shape (orangeburg was used between the late 1800s to the 1960s and was made out of compressed wood pulp and tar. . . it only had a life of about 50 years at best). Given the condition of what had been dug up so far, we opted to go ahead with the bigger project.
Charlie has an excavation company he usually works with on outdoor plumbing jobs requiring that your yard be dug up, but he is completely open to you using whoever you want if you have a strong preference. He called them right on the spot, and they stopped by a few hours later to take a look at the project. They indicated they would get us into their schedule the following week. As promised, they were there by 9:00AM one week later, and quickly and efficiently dug a trench down to the septic. The old pipe was dug up (and was it ever a mess - good thing we decided to get it removed), new pipe was laid, and a brand new access top was installed on the septic so it could be pumped out regularly and easily. It had had NO access before. Before they left, they regraded the yard, scattered grass seed and spread straw over the work area to reduce erosion until the grass can grow back. Given the time of year, I suspect it was a waste of grass seed and we will assuredly have to reseed again come spring, but at least the thought was there.
We were extremely impressed with the professionalism, work ethic and results we got from everyone, and would not hesitate to use Charlie again in the future. In speaking with others who have used his services, we all determined that his plumbing prices are some of the most reasonable any of us had ever come across, and that his work was consistently excellent. Can't get better than that.