Bye bye, Mr. Rooter

This post is not RP related but on my recent disappointing  experience with Mr. Rooter of Northern Colorado.


Oh, not again, that was my thought when my kitchen drain was all clot up. We poured vineger and hot water into the kitchen sink but it didn't help a bit. Then we took the U trap out under the sink and poked a long steel coil through the drain pipe, we managed pull out some grease gunk but the drain still fully clot up. Aftter couple hours of trying, we decided to call a professional. We had used Mr. Rooter couple of times before and was fairly happy with their work so we called them again for this problem.

Mr. Rooter won't provide a price quote over the phone but would come over take a look and provide a price quote on the spot and if we don't like it we don't need the work done without trip charge.; Mr. Rooter sent over the crew of . Mr. J and Mr R to our house in couple hours. Mr. J introduced Mr. R as his assistant but in fact he is a trainee. Mr J gave us a price quote of $340 to cable the drain, he also strongly recommended the additional service of hydro jetting to  high pressure wash of the drain pipe for additional$360. If any new part need on the drain, there will be $320 additional charge.  We were shocked with these prices. We almost told them to leave due to the high price, we told them we had the same drain cableing work done 4 years ago for $215. Mr. J called Mr. Rooter office to see if the price can be reduced, Mr. Rooter agreed to do the cableing for $250.

As soon as they start to work, it was obvious that Mr. R is a newbie, Mr. J had to tell him almost every step of the work. Mr. R didn't even know to remove a section of the drain pipe to make more room for the cableing machine and he didn't put down some rags under the sink to absorb any water spill . At one point, there was a lot of water spilled under the sink cabinet, and Mr. J had to rush out to the truck to get a vacuum cleaner to suck up the spill.   After Mr. R pull out some grease from the drain pipe he was go to stop there but Mr. J told him cable the drain pipe again, slowly this time in order to clean up more grease. While Mr. R doing the cableing second time around, Mr. J went down the basement to look at the drain pipe. He told me the drain pipe is not hung at the correct slope because one of the pipe hanger is loose. He said he could fix this for additional $150. I refused the offer, because I think I can fix the loose pipe hanger. After Mr. R finished the cableing, we let full sink of water down the drain to test it out. We noticed couple of water drops leak under the strainer and pointed it out to Mr. J. He said he could patch the leak with a bit of plumber's putty for $150. I refused the offer because I think the price was too high for this simple task.  When we turn on the garbage disposer with full sink of water, we found some water was forced out from the dishwasher drain pipe. Mr. J said this was due to drain pipe not completely clean with just cableing and he again recommended us to do the hydro jetting for only additional $200. He said the high pressure wash would completely get rid of the grease in the drain pipe thus opening up the drain pipe completely to let large amount water flow throught. I again refused the additional work because I think he is just doing Upselling and pulling price out of the air.  Mr. J even offered us financing if we want the additional work done, yep, right, only a fool would take out a loan to pay the extra expensive work. We were also not happy to pay for professional and got a newbie to work on our problem.  After they left, we noticed a small leak on the drain pipe joint at the garbage disposer, we didn't have that leak before the work, not happy. 

After they left, I look up info about hydro jetting.  From what I read, a drain clot can be cleared either by cableing or hydro jetting.  While hydro jetting seem to be a longer term solution, nothing that I read said    I have  to do  the cableing to clear the clot first then the hydro jetting to clean the drain pipe.  I wish Mr. J just offer the hydro jetting instead of trying double dipping. 

Bye Bye Mr. Rooter, We were really turn off by the aggressive up selling and the high prices.  I have seen many ads for unclotting the drain for lower price, I will give them a try or do the hydro jetting next time.