I would like some input to see if I should call the company and complain about the results.

I called around and tried to find a company that is equipped with the chain cutting nozzle to clean the buildup inside my cast iron lines. I finally found a company that is a local franchise of a large drain cleaning company, one of those "rooter" companies.

They came and looked at what I had, I explained what needed to be cleaned, gave them a scaled drawing of my lines and explained that I have 3" CI pipes that need to be rimmed and jetted, and I want my lines rimmed/jetted with that chain flailing head, and video inspected and I want a copy of the video.

He quoted me a price that is based on hours. X dollars for the first two hours, and Y dollars for each additional hours. He told me it should not take more than 4 hours. I hired them.

They came back two days later. Appointment was at 8am, so we can get out of there by noon. On the day of the appointment 9am no one was there. I called and they told me he had some equipment problems and would be there "shortly". I did some other things and he showed up at 10:30am. He looked at my house (same guy that came and did the estimates) and said to me "I need a 3/8" FIP to 1/2" FIP coupling and a few blank DVDs for the video recording, where is the closest Home Depot?" After a few minutes he was off. I was there thinking, am I on the clock paying $450 an hour while he goes shopping at Home Depot?

This is his setup and the chain cutting head.





After he came back, he said he thinks he does not need to use the chain cutting head, a regular jet should be fine. I told him the reason I hired them is ONLY because of the chain cutting head jetting service. He reluctant took out his chain cutting head and said all he had was one for a 4" pipe but I had 3" pipes. I said two days ago I told you I have 3" CI lines, why didn't you tell me then. He said it may work, let's try it. He tried to push the cutting head through my 3" test tee, and it would not go in. he struggled with it for another 20 minutes and I told him, if you think it would fit inside the 3" pipe and it will clean, I can remove this CI test tee which was connected with no hub couplings. He said yes, so I did.

Now the pipe is opened on the outside of the house and he was able to push the head in for 3 inches and no further because the chain was in the way, so he removed one of the two chains and it was able to go in. He pushed that line in and it was a straight shot and when it gets to an elbow 85' upstream it wouldn't go any further. Good news is that is the elbow I changed and everything upstream from there are new pipes. Bad news is he pulled the hose back and it wouldn't come back. he cursed and cursed and tried and tried and it wouldn't come back. Now we are both at the inside elbow and opened that two way cleanout and can feel with our hand the head lodged in that 45. I took a pry bar and tapped it lightly and it dislodged and he was able to pull it back out. All this time was again, on the clock.

Then he cleaned the other line starting from the downstream CO again. Swept that line again with the chain head.

Next he started to clean from those two COs downstream to the city main and sweep that line. However he was not able to use the chain cutting head as there are additional turns and elbows and it will not go through them with his 4" head. So he jetted downsteam and then he went to a CO near the property line and jetted backwards and then pushed forward to the city. He told me the lines are all squeaky clean.

Next came the video inspection. He inspected two main lines from the two COs at the outside of the house and video as he pushed the camera upstream. It looks cleaned but there are still buildups, but looks 100% better than what was there before. Then we moved to one of the bathrooms where I knew I had a snake head stuck inside the pipe, he jetted it from the toilet pipe but cannot go further after 7 feet from the bottom of that elbow. Video showed that I have a coiled head lodged in the 3" CI pipe and will not move. He pushed it with his camera and it wasn't moving. I asked him to record that part and indicate the distance. He said he has not calibrated the distance on the video and the video can show the images but for some reason cannot record. So I am not getting any video and I do not have a distance meter on the video system that I can use to tell me how far down it is.

He then jetted forward from my two COs to the city. He told me they are all totally cleaned and no need to video that line. He finished at around 3pm. So from 10:30 to 3pm is 4.5 hours and he was at Home Depot 1 hour, and pulling his chain head out about 30 minutes, so he really just worked 3 hours for my benefit but he charged me 4 hours.

Today I have to replace one section of the pipe on the outside line. These lines are supposed to be jet cleaned. I cut about 6 feet of that CI pipe and this is what I saw.

Upstream end:

Downstream end:


It is half filled with junk.

Should I call them and complain? Late arrival; Home Depot shopping on my time; Wrong size equipment; Problems encountered form using wrong size equipment; No video recording; and uncleaned pipes, not to mention that since he had the wrong size head, I had to take the test tee out to give him a direct path, therefore all the junk he swept back from the line fell out of that pipe and into the ground and my driveway, I had to clean up afterwards.



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i would because he didnt clean the drain the time thats just the way it goes sometime although i wouldnt have paid for the hd trip

I am most concerned about the pipes between my house and the city now being half filled. I don't see how it will not be a potential clogging hazard in the future.

I think at a minimum they should jet these lines clean and show me they are cleaned by video.

you are correct. they should come back and clean it properly

personally as soon as he said he needed to run to HD after showing up late i would have sent him away and definitely after you found out he didnt even have the correct size head and most definitely when he told you he couldnt record the camera inspection

you are a glutton for punishment sum

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PLUMBERS "Protecting The Health Of The Nation"

You helped him get his jetter out of the pipe and
he charged you regular price. He is not the type of guy
I would want to do bussiness with.
BILL

i agree with dlh, one thousand percent.

dlh I know...I took the day off from work to do this, and the thought did come to mind about calling it off, but I don't know what the policy is to call off a job that was half done. I would still owe the time spent. The rate they quote me first two hours were high ($450/hr) and after that $250/hr so at the 2 hour mark if I call it off it would have cost me even more then to just let him finish. At least I know my lines in the house are cleaned now, which I can see from the video but unfortunately no recording. Except for that one branch with the snake head stuck in it. Downstream from house COs to the city is not cleaned, he said it was but now I see it's half packed with junk.

Their office called me Friday afternoon to do a "customer satisfaction survey". I will be calling them about this satisfaction part.

450 dollars for a 1/2 x 3/8 black coupling?
you ought to be telling these stories here...
[www.angieslist.com]

sum, you would be surprised at what an upset customer can get for free

all you have to do is call and complain to the service manager or higher until you are satisfied.

you gave them the specifications for the job before hand, there is no excuse for coming to the job unprepared period! it is just to simple to get it right, all this guy needed was the specific equipment you asked them to use,which they said they had, and for a recording of the camera inspection, which they said they could do. neither of which they were able to provide!

you were ripped off pure and simple. this guy padded his pocket as he is most likely paid a commission

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PLUMBERS "Protecting The Health Of The Nation"

Sum, you have been subjected to so much incompetence that you are starting to think it is normal. I cannot believe there are so many poor "technicians" in one area, and it is even harder to imaging there are no good ones as options. You accepted a "make do" process when he modified the equipment to "fit" into your pipe, when it was never designed to do that. You let him charge for a trip to HD, when he had seen your situation at the time of the estimate, AND even if he had not, he should have encountered that previously and had the adapter already. The proper chain cutter will clear the material from the pipe, but since the jet is being used to power it, there may not be enough residual force to push the material ahead of it, so a subsequent jetting may be necessary to remove it. In addition you paid for equipment which was not working properly when he could not pinpoint the location. Can you stop payment on the check, assuming he did not stop at your bank on the way to the next stop.

Sum, I feel your pain. Your name must be posted on some plumbing list your area... to be taken advantaged of... and that is not right. Showing up late and having the improper equiptment were the 2 Major Red Flags, that you chose to ignore. At that point, I too would have informed the company that they were in violation of their quote and "Thanks"... but "NO THANKS" and See Ya.

Considering the size of their equipment and the damage they "could" have done to your waste lines clearly indicates that they did not have YOUR best interest in mind when the oontractor pulled up to the job.

Shame on them!
Best Wishes

He probably took the Tony Maio course on how to increase your profits.

Maybe he should go out by the street and see if there are three white X's on the curb signifying that an easy mark lives there.

I called them and told them I was not satisfied and told them the whole story. They said they will "escalate" this up to their "regional director" and he will call me to rectify and make sure I stay a "happy customer".

What does this mean? I don't want to cause the guy to lose a job or anything.



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Perhaps you should write down on a piece of paper what you want and stick to it. No if's, and's or butts. Or better yet, go back to your original contract and have them meet those terms.... to the letter, with no excuses, using the right equipment for the job... and showing up ontime.

Is that really, "too much to ask?"
Best Wishes

He won't. He might get a bonus for trying to "escalate" your job and invoice it to the maximum. The person they "escalate" your complaint to may be a teenager in the complaint department whose only task in life is to adjust invoices to the least amount that will make the customer happy. Of course they want you to be a "happy" customer, that way they can make it up on the next job.

i have no idea what that means since most of the rooter shops have managers in the shop that have the authority to take care of complaints any way they can/want to

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PLUMBERS "Protecting The Health Of The Nation"

this has to be a candid camera post ........ the guy didn't have the proper tools , although he has a machine worth tousands,you had to give advice on what to do,you accually had to work with him to free the chain head that was forced into a 3 inch pipe........
did the guy have a big belly with a crack at the back of his pants......
first thing you do before trying to decide what to do is to call the BBB
and give them bubbas biz card

Was it one of the rooter trucks with the guy winking on the back of it? If so they wont fire him, he just wont get the commission on your job. You were told a price to do a job, and you seem more educated than the average homeowner. The guy was lucky to have someone patient. I would call and demand to speek to the owner of the franchise. They either do what was agreeed upon, or give you your money back. The fact the guy put a 4" head in a 3" line would be grounds to throw him out.. Good luck, and let us know how you make out.

Actually, this guy was like a leak locator I called one time. The leak was under an 8" concrete slab and was coming up at the joint by the buildin. He came out, checked around, then said there was too much noise in the area to locate it, but that it was "somewhere around here", then charged me $500.00 for the service. Well, he charged it but all I paid was $100.00 for his travel time, and I think they sent that back, if I remember correctly.

I spoke to them, and repeated my experience to three other people. So now they are offering to send someone else to my place to re-clean the line and do the proper video inspection and recording. We shall see how that goes.

Their manager called me last week and offered to send someone else to my place to redo the jetting and video inspection. I said if they worked on weekends and he said yes. So appointment was set for last Friday morning.

Come Friday morning the same guy showed up.

I showed him the section of the pipe I cut out from the weekend before and how it is half filled with junk and he said he needs to re-jet it again to clean it.

So he inserted the jet to from the downstream most cleanout at the property line and started to sweep the pipe. After a while he started to switched direction and push the jet forward into the city. He pushed for about 10 minutes and then he ran out of water. He told me it "should be cleaned". I said can we use the video camera to check it to ensure the line is now clean instead of being half filled? He said sure. So he went to an upstream cleanout and insered the camera head. The head is probably 2" in diameter and has a coiled housing. He showed the line to be fairly clean (better than before) and then he gets to a 90 degree elbow. He pushed it forward and back and it will not go past that elbow. This 2" camera head cannot negotiate past the 4" 90 degree elbow? He said yes, the snake will only go on straight line...but we are still a good 20 feet from the CO at the property line and another 30 feet to the city can we not check from the video if the line is cleared? He pulled the video out and walked to the property line CO which is deeper and tried to insert the head down but he could not get the head to bend enough to go upstream or downstream. He said his video cam is not going to be able to go into these lines but he says my line should be clear now...how would I know for sure.

I then asked him to put the video cam into my line inside the house and record that line, and again, his video cam will not record. It will show video but will not record, nor will it display any distance from the CO where it was inserted. He blamed it on the machine and said most of their machines are very expensive but break easily. Now why is this my problem?

So we could not record the video again. So I told him to go to the bathroom where the stuck snake head is, insert the video cam down there until we see the snake head. I took out my own camera and took a shot off the video screen and that was how I got the two images I posted on the other thread. I then measured the length of the cable he pulled back into the reel and estimated the distance.

So I got a video inspection of my lines in the house, but no recorded DVD for reference later.

I got him to re-jet the line, and saw that one section of it is cleaned better, but 50' of it downstream of it after the elbow is unsure.

If I call and complain, they will problem send someone out with a broken equipment again. LOL.

So after all that you went through you still did not get what you paid for? I guess the standard for plumbing 'service' is mor lax down there! My company would senbd you your money back, and still re-do the job to your satisfaction.

njmike...it is interesting that you are from NJ because the company who did this work for me, is a NJ company but recently expanded to Florida and took over a FL franchise.

I complained to the company again and said I paid for a video recording and twice you came with substandard machines that cannot record. So I cannot use this for future reference or to show other plumbers I might hire to do work the condition of my pipe and where I might have issues.

So this time the owner called me back from a 732 area code. Apparently he just came down from NJ and wants to come resolve all the issues I had. We made an appointment for 2pm on Friday. I got to the project house at 1:45pm and the owner and the tech are already there. He came with a new machine and told me they already have opened my CO on the outside and recorded one line and are in the process of recording the other. By 2:15pm they have already recorded the second line, and moved to record the line from there to the city. I was watching the video and the line was clean for about 10' or so then I saw a lot of loose debris. They said this is normal and their jet can sweep backwards and clean the line but cannot push ahead to clean it real well, this is about as good as they can do it.

They also said the debris are there because I have not been using my line so there is no constant flow of water. If I start to use my line the water in the line will naturally push those debris out. I told them I do have a sink that is still functional and I do use that sink to wash my hands from time to time and I tested my line with a garden hose and flushed all my line periodically, and if their jet machine cannot clean those debris out how is the flow coming slowly from 120' upstream going to clean the line? They had no answer except that my line is functional and as clean as can be.

I also complained about not being able to jet out my 1.5" kitchen line so they went up to the roof and jetted down the 2" and pushed that all the way to the CO.

I went home and reviewed the video and noticed they pushed the video head real fast forward and it is really hard to see clearly, also the distance calibration was not on - I have done videos before that there is an indicator of distance on the video from the origin point but their's was set to 0.00. So if I need to locate something it's not possible.

All in all, it took three trips, and I think I got as good a result as can be expected out of this. I would have liked for them to taped it with a distance indicator, and I would have preferred for them to clean my line with a 3" chain flail head (instead of a 4", and be able to clean my line from the outside CO all the way to the city, but I am not going to worry about it until I have problems later on. I still have to address the stuck snake head in one of the baths.

The owner towards the end told me they pride themselves in doing everything they can to make sure the most demanding customer (i.e. ME) is 100% satisfied, I told them I appreciate them making multiple trips to make things right but I don't think I am that demanding LOL.



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