Roto-Rooter Plumbing & Water Cleanup — Local services in Town of Mamaroneck

I don’t often leave reviews but I had such a positive experience with Oswaldo, Joe and their team from RotoRooter at the end of 2023 that I felt it was deserving.

We moved into our home in Rye three years ago and have had some flooding issues with our driveway storm drain. Our driveway slopes down toward the house and during extremely heavy rain it's been unable to handle the water coming down from the street. During Hurricane Ida the drain backed up, water came into the garage and flooded our entire lower level and basement, ruining carpets and destroying a lot of beloved toys in the playroom. After the recent heavy rains and another close call, we called RotoRooter to see if jetting the pipe would help.

Using a scope camera on the end of a cable Oswaldo, Joe and their crew identified the issue and showed us what was wrong on the computer monitor - the drain pipe that ran from the driveway beneath our backyard was a flimsy corrugated plastic material and the connection for the gutter downspouts was installed improperly. The drainpipe was bent, punctured and flattened in places by tree roots that had grown over time. It was getting clogged up with leaves and debris. Our home’s original drainage installation was so poorly done and fully unable to handle the amount of water needed to move heavy rains from our driveway and keep our home from flooding.

We’d had a previous bad experience with a competing company (Aqueduct Services) that installed our sump pump. Their crew was clearly inexperienced and did such shoddy work that it needed to be undone and redone multiple times, and took days longer than estimated, so we were anxious about taking on another major and disruptive plumbing project.

Thankfully our experience with the guys from RotoRooter couldn’t have been more different. It was night and day.

The knowledge, skill and integrity of Oswaldo, Joe and their crew to identify the issues, clearly explain (and show them to us) in a way that made it easy to understand was so reassuring and refreshing after our previous experience.

Having to excavate our whole backyard to solve our flooding issues was an expensive and surprisingly invasive-feeling procedure. Oswaldo and his team had a great bedside manner - they showed empathy for the large investment and major surgery that needed to be done - especially right before the holidays. They were patient in explaining the problems, walking us through our options and helping us understand what we needed to do to fix our issue and get the job done right.

I know nothing about plumbing, but seeing the crew replace the old cheap pipes and catch basin with the new ones, the difference in workmanship and material quality was obvious.

The work took two days and the crew stayed late to clean up and make sure everything was covered and secure and roped off with tape so it was safe for my kids to go in the backyard.

This was not AT ALL a cheap or expected home improvement project and, being entirely buried underground, not the most rewarding use of our savings like the backyard landscaping upgrades that we’ve had on our wish list.

But I have to say that the confidence that our home will now be able to handle heavy rains and the peace of mind that that we don’t have to worry about our playroom flooding again every time there’s a local flooding advisory were...

We had Roto Rooter reline our main pipe to the sewer on Sept. 17, 2018. We had seen on the camera inspection that there was considerable damage to the old clay pipe, including a large hole, so we knew it needed to be done.

Our sewer main is accessed through a basement closet that happens to be in a guest bedroom (we have a finished basement.) My husband moved all the furniture away from that side of the room, including the queen bed. When the techs arrived, he asked them if he needed to take the bed out of the room-- they told him no, it was fine.

To cut to the chase, they got grime all over the side of the quilt we bought less than a year ago. We didn't notice it at first-- just took a look around the room when they were done, and things seemed fine. We discovered it a week later when my husband went to move the bed back to its original position. The dirt was ground in around the corner in an L shape of about a foot in each direction, which would happen if someone or something w/ dirt on it was pressed up against the bed-- it wasn't casual transfer.

Now, I know it was on us to check more thoroughly the same day, but it was also on them to realize what they were doing, especially since we had offered to take the bed out of the room and were told that wasn't necessary. I called and left a polite message on the voice mail, as I was unable to get a live person. I related what had happened, and left our name and number and date of service. That was a week ago; we have not heard from Roto Rooter.

We spent $6,000.00 on the pipe liner. I would have hoped that especially for that kind of money, the techs would have shown more respect for our home, or that we at least would have gotten a call back, but apparently after we paid, they no longer cared. I gave 2 stars instead of one because it appears that the pipe lining job was a success. The customer service, on the other...

We had an emergency with a backed up sewer line. The Roto-Rooter technician charged 3 times the price to run a snake through the sewer line once. The technician later ran a camera through the line that showed it was still partially blocked but he packed up his gear and still charged what I believe was an unreasonable price that was double what an independent plumber would have charged.

I didn't realize the technician invited a separate Roto-Rooter clean up crew to my residence even though I had already invited another company. The cleanup salesman, Moises, arrived and offered to clean up everything right away at a lower price. However when I received the bill, it was double than what he had quoted and what we signed on in the agreement.  Not to mention the cleanup crew did not clean up the mess right away but came the next day. To top it off, they did such a poor job and skipped entire sections of the impacted area that they had to come back and clean up again a few days later because I complained.

In the end I would not recommend Roto-Rooter and instead try Service Master or another more reputable company for cleanup and call a local independent plumber to unclog the sewer line. I believe Roto-Rooter will take advantage of customers in distress during an emergency.

I should also mention that in addition to billing my insurance, Roto-Rooter also mailed a bill to me directly expecting me to pay the same amount, even though my insurance had already paid the claim. We were provided with an invoice with a single line-time for water removal totalling the entire amount that was double the agreed estimate. There was no line item for hours, equipment, personnel, etc. Does that sound like an honest business practice? If anyone named Moises tries to sell you services, tell...