Grayton Plumbing

These guys are the reason the average customer dreads having to call a plumber.  They charge outrageous prices for basic services hoping you won't know any better.  They charge just under $300 to fix a slow leaking toilet. (Go on-line and figure out how to do this yourself. It is simple and the part is about $5.  Takes about five minutes.)  They quoted me a price of just over $2,500 to fix my water heater.  I turned them down and Roto-rooter took care of it for $175.   If you value your money, don't use Grayton.

I wish I could give less than one star!  I called Grayton to repair a constantly running toilet-two to be exact.  They were courteous, prompt and extremely professional over the phone and even after arrving at my home.  After only a five minute analysis of one toilet it was determined that the toilets only needed to have flush valves replaced.  Flush valves are priced anywhere from $6.99 up to $45.00 depending on the specific part you need to have replaced.  I was handed a bill for $718.  I ended up repairing the toilets myself-only after having spent $75 for the consultation.  I have discussed this situation with other plumbers.  To no surprise, they are outraged and in disbebelief that Grayton would have the audacity to charge that outrageous amount.  My recommendation is to stay far-far away for Grayton Plumbing!!!!!!!!

I rank their plumbers highly - the quality of the work is fine, the plumbers are clean and show up on time.

But the Grayton front office is a MESS - the receptionist is the worst person to deal with - it took me forever to schedule an appointment, she is very shady on price estimates, and so rude - and yes, i also had a lot of trouble trying to redeem their on line coupon. The coupon is a joke - the plumber said he would honor it, I confirmed that i had a coupon when I made the appointment, but at the end of the day, the receptionist overruled it.

While the plumbing services themselves were fine, it was such a hassle dealing with Grayton's admin office that I would not go back.

If I pay someone hundreds of dollars, a thank-you and a friendly attitude should be standard.

Spend your plumbing dollars elsewhere.

I've been a Grayton Plumbing customer for years, found them to be reliable and reasonably priced; plus I always like to support local businesses.  They have recently been bought by CroppMetcalfe and their price structure has changed significantly.  

This morning, they came to snake out a clogged kitchen sink.  Let me help my neighbors save some money or prepare for a shock.  The visit fee is $86.95, which is pretty standard.  However, to snake out a kitchen sink, I was quoted a whopping $405!  $405 to snake out a kitchen sink, a basic plumbing activity.  This is nothing but highway robbery.  I paid the very polite, timely, and professional representative the $86.95 visit fee and will hire my local handyman to resolve this problem.

I called Grayton to get a quote on fixing a leak in my front yard. The staff was friendly enough, and we did get someone out to the house. The plumber who made it over came back with a quote of over $18K! The other quote, from Dave Hahn 202-421-5101, was for $2900. I told the Grayton guy that, and all he could do was recommend I accept Dave's bid.

Both licensed plumbers, both include digging and fixing and concrete pouring. No idea how they can justify this pricing.

Also, Dave has always answered the phone when I've called, even if I text him late at night, he calls me right back. That's great service. No going through an operator who will try to schedule you, etc.

Grayton Plumbing loses a star for refusing to honor the coupon from their website.  They are also expensive and, as advertised, charge a $75 fee simply for coming to look at your plumbing problem.  When I called to explain my issue, which included remounting a bathroom sink, I was told that this repair would be feasible and that the plumber would arrive with a fully stocked truck.  He did arrive within the two hour window, but he told me he could not mount the sink until another contractor completed the necessary drywall work.  Despite my prior conversation with Grayton, this exchange cost me $75.

After the drywall repair was completed (by a different contractor), Grayton returned and did a good job remounting the sink.  When I spoke with Teri in the front office about making my payment, she insisted that the coupon from their website for $21 off any plumbing job was only valid when presented in person.  If I had known that I needed to print the coupon from the website and hand it to the man who completed the repair, I would have done so.  Since this information was NOT listed on the site or on the coupon itself, I found this to be deceptive.

Word to the wise: if you use this service, check their site for coupons beforehand and be sure to print any coupons you'd like to use.  While I am mostly happy with the results of the work, I probably wouldn't use Grayton Plumbing again for the above reasons.

Extremely expensive.

Their employee was outstanding.  So I liked the service.  

But to fix the disposal, FIX not install, cost $199 plus a service charge of 75 to just show up.  By walking into my house, the service charge was $75 was already applied.  

Would I use them again - No.  Did I sign up for Yelp today just so I could review them - Yep.

I asked them over and over again to give me an estimate over the phone to snake a toilet.  This is not rocket science, it should be easy to provide an hourly estimate.  They said you have to pay the $75 service fee for us to come out, and then we'll give you the price.  So I had them come out, and then they tried to hit me up for $850 to snake the toilet.  Get the f* out of my house.  Rip off.

I would not use again.  I called for a simple snake out the clogged toilet and tried to get a quote before they came out since they charge an outrageous $75.00 service fee. They hemmed and hawed and told me if i used the service they would waive the service fee but did not give me a quote. First clue, they know what it costs to snake a toilet.  The  guy arrived promptly, and right away began the hard sell of other things I might want. Snaking out the whole house, water filter systems, biodegradable crap to keep the drains clean.  He wrote all this stuff up before he even began to deal with my clogged toilet which was the reason for my call and then he quoted me the outrageous price of $200 to snake out a toilet!  I can practically buy a new toilet for that price and told him no.  

I complained about the $75 fee which if they had told me it costs $200 to snake a toilet I would have never called them.  I ended up buying some product for $66 dollars in lieu of the $75 for the service fee. They are all about the up sell and not about fixing your problem.  I WILL NEVER CALL THEM AGAIN.

This is a horrible plumbing company that will rip you off.  They charged me $500 to clear a clog in my garbage disposal.   I will never use them again.  Buyer beware.

My water heater wasn't producing hot water.  It turned out to be the element was broken.  

The name of the serviceman who came out was Jermaine.  He was on-time, pleasant, and fixed the problem by replacing the broken element as well as the thermostat.  The service took longer than expected because he accidentally broke the replacement element by turning it on before putting water back in and had to go back to get a new one.  He was very courteous and apologized for the inconvenience.

They charged $267 to replace the element.  I wasn't charged for the additional element (after he broke the first) or the thermostat.  As a point of reference, a water heater element costs about $7 and a thermostat costs about $10 retail.  Plus, they charged an additional $145 emergency service fee.  I had to get the emergency service (after hours) because they didn't have any appointments open during business hours for two days (didn't want to wait that long to take a hot shower).

I did get a $21 discount via their on-line coupon, which brought the total to $407 after taxes.  The service and parts are under a 2 year warranty.  I still thought that was a bit steep.  Had I not had to pay the emergency service fee it would've been $262.  That seems more reasonable, but I don't know what the service fee price is to come out during business hours.

Overall, I would say good service but pricey.

Have dealt with them several times.  Usually pretty good service, but very expensive.  Last time I used them, the plumber was over 30 minutes late for a 2 hour window appointment and didn't fix the problem I paid him to fix.  I will need to have someone back to redo the work.

I have just had a positive experience with Grayton Plumbing. Over Christmas, my downstairs toilet flooded after I had drained the 3rd floor bathtub. Cue total panic - I called Grayton and they came promptly the next day, within their two-hour window (and I never had to wait on hold when calling them). The technician, Rodney, was very friendly, helpful and informative, and told me upfront how much it would cost to snake the drain. It seemed expensive but I appreciated the fact that I was told before the work started and there were no surprises at the end.
Supposedly the problem was fixed, but then the same thing happened again last weekend. I wasn't pleased, but there is a 30-day warranty on Grayton's work. Luckily, exactly 30 days had passed when the problem resurfaced - but it happened on a Sunday, meaning I couldn't call them until the next day, when the warranty had expired. They agreed to honor the warranty, which made me very happy because otherwise I would have been out of pocket for a lot of money when they hadn't fixed the problem in the first place (that's why I didn't give them five stars).
They sent the same technician as before, which was great because he was familiar with the issue. However, he turned up early which was not ideal because I was still at work.
He spent five hours trying to unblock the drain, both inside and outside of the house, and finally determined the problem was not on my property and that DC WASA was responsible. He called them and they turned up not half an hour later - and actually came to dig up the pipe the next day!
All in all, while Grayton was unable to fix the problem and had to come twice to sort it out, I was happy that I didn't have to pay for the second visit. Rodney was dedicated to making sure the issue got sorted out - whether by him or DC WASA, and he definitely went the extra mile - helping me clean up all the water that had flooded my ground floor. I would definitely call them again for any plumbing issue.

Grayton did a terrific job fixing my boiler.  The boiler conked out Friday morning at the start of a sub-freezing December weekend, and I called someone (at a different company) to look at it.  As of that afternoon it was clear they weren't going to show up.  I called *ten* heating contractors and not a single one of them could promise to come by and look at it -- except for Grayton.  Even the ones that advertised 24 Hour Emergency Service! offered to come out in four days, or never called back.  I called Grayton at 4:30 PM on a Friday afternoon.  They said they'd be there at 7:30 PM, and by 7:05 their tech Rodney was knocking on the door.

He spent about three hours diagnosing the problem, for which I paid a $145 after-hours trip charge.  Unfortunately he didn't have the part to actually fix it (a motor for a 10-year-old boiler), and it wasn't clear if he could even get it.  The one parts warehouse they use might be open for a few hours on Saturday morning, and if they didn't have it, it'd have to be ordered.

Long story short, Rodney did a great job locating the part (he himself drove an hour each way Saturday morning just to pick it up), installed it, and ended up fixing several other issues he hadn't diagnosed at first along the way.  The problem turned out to be more complex than he had originally thought, but in the end everything was fixed well.  He had to make a total of three trips out here, and his commitment to get *this* boiler fixed certainly did delay other jobs on his schedule.

One thing to know: their original 'estimate' was actually a firm price for fixing the boiler.  They did a lot more work than they anticipated, and installed more parts, but *did not charge additional for this*! The quoted price was what they charged. Grayton probably lost money on this particular job... 14+ hours of after-hours labor, for a total bill of $1500 including parts. Parts were factory original and probably $500+ alone.

One Yelp review mentioned problems with coupons not being honored. I printed out the $100 off coupon from the Yelp website and gave it to him. He'd never seen it before, but gave the discount w/o a problem.

DO NOT CALL THESE GUYS!

First off, where do I even begin...  I should have had a red flag moment while waiting on hold while getting some information..  An annoucement played.. We here at Grayton are proud to mention that all our staff is drug free!.  Translation... hiring people with drug issues has apparantly been a problem in the past... otherwise why tell me...  Gee don't you think that's kind of odd???

But anyway that's not the issue really.  First off $75 dollar trip charge, a TRIP CHARGE... that is flat out OUTRAGEOUS...

I had a tankless heater that I had called several places including the original plumbers who installed it to fix it.  Bad Vendor (Bosch), not honoring warranty, couldn't get it fixed...  Had to light it manually. etc..

I call these guys..  They show up an hour late every time, I told their staff that the vendor said, make sure they have a multimeter and manometer to diagnose the problem and call us to trouble shoot.  I tell the plumber this (who by the way walked at a snails pace) and he goes out to his truck.

He spends... no joke... 30 minutes out there.  Comes back..  and tells me...

I can't find my multimeter.  So here's a plumber who doesn't even have PROPER TOOLS... even when I TELL THEM 3 DAYS IN ADVANCE to bring them... jeez where do I begin.

So then after coming by another day (late of course), the guy spends hours trying to fix this thing... he can't do it...  he can't even figure out what is wrong.  I litteraly tell the guy to go home...  In many ways I felt bad for the guy... this guy was just out of his league trying to fix this thing, had a bad cold... and even managed to shove a paper towel up his nose cause he was bleeding... It was like something out of Twin Peaks or something... David Lynch should have done the movie...

Then an hour later there's water coming into our basement... because our TPV valve wasn't properly seated or it got f'd up when he tried to fix the heater.  So we call them again on the phone saying you just released  a bunch of water in my basement after fixing our tankless.

So they wont come back till tomorrow... gee thanks...

So they show up the next day and proceed to talk to us for 15 minutes and lecture us about tankless when we just want them to go fix our leaking tpv which they created, and get the hell out so I never have to see them again.

Then after that is all taken care of.... they actually made the tankless WORSE.. it wouldn't even STAY LIT this time after they tried to fix it..

what an operation...

DO NOT CALL THESE GUYS AT ALL, there are WAY BETTER PLUMBERS in the area that do better work, I was kicking myself after getting Grayton to come down and fix this thing... I should have known better.  I will give them at least not the worst rating because they at least only charged us for one visit even though they had to return twice...

To be brief, I called Grayton to repair very minor leaks in two toilets.  When I set up the appointment and explained the problem, they told me there would be a $75 service fee.  I clarified and they told me (in writing) that it was an estimate of the repair costs.

The plumber arrived an hour earlier than scheduled on a Saturday morning and woke us up.  Annoyed, I let him in, went to get dressed and when I came back 5 minutes later, he was asleep.  Yes, asleep.  

When I woke him up, he explained (after having looked for 2 minutes at my toilets) that I would need to pay a flat rate of $279 for each toilet.  When I refused the service and told him I could replace both toilets for less than that, he then added that he'd forgotten another $199 for each toilet, for total of nearly $1,000 to fix two very minor leaks.  

This is when they explained that the service fee was a showing up fee.  I paid the fee, then wrote the company to explain what happened and make sure they understood the difference between and estimate and a fee for just showing up.  I've written them twice in three weeks, with no response.

Put simply, they charge this fee because their prices are astronomical and many people must refuse service.  But they need to learn not to call it an estimate.  

Either way, be sure to call a different plumber.

I called Grayton because my sink and dishwasher were backed up.  I called them on Sunday evening and they scheduled an appointment for the next day.  They did not quote me a price over the phone (even after asking).  I thought their prices might be a little bit high (plus a $75 fee to just show up), but Thomas was friendly and knowledgable.  I think there are probably cheaper plumbers, but other than the price, I can't complain about Grayton.  They do offer coupons through their website.