Mr. Rooter Plumbing of Suburban Maryland

Let me start by saying I've never written a negative review about a business before, but I feel compelled to do so in this instance in order to warn others about this business's deceitful and unscrupulous practices.  A few weeks ago, we had a blockage in our main house line and called Mr. Rooter to unblock it.  The first visit went fine, and the blockage seemingly went away.  Three weeks later, it was blocked up again.  Fortunately, we were still under Mr. Rooter's warranty, and they snaked the drain again.  But because Mr. Rooter's camera services are handled by different people than their snaking services, there was no way to know whether the problem was truly fixed at this time.  The man who snaked the drain said that they could send someone with a camera the next day and that they would reach out to us about the specific time.  Relying on this, I took the day off of work, but I still hadn't heard anything by mid-day.  I finally decided to reach out myself, only to be told that the camera man could not come until the next day.  I therefore took yet another day off of work, which was annoying, but it was nothing in comparison to what was to come.

The next morning, the camera man ran the camera through our main line.  Even though the pipe had been snaked less than 48 hours earlier, the line was completely backed up with standing water.  When the camera got to 40 ft out, the camera man said he thought he was at the street.  Even though we hadn't been able to see what was causing the problem, he said it was clear that we would need to replace the entire line from the house to the street by digging up our yard, which would cost more than $6,000.  He then proceeded to do a very hard sell, trying to get me to agree to them starting this work the next day.  I told him we wanted to get quotes from other companies, but he continued to do the hard sell, saying that every other company would tell me the same thing and that the problem really needed to be fixed as quickly as possible.  Thank goodness I held strong, and he left.  The next day, I called several other plumbers who were all appalled at the idea that a company had recommended a complete pipe replacement when they had not even located the source of the problem.  All of the other plumbers said they would need to redo the work that Mr. Rooter had done, i.e., snake the pipe again and run a camera again until they could figure out what was actually causing the problem.  Even though this meant I would be paying another $600 for work that was already done, I decided this was better than simply agreeing to pay more than $6,000 when we didn't know what was causing the problem.  

The other plumbing company sent a man out the very same day to redo Mr. Rooter's work.  The other plumber started by running a camera in the line but at 40 ft, i.e., the same place where Mr. Rooter's camera man had said he thought he had reached the street, the other plumber hit a blockage.  The other plumber then snaked the drain, made it out to 100 ft, and pulled back a huge ball of roots.  With most of the blockages removed and the water gone, the other plumber put his camera back in the line and saw that there were more roots coming into the pipe at 56 ft, just before our house line tapped into the county sewer line, and almost certainly under the street as opposed to our yard.

To summarize, Mr. Rooter's camera man seems to have intentionally misled me into thinking he had investigated the entire pipe when in fact he had to have known that he was hitting a blockage and decided rather than trying to remove this blockage and trying to discover the source of the problem, he would try to convince me to pay for an extremely expensive project that WOULDN'T HAVE EVEN SOLVED THE PROBLEM.

To make matters worse, when I called Mr. Rooter to notify them of this dishonest behavior and ask for a refund, I was told that they didn't care if their camera man lied to me; because he didn't FORCE me to agree to the full pipe replacement, they didn't think they'd done anything wrong.  That is an outrageous position for a company to take.  I therefore strongly encourage everyone not to use this company.

I had a clogged drain and they were fantastic. Not only did they communicate extremely well but called to see if they could come earlier and sent an email picture of the plumber who was coming yo my house. The plumber, Don, was professional and friendly. Not only did he make sure that the bath area was covered so as not to get soiled, he asked to use my disinfectant so he could wipe down everything. It was a great experience considering how messy it could have been.

The guys came and knew exactly what needed to be done.  They were courteous and professional and cleaned up everything when they left. I would highly recommend them for any plumbing needs that you may have.  Thank you Brandon and Dee!

We had a busted water heater and called Mr. Rooter on a Saturday evening. They quoted a price that included every thing, nothing extra because of it being the weekend. They came out the next day at the time they said they would arrive and the tech Stephen Loyd was awesome! He was friendly and quick..I would recommend this company and tech to anyone..
Was not disappointed!!!

If you are desperate to have a plumbing emergency fixed please DO NOT CALL THIS COMPANY. We called this company hoping they could come out quickly to inspect a clogged bathroom drain on (8/19/20). The technician never even told us his name. He immediately diagnosed the problem as a clogged sewer line without even inspecting our toilet or pipes. He told us it would be $579 to snake our line and that he would have no problem clearing the line, again without even visually evaluating the plumbing. The technician proceeded to set up all his equipment in my residence without the use of protective gear or tarps, he even joked to my husband how dirty and covered in sewaged the equipment was. My 5 year old son had also had a surgical procedure done the same day so we were obviously concerned about the germs and bacteria being brought into our home and sat on the floor without a tarp or covering, the technician said they follow a rigorous clean up procedure once they are finished. After sending the snake down 45ft the technician told us out main line was broken outside the house and that he had to call his manager. We later found out from another professional plumber that 45ft wouldn't have even been enough snake to reach the outside line. The technician came back in and advised us that his Manager could send another crew to our house the next day to run a camera and evaluate our broken line from another $400. I advised the technician that we weren't comfortable with that considering that we were not having any other signs of a broke pipe. I also asked for the technicians supervisor's phone number so we could speak to him about the price to partially snake our line since the technician guarunteed he would be able to unclog it and did not. The technician told us he would give us the number once he packed up. He proceeded to pack up his gear, performed no cleaning, left our bathroom and hallway completely covered in sewage. He put our toilet back on but left a piece of the toilet in our bathtub, completely foregoing to install it under the toilet. The technician advised us that he would be back with his supervisors phone number. He NEVER RETURNED, got in his truck and left. No formal bill was given to us, no  statement of what services were performed. We don't even know his name. I have photo evidence of all the damages including damaged to our floor and woodwork. This was the WORST EXPERIENCE I have ever encountered with a professional company. I felt completely taken a advantage of, it felt as if the technician knew we were desperate with a sick child and he saw a opportunity to exploit the situation. We are assuming the company will try to bill us for this botched experience. PLEASE DO YOURSELF A FAVOR, DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY. If anyone is interested in seeing the photos please email me at [email protected].