More accolades for Mike Bellehumeur!
Mike was the personification of who I believed a Mr. Rooter agent would be: Clean, courteous, knowledgeable and kind. The owners of this location of Mr. Rooter should be proud to have him on staff.
He also replaced the broken section with quality parts that exceeded the builder-contractor installed parts (in this case, new brass fittings in place of the plastic ones that came with the house).
Some background on my problem:
When you go into the basement on a Monday night to change the laundry out, and you hear water trickling from the side of the basement that’s opposite to where the wash tub is, the first thing you think of is the damage; and the second is who you're going to have to reach out to to get the problem solved.
My specific issue was:
PEX Pipe on the cold water send to the upstairs kitchen sink. Between the joists was a 90° plastic elbow where the cold water PEX lines traveled from the mainline Tee. The plastic elbow had (independently) cracked and sprung a leak that shot over to the joist and dripped down to the floor. It’s a six year old new-build… the whole house is like this. Hopefully it’s a QC fault on that one 90° and not a bad batch.
How I resolved it:
The first thing I did was look at Homestars reviews. Short-listing the top three was easy, and on deeper investigation, it was a quick realization that Mr. Rooter was who I was going to go with.
A couple tips to anyone who reads this review:
- Go to the Mr. Rooter website for your area and look for the "Special Offers". Right now, you'll find a web coupon for $20 off the work. Given the fact you're soliciting work from a trade (read: not cheap)... that $20 is going to at least help cover the taxes.
- My issue happened after Mr. Rooter's evening cutoff for servicing (I think it’s 11:00 PM). You can still call their hotline and you'll get put in-touch with their call centre, and they'll put you on the morning call list. They will call you and you will receive prompt service. Becky in the call centre was extremely helpful and courteous with me at that time (Thank you Becky).
- Because my leak was going to go overnight, and not much in my basement is IP67 rated... I opted to shut the main water off. It was easier to sleep after I didn't have to worry about using a dinghy to show the technician where the leak was when they got to the house.
- Finally... If you're not lucky enough to have a qualified, licensed plumber in the family (or it’s out of your DIY skill set). Give Mr. Rooter a chance. Their prices are (from my research anyhow) fairly competitive, and you have the confidence of the company's Brand to back up their service commitment. From a first-time consumer of this type of service, I was a bit anxious about being forced into paying for unnecessary services and products. Never once while I was dealing with Mr. Rooter was I pressured to secure their services, or to pay for anything (parts or services) other than what the actual issue required.
It was pretty great that I could see the services printed out, and their corresponding pricing. Payment was easy as well, as it’s done by 3G enabled POS terminals.
God forbid I have another plumbing issue (at least anytime soon), but if I do, I hope they send Mike back out to our house.