Drain Inspection/Issue Remediation
Had these guys in to inspect a 'mystery' pipe that was the suspected source of infrequent basement flooding. While the team was extremely professional, and courtious, they were unable to determine the role of this pipe in our house, and were unable to tell us what might be the cause of the minor floods we experienced during heavy rain. A camera was sent down multiple drains in an attempt to determine the issue. This work ended up costing us ~$270, but unfortunately didn't help the team (or us) understand the problem.
The proposal that was written, was to jackhammer a 6ft section of our basement floor to 'inspect' the system and determine what repairs would be needed from that point forward. This would have cost us ~$1700, and would have been mostly exploratory.
In getting a second opinion, the problem was IMMEDIATELY identified as being a broken sump pump (~$500 installed). Had I contacted this other company first, I could have saved the $270 we spent on the camera work.
I can't believe that a company with this many positive reviews and this much experience failed to inspect (or even ask about) a sump pump, which resides right next to where they were standing. Further, in speaking with a Drain Works representative after initially posting this review, I'm now further convinced in my decision to work with another organization.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $270.00
- Company Response
Tim, DrainWorks can only provide service in your home on what is made accessible to us. It was never disclosed to us that a sump pump existed and one was certainly not in plain sight as you claim. When we called you, after reading this review and asked why we were never informed that you had a sump pump, you said “I didn’t even know I had one”; proof alone that the sump pump was definitely not visible if you as the homeowner had never even seen it. In all fairness, we cannot very well tear a whole basement apart trying to find something we were never informed existed in the first place and is not common in your area. The video scoping of your drain line that we performed did not lead us to any sump pump as you had numerous illegal plumbing issues in your system. You have water lines running through your drain lines and those issues seemed to be the obvious problem, but as it turns out, you had more than one problem, however, the proposal we provided still stands as the issues we identified are very real, still exist, and should be repaired. Further, the camera inspection did help you; it helped you to understand that beyond this sump pump, there were other pressing issues that without doing the camera inspection, you wouldn't have known about.