I looked into a number of plumbing Companies when we had our basement flooded because of old clay pipes that were penetrated with roots from our house to the main city sewer line. One Company was recommended by the restoration clean up company and we had another company (one of the more popular ones) come in and provide a quote. Interestingly, both wanted to charges us $money to put a camera down to assess the problem and provide a quote. That made absolutely no sense. If you can determine the problem, how can you provide me a solution. After, they finally agreed to put the camera down in order to scope out the problem and provide a solution and quote. Both these company’s suggested pipe bursting solution, a solution where you don’t need to trench and just follow the path of the existing pipes and replace from inside and burst the outer pipes, essentially less labour intensive and sopposedly cheaper than trenching. One of the companies actually said if pipe bursting doesn’t work, we can always then trench. That was big warning flag right away. As you can imagine, time was of the essence and the fact that they had no confidence in their solution, I could see them charging additional money if the scope of work changed. Both these companies quoted me $7000-7500. After meeting with these two companies I felt I needed to get another quote and read up on these companies. After all, this is a long term investment into our home and want to make sure the job is done right and on time. After reading reviews on home stars, i then contacted tornado plumbing because of the positive reviews of Sergey and his team, especially how Sergey is involved throughout the job and explaining what is happening with his level of care and expertise.
Sergey came to our house and put a camera at no charge in order to assess the problem carefully. He took a good 30-45 min scoping he problem and he took the time to sit and discuss the actual problem and a long term solution. And guess what, he didn’t recommend pipe bursting! He showed us on the camera that the clay pipe was retaining water at certain points and that the pipe over time had a curve to it (underlying ground support was improper over time and allowed the pipe to bend, therefore pipe bursting would not be successful. In addition, he said the slope of the pipe from the house to the city line was not optimal and could not be fixed if we trench, and he recommended this option though more labour intensive.
So that gave me great comfort that in was speaking to someone knowegable and understood that getting a solution that will last long term was important to us.
Sergey quoted the job for trenching and drain pipe replacement and backwater valve installation for $6500 and it was actually lower than the other two big companies who were sopposed to be much cheaper with their pipe bursting solution. I was surprised how much lower and cost effective sergeys solution was but he explained that it wasn’t because he does a cheap quality job but it’s because the other companys have certain overhead cost and excessive margins.
So Sergey and his team did the job and they started on time and finished on time. They even did an amazing clean up job that we couldn’t even notice that the front yard had been trenched. The basement was all clean up properly and the photos are there to show. Also, during the process, Sergey explained what he saw when the pipes were revealed and showed that the pipes from connection from the house pipes to the pipe drain was not even sealed with any sealer which was sopposed to have been done if done to code by the people who did the house plumbing pipe work. So he corrected this too. Also he helped facilitate the city refund for the backwater valve installation and made this a very smooth process.
All in all, I am very thankful we chose tornado plumbing and would highly recommend that anyone atleast take the moment to have Sergey come in and provide his assessment if you are looking to have plumbing work done.
