EZ Plumbing and Rooter Inc.

I’d like to start off by saying that I am a real estate broker in the area and have dealt with these issues on a regular basis with my past clients. This particular experience was with my in laws whom purchased a home with my help about 2 years ago.
Approx. 3 weeks ago the water heater stopped working and kept shutting off. The owner contacted their home warranty company and they sent out a local vendor (EZ Plumbing) to the property to asses the problem. This occurred on a Friday and a tech named Mike told the owner that the problem was with the water main/​line entering underneath the home and that the water pressure was too low. This job became so large that it involved at least 2 techs and the entire weekend. They told the owner that this job was not covered by the HW and that they would have to pay out of pocket. They quoted a price of $ 1,500-$ 1,700. I suspected something was wrong and I contacted EZ Plumbing and spoke with a supervisor by the name of Gabriel who said the water main had low pressure and that it had to be upgraded. This property has both galvanized and copper pipes throughout and the water pressure had always been on the low side, but the water heater still worked. Anyhow, after a while, Gabriel stated he would give the owner some sort of credit and that the out of pocket expense would only be $ 750 and that the water pressure would increase by at least 50% of what it currently was. They then proceeded to break a large amount of brick work that surrounded the water main entering underneath the house and they replaced the galvanized pipe with a copper one. After finishing the job, the water pressure was even lower than before and they never bothered to patch or repair the damage to the brick work and footing of the house. This whole time the water heater never worked. For days the owner attempted to contact EZ Plumbing and never got a call back. After about a week the owner decided to contact the HW company about the original problem and the water pressure and the HW sent out a second plumber to assess the problem.
This second plumber made some adjustments to the original work performed by EZ Plumbing and managed to increase the water pressure slightly. He also checked the water heater and concluded it needed to be replaced but could not submit a work order to the HW because he was only there for the water pressure issue.
This occurred during week #2.
On week #3 I contacted EZ Plumbing about getting their version of events and also contacted the HW company and was told by James (manager) at EZ Plumb. that he would research/​investigate the work order and get back to me. I never heard back. I also spoke with the HW company and they stated that all that EZ Plumbing needed to do was phone in their findings and recommendations to HW authorization department in order for the HW to authorize the work needed on the water heater. The owners were told by Mike from EZ Plumb. from the beginning that the water heater needed replacing but never documented or called in the recommendations to the HW company.
I then had another plumber (#3) that I’ve worked with in the past to assess the situation and he also concluded that the water had an internal leak and had to be replaced. He also stated that the work performed on the water main had nothing to do with the water heater, but even if it had, that the manner in which it was performed caused a lot damage to the house and should’ve been done correctly. The hole that was left allows for a small animal to access the crawlspace underneath the house. He was not able to do any of the work because he had not been sent by the HW company.
Come week #3 (this whole time the family has been without hot water,) I’ve been calling EZ Plumbing about correcting their work and I’ve also been contacting the HW company at east 4 – 5 times a day. I finally received a call from the HW company on Wed. Jan.27,2016 that EZ Plumbing had canceled all work orders dealing with this property and that the HW company would assign this work order to another company (plumber #4) named «Water Heaters Only» and that they would be at the property on Friday, Jan 29, 2016 to assess the water heater.
Today, Friday they showed up, concluded that the water heater does in fact need replacing, called in the findings to the HW company, HW company called me to update me and stated that the water heater would be replaced same day.
This is something that should’ve been done 3 weeks ago. There is no justification in having to go 3 weeks without hot water, especially when there is a home warranty on the property. The fact that it happened to my family was just a coincidence. No one should have to endure this type of situation. I take comfort in knowing that at least the water heater issue is finally being resolved and that only leaves the issue of the brick work and foundation/​footing damage that was not repaired plus the $ 750 expense.
My conclusion: If you see this name, run the other direction.

The HOA hired this company. He made cuts into the wall where he was unsure. Repaired my wall but on the other side, he stuck a piece of newspaper and then half sealed it. There will definitely be more water damage. when i asked him about it, he said its fine. Another item, a random man asked to use the bathroom and he said yes. excuse me, who’s house is it? NOT THE PLUMBER’S HOUSE!!! I went to my car and came back seeing a random old fat man exiting! I called 311 immediately and the man had already gotten into his car and left. jotted down the license plate so if I see im again, he’ll have a rude awakening. DO NOT HIRE THIS COMPANY. I’m currently filing a formal complaint with the BBB (Better Business Bureau) as well.

I got referred to this company by my home warranty insurance.
Let me just say… by far the most unprofessional business ever! James needs to work on his people skills, since he has such a smart a** mouth.
Asked him a question and his responses was «that’s a good question, you would have to ask the plumber because I am not one» (chuckle)…
First off, how would I know If you’re a plumber or not? I’m only asking since its a plumbing company, and you are the so called «manager»? I’m sure you had a few customers encountering situations like this before. But I guess since your the manager… you wouldn’t know these things but u manage a plumbing business??? … and you direct your technicians to job sites, and your technicians report back to you.
I was scheduled for 1−3pm, I had left work to accommodate that timeframe. 3:30pm comes around no one is here. I called to get a status. The girl said your timeframe is from 3−5pm (seriously)? Of course this was scheduled by James. He did mention he would call me when the plumber is on his way. Yeah no call there as you can see.
Anyways, technician came at 3:50pm, cool guy evaluated the problem. He didn’t know why our shower was leaking water when another source of water was turned on from different area.
So he called his supervisor to take a look. His supervisor said it was the water heater shut off valve because its an old knob piece that creating an imbalance of water pressure? so they suggested changing the piece to a lever handle piece.
Okay what the hell does that have to do with my shower leaking water?
To my understanding that’s why there’s a water regulator installed to the main water line outside of the house (you don’t have to be plumber to know that). He scheduled either same day or next day but stated he or his company will call.
Next day came around, no one called. I did a follow up and James said oh they are delayed so basically we need to reschedule. Okay? Thanks for the heads up… I understand you guys are busy but it is not that hard to do a courtesy call to rearrange an appointment. Thanks a lot for wasting people time!
Luckily, I received another contracted plumber. Thanks to the horrible customer service and shady a** inspection by the supervisor.
United plumbing services… came the next day fixed the problem within an hour and behold it was the shower cartridge that needed to be replace. It had nothing to do with the water heater shut off valve that is a creating an «imbalance of water pressure». Clearly, Ez plumbing do not know what they’re doing, and they prey on homeowners with their shady business.

Unprofessional, dishonest, and they don’t know what they are doing! Bear with me — there’s a lot to say about this company! This plumber was contracted by our home warranty to replace our water heater. We had the gas company come out the day before because we had a gas leak from the water heater and they turned the gas valve off and shut off the pilot light. Two days after the gas company was here and the day after the tech came to check out the water heater, we smelled gas again, my husband checked the water heater and the tech left the gas valve open and pilot light on! We have a 4 month old son, that is soooooo dangerous for so many reasons! The service tech from EZ Plumbing that left the gas on and leaking threw cigarette butts down in our driveway right in front of us as well!
We asked to get a quote on a tankless system and another «specialist» (aka sales guy) came out. He gave us a quote with lots of «ifs» — if the gas line isn’t big enough, if the water hoses need to be moved… he didn’t know what he was doing clearly to give us an accurate quote. After he gave us a quote, he said we had to make a decision that night because the price wouldn’t be the same tomorrow. That was super fishy because it’s not like the amount of work changed overnight! We decided to just replace it with the same setup and not go tankless. They then told us that we had to install another $ 400 part that was manufacturer required, but not covered by the home warranty and it would take 2 – 5 business days to replace a simple 40 gallon water heater! EZ Plumbing was clearly trying to take advantage of us! We called home warranty, cashed out and went with a trustworthy and efficient plumber who came out and installed a new water heater the same day.

UPDATE II: It is currently Saturday. My boyfriend and I got a phone call … From Gabriel. He raised his voice at my boyfriend about the review below.
He didn’t apologize and didn’t seem to think he did anything wrong, which is his right.
Just like it’s my right to write this review and be unhappy with his services.
I called the company to tell a manager. James spoke to me and told me that that’s what happens when I write on a public forum.
As a manager I would assume you would try to defuse the situation or at least understand how it’s insanely creepy for this to have happened. James didn’t think so. Good for you dude.
My personal information is not on here. My boyfriend isn’t even on Unilocal yet we still received a phone call on his cell on a Saturday morning. It had been months since we had seen Gabriel.
The company did not give Gabriel our information.
It is 100% not ok for a working professional to call a client, past or present, on the weekend to DICUSS A Unilocal REVIEW.
It’s so ridiculous, it’s comical.
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UPDATE: We had to have them come back for something else, old building, and this time we had Min and he was AMAZING. Thoughtful, polite, professional, Give this boy a raise!
We also had another dude come but didn’t get his name. He was also great.
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I have the BEST (worst) story about this company.
My boyfriend and I were sent a plumber from this company, by our landlord.
I unfortunately didn’t get his name so here is what I know about him: Older 40+y/o, Middle Eastern/​Russian??, grey hair, 5’7″ and his phone # he called us from — but that’s it.
He was the rudest. And by rude I mean sexist. And by sexist I mean — THE WORST.
SO MUCH ridiculous and unnecessary back and forth to get him to come to our place to look at our washer/​dryer that we knew was installed incorrectly (bc Duh, that’s why your coming over) :
He called and said he’d come by and look at it around ⁵⁄₆ — He showed up at 7:30/8pm — ok, fine whatever.
Then he INSISTED that he could NOT come to do the actually work anytime before 11am or after 6pm. The EXACT hours we had to work. Little weird and sketch but also we have an indoor cat and we don’t want anyone to be responsible for making sure she doesn’t get out so we kind of have to be there.
But NO, he COULD NOT come before or after that time.
I asked if he worked on the weekend, some plumbers do — what do I know?! He responded with «Well then when would I have my weekend?»
WOW. Cool. SORRY.
Said he’d call at 10am the next morning. Didn’t. Called at 6pm.
Said AGAIN he’d call the next mooring at 10am — Didn’t. Called passed 12pm and said that he was ready to come over to fix it.
Told him we both had waited as long as we could, my boyfriend even went into work WAY late because we were waiting for him. He TOLD ME that I said my boyfriend would be home all day.
Just simply not true. We have jobs so we can pay rent. Very simple.
So I said how about next week.
HE SAID HE WOULD BE ON VACATION ALL NEXT WEEK SO NO.
ALLLLLLLRighty. So at this point, obviously I was done with him. Told him «Alright, well I guess it just won’t work and we will find someone else. Thank you.» Hung up.
10 min later he called me back. I was working, couldn’t pick up.
THEN he called my boyfriend. :) HAHA
TOLD my boyfriend that I said he’d be home all day. My boyfriend called him out. «Of course the woman I live with would know my schedule. I work, I can not just take a day off that easily.“Then the plumber offered to come the next week. Did you get that part? The week he said he’d be on vacation? I guess his cruise got cancelled.
Anyway, because we were under our landlord’s say we used this a-​hole.
He came over. I was taking my cat to my parent’s house and as I was leaving, I told him that I was taking the cat with me so he wouldn’t have to worry about it AND HE TURNED TO ME AND TOLD ME TO TAKE THE CAT BC HE DOESN’T WANT TO BE RESPONSIBLE.
WOW. Yeah dude, literally JUST said that. He also told me SEVERAL times that the people who installed it didn’t do it right. He repeated himself SO many times. So I repeated myself and said yeah, we know. That’s why you’re here. That’s the exact reason why you are here fixing this now.
My boyfriend, on his lunch break, ran to the apartment to check on things.
My boyfriend said he was not at all like that with him. AND turned to my boyfriend when he was done and said, «Now your wife can do all the laundry! Its fixed!»
My boyfriend replied with «I can do the laundry now, too!»
Apparently this baffled him.
So if the the jerk face sexist plumber is reading this, you should know that ALL the curtain rods, all the shelves, everything that required to get screwed into the walls of that apartment were done by me, the girlfriend, and with my own drill. My tiny little brain did it all!
ps: he also didn’t finish the job. The dryer vent he had wasn’t the right length. So he just informed us and left.
BON VOYAGE

Do not use this company. My water heater stopped working so I called my home warrenty company. They sub contracted E-​Z Plumbing and Rooter to repair or replace the water heater. First off the employees were very unprofessional when I spoke with them over the phone. However, the real issue was when they lied to my wife trying to scam her for more money. I was at work when they came to do the repair. My wife was home alone when they told her that she needed to pay an additional 427.00 dollars in addition to our 60.00 co pay. They told her in order to replace the water heater they «had,» to install a thermal expansion tank. The employee told my wife it was against county code requirements for him to install the water heater without the expansion tank. THANKFULLY my wife contacted me before the work started. When I called and informed the employee that what he said was wrong and in no way true (after I researched it) he then tried to tell me that it was code in a near by county and going to be required soon in my county. After I confronted him for trying to pull one over on us he then stated he could in fact install the water heater without installing expansion tank but threatened he was going to «document,» I refused the expansion tank and it would void my homeowner warranty and homeowner insurance. Completely not true!!! This is a classic example of a company trying to scam their way into more money!!! I have reported to The B.B.B. and my home warranty company. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!!!

They are the best plumbing company in town! Hands down! Technicians all know what they are doing! I had Gabe and Mike come in to fix the toilets in my house. They were very kind and knowledgable. Great Quality and Quantity of work!

I’ve been working with Ez Plumbing and Rooter for years now, and they are the best! Affordable, nice and caring!

Amazing Plumber, got it fixed right away.
Thank you.

These guys are great, especially Mike. Mike was super friendly, honest, and helpful. Not only did he fix my water heater, he was able to educate me on the problem and how I can prevent it from happening again.
I’ve dealt with other companies that have been much more expensive and the service was no where near close to the quality of service I received from Mike and EZ Plumbing.
I’m not the type of person to write reviews (this being the first review ever), but I would highly recommend them over anyone else around the Van Nuys area… hands down. Thanks for the great work, Mike!