J. Blanton Plumbing, Sewer & Drain

I had to come back here to change my review for Blanton Plumbing and I would not recommend them for anything. The technician who installed my new water heater gets cudos. However the water heater that was placed in my unit was the lowest quality heater the Company sells. This water heater shows on line for $800-$1000, the company price gauged me charging me $3,800 for the water heater. I telephone them for three days to no avail. Each time I was told that the issue was under investigation however no one has tried to contacted me. I am complaining about this sell and also another job to which I was lied to about. A pressure release pipe was replaced on another water heater in another residential unit. I was told that the reason this cost was estimated so expensive was because my boiler would have to be shut down, lines would have to be bleed, with the pipe repaired. I was told that it would take time to ensure that the pressure was reestablished correctly. Two days later a technician was at my house with the pipe to be replaced, he was at my house for approximately 5 minutes. Everything that was said to me about the time consuming process costing me $900 was a total lie. The technician pulled two levers to stop the water replaced the one pipe and left. I was again price gauged for $900. I’m going to have another company come to see the pipe that was replaced which I now do not trust that I even had a problem.

My original rating is below. I have no reason to lie. Your company has been paid. I’m still awaiting your investigative feedback Blanton Plumbing.

My rental unit water heater went out while I was out of town, the temperatures in Chicago were in the negative digits, luckily for me the unit was empty having no tenant. Upon return I hired Blanton Plumbing to replace my water heater, for a like water heater. Blanton Plumbing was available and sent Lou Agosto out to quickly get me up and running properly. Lou arrived and was easy to work with. We communicated on my ring camera since I was not in the immediate area. He completed the job bringing the water heater installation to code and returned my unit with hot water. Since the installation was done on the spot I was able to continue my work in another location while Lou installed the heater. Thank you Lou Agosto of Blanton Plumbing.

Ron arrived to address a bad leak under our basement toilet. He made friends with our cuddly dog as I led him downstairs. He was able to remove the toilet, clear the clog that led to the leak (which ended up being more complicated than anticipated), and reset the toilet. He cleaned and disinfected the floor before he left. Although I had some initial sticker shock, the work was thorough and he was very honest and upfront. I would use this company again in the future.

I was helping my son clean up his back yard when the outdoor water spigot started leaking, severely. I immediately found Blanton online and called them.

Paid the $159 “Emergency fee” to get a plumber to come out that day. Its a bit of high price, but when you have water pouring out of a faucet and can’t get it to stop…
(and no shut off valve other than the main)

Amazingly enough, my son and I got the leak to stop by using cable ties to hold the faucet together and stop the leak, lol, it was really on the edge of leaking again, but I was certain the plumber would offer a better solution than cable ties.

The plumber showed up within 3 hours of the call which was great. Very nice guy. I told him the issue, what was happening and asked if it could not be fixed that day, that he at least do some temporary fix, to make sure that they wouldn’t wake up to 2 feet of water in their basement?! Just stop the leak, cap the faucet, anything other than keeping the water main shut off to the entire house.

He said he would call it in and give us a quote to fix it. About 15 minutes later he quoted $1700.00 to replace the faucet. After I said that we couldn’t afford that, he “called in” again and said ok, how about $1450.00?

I thanked him but said we couldn’t afford either quote.

I will not say that $1400 or $1700 is too high for the work quoted, but what I will say is, what really bothered me was that he didn’t ever offer to “fix” the leak or at least cap the faucet so we could have water…when we rejected his quote, he said the cable ties would hold just fine and left.

Wait, what?

So to recap…

Emergency call to Blanton…$159

For $159 , a plumber did show up within 3 hours of calling, and he gave us 2 quotes ($1400 and $1700)

He fixed and touched nothing.

A couple of Youtube videos and a few Sharkbite connectors later, my son and I replaced his entire outdoor faucet, added a shut off valve and most importantly can use the water again! It wasn’t easy for us but with some trial and error, we did it and had fun doing it.

By the way, the total cost of parts to replace the faucet…under $150? So we spent $159 on an “Emergency plumber”, and less than that to replace and fix the problem ourselves. Lesson learned.

I’m sure Blanton does fine work. It would just be nice if rather than look at every customer as a “billing” opportunity they would see them as neighbors that need help?

Yes, make money…but at least make an attempt to fix the “Emergency” problem that you were called for in the first place.