I hired Ben Franklin Plumbing (DeKalb) because they were able line the clay pipe leading to the main sewer, which was under the street, and line the 70 year old clay sewer pipe under the concrete floor in my basement without cutting up the concrete. Their lining (also called cured in place pipe) offers 2 yr. warranty on the work and 50 yr. transferable warranty on the lining material. My experience began with Aaron from BFP providing estimates for several possible outcomes based on what the initial camera inspection was able to identify. BFP began by replacing an 8 ft. section with a belly and installing a clean-out. Then hydro-jetted the line to the sewer removing a 4 ft. root ball that was clogging the clay pipe. Next they lined approximately 50 ft. of clay pipe to the main sewer and 25 ft. of cast iron pipe under the concrete flooring in my basement. There was no digging up my yard, other than to replace the section with the belly. The lining process required BFP to return on a Saturday. It was raining that day but Mark, the owner, returned working 4 hrs. in the rain to complete the lining process and insure the completed work was ready for the Village to inspect. I never sought estimates to trench to the curb or into the street. A neighbor had done this and the overall cost to replace the sewer line to the main sewer in the middle of the street was twice the total cost from BFP. In addition, the aging cast iron pipe into my house was lined. I will never have another sewer problem again. And if I do, I'll call Aaron and Mark at Ben Franklin Plumbing. read more

I am the general contractor on a project in Roselle, IL. I saw all five star reviews on google and thought this company must be great... boy was I WRONG! So, I decided to leave an honest review with real names and my experience with Benjamin Franklin Plumbing... Jess, their General Manager, sent a Licensed Plumber, John, who fell short of every expectation. John loved to sit in his truck as that is where he spent most of his time. At one point, John even stated he had never done this type of plumbing work before and was learning something new... later he even went onto to question the structual integrity of the floor, as if he was qualified (we have an Architect and Engineer). Again, this gave me little confidence in him as a licensed plumber, and in Benjamin Franklin Plumbing. To be clear, Jess and Jim from Benjamin Franklin Plumbing also fell short of their promised expectations as well. They kept raising their price after starting work, extending the timeframe, and made excuses that never existed. Very incompetent. If there was an issue with safety, please advise where as nothing was ever brought to my or my customers attention as a safety issue. The only issues raised by your team were related to plumbing codes because that is all you were qualified to do. Being a firefighter/paramedic, safety is always my number one to me and my customers! The issues you raised were related to plumbing code, not safety. Please stop twisting the words. A simple phone call might have helped clear up any communication issues, but Jess and Jim never returned any of my calls to rectify the situation after leaving multiple messages. As a firefighter/paramedic, and someone who prides themselves in customer service, Benjamin Franklin Plumbing does not! John, their licensed plumber, would advise he would be there at 8 AM, but not show up until 9 AM daily. Then, he would leave from 10 to 11 for parts, return to work from 11 to 1, and conclude his day at 1 PM. Three hours of total work when Jess and Jim promised full 8 hour days (and possibly working afterhours to get the job done timely). John would leave his mess every day with PVC pipes spread all throughout the home and work areas. He even shoved some pipes in the walls and try to hide it. Very dissatisfied! My customer was relieved when I terminated Benjamin Franklin Plumbing from the project. read more

Benjamin Franklin Plumbing DeKalb did right by me. They replaced my water heater quickly and efficiently under the manufacturer's warranty (something the original selling location in Yorkville wouldn't do). The unit was replaced under the manufacturer's warranty within 6 hours of my call to this location. Many thanks to Linda and Tony for a job well done. read more

Very unfriendly and unprofessional. Just ended a phone call with Heather to attempt to get a free estimate (which their website states "call for a free estimate"-i was told you cannot indeed call for a free estimate...untrue advertising). I was greeted with being corrected, her not understanding or trying to understand my questions, and when I ended the call with "thank you anyway" I was abruptly hung up on mid sentence. Found another plumbing service much more friendly and thorough and I would recommend anyone does the same. read more

Called in with my problem (cracked pvc closet flange), was told they couldn't give me an estimate over the phone, and there was a $59 service call fee to have someone to give an estimate. I went ahead with it because the scheduling worked out better then the other plumber I was going to use. Guy came out and said it would be $299 to fix, and that was there "set fee" for a closet flange repair-they have a book of charges they have to go by. It took him around 20-30 minutes. After a $50 off repair coupon (not the service call) it was $308, so that works out to somewhere between $600-$900 per hour....what a scam. The guy was nice but I guess I would be to for that rate. I will never use them again and will never recommend them. read more

We had a job we wanted done, and called Ben Franklin Plumbing. The woman on the phone asked if we wanted an estimate, or if we wanted the job done on that day. I told her we wanted it done that day, so it would be only one visit. The plumber arrived on time, but, as he told me halfway through the visit, he didn't bring any tools. They were in his other truck, so we were going to have to pay the $50 for an estimate after all, and then make another appointment to get the job done. He spent quite some time looking at our house, trying to figure out how to do the job. As he went down the stairs to the basement, I was truly afraid he was going to fall down them! Then, coming back up, he was breathing so heavily I thought he was going to collapse. He actually took a break halfway up the stairs to rest. (This was just a normal staircase, by the way.) He hemmed and hawed about it, telling me what a complicated and difficult job this was going to be, and gave us an estimate of $530. Then my husband, who is not a plumber, suggested a different way of doing it, and he said, "Oh, I didn't think of that." and the estimate for that was $450. We paid for this visit, but decided not to have the job done. On a later date, we had a plumber from a different company (C & H) here to do a different job. When he finished and asked if we needed anything else done, I asked him to take a look at the other issue that Ben Franklin had originally looked at, just to give us an idea of price. He took a quick look, and said he could do the job right then. It took him 45 minutes, and the cost was less than $100. Yikes. We won't be calling Ben Franklin ever again. read more

Heroes to our rescue! Mark the owner came quite a drive from DeKalb to look at our job for pipe lining. While there, he and his head plumber Vince realized with little additional modification we could convert to virtual overhead and qualify for a village rebate. Before we committed to lining, our sewer had a partial collapse in the street for which we were responsible to fix. I called Mark after hours, and he not only promptly returned my call but also had one of his guys come first thing in the morning to get us going. When that did not work, Mark himself came with his camera/scope to further assess the situation- a collapsing clay line. We agreed on a plan. Mark called on his way home with an new idea which might save us some money if we were willing to try. He came back the next day- a Saturday- and scoped again. His outside-of the-box thinking ended up saving us more than $8,000! We cannot express enough our appreciation for his willingness to solve our big problem in a cost effective, efficient, and minimally disruptive way. The work Mark and his guys did was nothing short of amazing. They were on the job first thing Monday morning even though it was a holiday. They Perma-lined our sewer line, replaced our cast iron stack, added a clean-out, put in an ejector pit, rerouted laundry and utility sink, and put in a new floor drain. The work took three days. They taped off to protect things and cleaned up when they were done. The cost was not cheap but absolutely fair. Most of all, they came in an emergency, and problem solved as if it were their own home. We would give you 10 stars if we could, Thanks Mark! read more

I am a renter. I had some plumbing problems. My landlord sent them. They are horrible. The kid who showed up just wanted to upsell fixing the problem to "jetting" out the sewer pipe. He wasn't happy when the landlord decided to just rod. He said it was fixed 24 hours later, problem returns. Same person returned. Managed to convince landlord to upgrade. Still had numerous problems. In the end, we are told that the pipes to the sewer are not good. Upon a second opinion, the problem was found to be in the house. Don't call these people they are terrible and have no idea what they are doing. They left my bathroom in a mess, ruined a shower curtain and sucked 6 hours out of my life that I will never get back. read more

If you have an emergency plumbing need, DO NOT USE Benjamin Franklin Plumbing!! At 10:30 pm Sunday night we had sewage backing up into our house from our downstairs shower. Called the emergency line and was told we'd receive a call when someone was coming. An hour and a half later with no call, we checked our confirmation email and we were schedule for Tuesday. When we called back, we were told "thanks for catching that!" After asking when someone would be here, we were told "dispatch was notified." By 5 am and no call, we again called back. We were told we were "scheduled for an appointment today but no time. It depends on the other time slots for the day." The woman was unapologetic and definitely not the "sympathetic voice on the line" their website advertises. Didn't seem to comprehend a plumbing emergency is not the same thing as a regular appointment.. wasted the whole night and now I'm missing work to have another plumber come out. read more

I read the other comments and although I did not have any work done yet - I have to share my experience. We live in an old farmhouse (built in 1900). In 2009, the pipes broke when the house was unoccupied. RC Black did the repair work. It appears as though BFP took over RC Black's business. We have had an ongoing issue with sewer gas. RC Black had come out in 2010 and gave us some ideas. We implemented all of those and still have issues. We have dealt with it until this year when I finally had enough. I contacted BFP. They took down a lot of information and then researched it. Instead of having to pay for a service call, I received additional options to try before having to schedule a service call. I appreciated the time spent. read more