About
The business in short: the Lake Forest homes we work on, how a job gets scoped and priced in writing, and the kinds of work we say no to.
A drain company that will talk you out of a maintenance plan
This is a drain cleaning business working Lake Forest and the Saddleback Valley around it — Foothill Ranch, Portola Hills, Mission Viejo, Laguna Hills and Laguna Woods. The work is residential: branches and main lines, kitchens, bathtubs, jetting and camera inspection.
It is organized around a question this market keeps asking and this trade keeps fudging, which is how often any of this is needed. The honest answer here is: much less often than you are being told, because scheduled cleaning manages scale and roots and this housing has very little of either. That is a commercially awkward thing to build a site on, which is rather the point — a business that will tell you not to buy the recurring thing is one whose other advice is worth more.
- Drains and main lines only — no fixtures, heaters or repipes
- No restoration work of any kind
- No recurring maintenance plan offered on pipe that does not want one
- No price for a line job without establishing branch or main
Up thereA curving suburban street lined with tile-roofed houses on a planned tract in Lake Forest
Four steps, no surprises
Orange County prices, and an honest answer about how often any of this is actually needed.
Call, and tell us what is affected
Which fixtures, and whether anything is backing up at the lowest point in the house.
Ask whether it needs doing at all
On a first slow fixture in a modern house, quite often it does not — or not by us.
The cheap answers first
A plunger with the overflow blocked off, or a hand snake past the trap.
Clear it, then say whether it will recur
This is the part that matters here. An object came out and the line is fine, or a condition is developing and it will be back.
Five things worth asking, including of us
The first one is the one this trade least likes being asked.
Does this actually need doing?
Ask it before anybody drives out.
What is my lateral made of?
In this service area it is almost certainly plastic, and anybody proposing a recurring service should be able to say what they expect to remove from it.
Did they establish branch or main…
One blocked fixture and one blocked building are different jobs at different prices. The question takes thirty seconds.
Do you need a camera to tell me that?
On a first-time blockage in one fixture, no. It is the most commonly mis-sold item in this trade.
Want a figure on it?
The rate before we travel, and a fixed figure in writing before any work starts.