Drain Works Plumbing

We had poor water pressure in our older home, so we decided to investigate upgrading to 3/4" service from 1/2". It made sense to take care of the upgrade first before doing other work in the basement, so I called in DrainWorks who I've used before.

Armando got the call to come by to do the written estimate. He measured the distance involved from the property line to the destination inside the house, explained how the work would be done (two holes and tunneling rather than a giant trench) and advised me that I needed to obtain city permission to dig near a tree since one of the holes would need to be in the protective zone. (I spent several weeks on that front, but the city basically ignored me so I eventually decided to go ahead with the work anyway and take the risk of possible damage to the tree. There was none, the tree remains healthy, and I documented with photographs the hole to demonstrate that no major roots were damaged.)

Between the time of the original estimate and the eventual work, I decided to have the service come through the basement floor in a little different area. Armando came by again to update the quote accordingly to accomodate my needs, and we scheduled the work.

The crew of 2 showed up on time on the day the work was scheduled and Armando was there as well at the beginning to set up the job, spec'ing out where the service needed to come in. Andre and his partner worked very hard and fast to dig the holes. I had to leave for work for a while so my wife oversaw the rest of the job which was completed perfectly. One thing of note - Andre and his partner used some water to compact the soil they refilled in the holes then added some good topsoil they had brought and made everything level with the existing grade. On a previous job by another company, the crew left the hole as a big mound some 8" above grade, saying it would settle in time. A year later, I finally just levelled it off myself, which was annoying.

Later that evening, another DrainWorks employee came by to do a final inspection of the work, scope our drains for us to make sure they were in good shape (they were, given recent replacement, though just over our property line on the city side he identified some roots starting to enter that we'll need to get addressed - good to know).

All in all, the work was high quality, DrainWorks accomodated our requirements perfectly and followed up to ensure the work was done correctly.