Winston's Plumbing

Kareem F.

Winston and his team did an excellent job when the water line to our house was ruptured by a tree root. He came out and gave us an estimate the day after we called, and his estimate was 55% of a competitor's estimate. A day later, his crew started the work. They expected it to take 2 days, but it took 4 (not their fault; they discovered a whole bunch of concrete they had to break up, which should not have been in the location it was.) Anyhow, I was dreading the price increase due to the extra work, but Winston only added a very small amount to the final bill. I almost felt as if I should have paid more.

The work was done very well, on-time, and everything is now working well. We will definitely call him for our next plumbing/remodeling project. Oh, apparently he does electrical and drywall too. Thanks Winston!!

Jake J.

I have to trumpet the other positive reviews about Winston's work and company. Like many of my neighbors, I had to repair the lateral sewer connection to the city line at my expense. Winston came out to estimate and quoted a good price to do the newer ""trenchless"" style replacement of approximately 30 feet of pipe up to my house (on a hill). He kept to schedule, and his workers were experienced and effective. The sight of them pulling a huge section of continuous pipe through the ground (which splits the old poor quality pipe) was quite amazing. The work was done as promised and the sewer was connected again an hour before the end time they specified for it to be offline. When they re-paved the street, where the digging was necessary to connect to the city line, they also repaired an additional area that had a mini sink hole and ridge in it adjacent to their work area - without me asking. Really nice for them to do that. From conversations with Winston, I could tell that he is responsible and really attentive to customers, and he is also knowledgeable about many plumbing and electrical issues. He also has a good relationship with the city inspectors as I observed. His lovely wife/partner also was good to work with in terms of sending the contract, making minor changes at my request, and sending the EBMUD certificate guaranteeing the sewer connection for 20 years promptly. I will definitely call Winston for future needs. Great experience.

maha n.

New home owner ...and finding your people is rough. This was an incredible experience. Winston was prompt and friendly. He came through and talked with my little nephew for a bit and we went to check the broken heater out. He quickly saw the error and explained the cause and what would help to maintain the water heater long term. He got the estimate to me quickly and even though I had called to set up the appointment to replace the heater close to the end of the day, he and his crew came through and did an excellent job. Highly professional, local, businessman who showed a business ethic that will make him my go to!

Aaron L.

The crew at Winston's Plumbing did a superb job with our plumbing and bathroom remodel project. Winston did a thorough assessment of our leaky pipes and made some excellent suggestions around re-doing our bathroom for greater comfort, functionality, and beauty. In the days that followed, that vision became an awesome reality!

Winston's crew is top-notch: they're respectful, professional, thorough, and hard-working. We especially appreciated their careful attention to protecting our furniture and floor from scratches or dust during construction. After many long hours, our new bathroom looks first-rate, and everything works perfectly!

I would have given Winston's Plumbing five stars if it weren't for some miscommunication issues around delivery of materials and costs. But even these hiccups were resolved with earnest effort and in a reasonable amount of time.

We highly recommend Winston's Plumbing for your home repairs and improvements!

Shawn S.

Winston's Plumbing created more problems than they fixed. I hired Winston's Plumbing to fix an offset in my sewer lateral that was causing water to come up onto the sidewalk at the corner of my property. Winston recommended replacing a section from the offset all the way to the house in order to make a connection that would not leak. After the problem was ""fixed"" there was still water coming up onto the sidewalk. Winston said it was my irrigation, but turning off the irrigation did not affect the problem. I tried to get Winston to come back to look at the problem but no one returned my call so I called another plumber.

The new plumber began excavating and found that there was a new offset in the sewer lateral at the same place near the sidewalk where the original offset was found. More disturbing, however, was that two cast iron branches near the clean out near the house were not connected. Two pipes from the bathroom were draining directly into the soil. The hillside was completely saturated. The new plumber fixed the offset near the sidewalk and replaced the upper section and made new connections to the house. I was told that in order to replace the upper section I would need to obtain EBMUD and City of Oakland permits and administer a water test to the entire sewer lateral, which was done. This was not done or recommended by Winston's.

Winston said that missing connections ""happens all the time,"" so beware. Winston did not take responsibility for not being thorough and not supervising properly. He blamed it all on his subcontractor who pulled the pipe. Winston's charged $2,500 but it cost $4,000 to fix his work. I tried to recover the $4,000 from Winston's but they refused to cover my costs. They did refund the original $2,500 but I am out $1,500.

Caryn D.

Another overdue review! We initially heard about Winston from neighbors. We have used him over the years for jobs large and small - replacing toilets to re-plumbing the entire house. For the re-plumbing, he spent time helping us decide exactly what portions of the existing plumbing needed to be replaced for maximum benefit for our dollars spent. We ended up spending considerably less than the other quotes we'd gotten and are very happy with the result.

Winston is knowledgeable, super-friendly, always takes the time to explain what's going on, and is sensitive to the unique features of our older home. He also does electrical, remodels, etc. I haven't needed that yet but he'll be my first call when I do.

Mary B.

Winston helped me with a complicated sewer problem by working with the City of Oakland to get them to fix part of it and saving me thousands of dollars over what other plumbers were telling me it would cost. He is honest and smart and really understands his work including stuff about property easements which came into play in my situation. I couldn't get a clear explanation of the work and why the cost was so high from other plumbers. Pipe Spy quoted me $14K for what sounded like more work than I needed. When I asked them to just quote me for the part of the pipe that was installed incorrectly, they came back with $15K! None of the others mentioned Oakland being on the hook for any of this or offered to deal with them. I think Winston's total cost was around $1K--it was spread out over a number of visits and his work with Oakland. It also included installing a back-flow valve.

The only thing I would caution is that it takes a lot of phone calls and emails to keep things moving along but I'm finding that's true with many trades people, even the good ones.

Minger S.

Nothing quite compares to the feeling of getting soaped up in the shower in the middle of the night then discovering you've got no hot water. When this happened, I called Winston the next day. WHAT AN AMAZING EXPERIENCE! They were polite, understanding, very friendly. Winston came the very next morning, apologized for running late even though he was not even late at all (he arrived at about 8:55 for an 8:30-9AM window), fixed my water heater in pretty much no time, and even advised me on putting a cap on another gas line. He didn't even charge me for the repair because it was so quick! Then we hung out and talked about local restaurants.

Best visit by a service professional ever! Will be calling them for all my plumbing repair and home improvement needs.

Arthur H.

I had a Clogged toilet. I called Winston's Plumbing at 9:00 AM. I got a call back shortly after. Set up an appointment for later in the day. I got a call around 1:00 and was told that Winston would arrive between 2 and 2:30. He was on time, snaked the toilet and found a gold loop earring that was causing the clog. He was pleasant, courteous and efficient. Happy day.

Ramo O.

This review is waaaay late. Sorry Winston! Winston's Plumbing Heating & Electric was suggested to us by friends after the sewer main backed up into our basement, flooding our laundry room and art space with the human yuck factor. Winston and his crew came through with the quickness and assessed the situation, explaining to us what was going on and what the options were to move forward. Our situation was pretty major, since it was the line all the way out to the street, backing up out of the floor drain in our laundry room. Thankfully, we have home owner's insurance (USAA rocks!) and we had to get them involved. Winston worked with our insurance guy to see what was covered and what was not, yadayadayada, deal was made and they got to work fixing the mess. Draining, sanitizing, all that required stuff. It only took a few days, and mostly that was because our insurance guy couldn't come out right away (it was a weekend). They replaced the line with minimal floor and landscape disturbance and we were happy flushers in no time. The crew was very cordial and respectful and Winston himself was very very knowledgeable, explains things well, and seems to be a generally happy guy (big smiles). It really was a pleasure meeting and working with him. Situations like these usually end up with a ""we pay, you do"" relationship. With Winston, it's a lot more than that! We highly recommend this company for plumbing needs, and if his heating and electric skills match his plumbing skills, then you're covered.