Collpased Sewer Main -- Allboro Plumbing? & Upgraded Electrical Service?

Hi, new member here. My husband and I purchased an unrenovated 19th century single-family row house in Bush-Stuy (Bed-Wick?) last year. Over the weekend our sewer main backed up and we found out it has probably collapsed and needs to be replaced. After reading the reviews here we’re going to get estimates from Balkan and Harris. Our plumber (“A Good Plumber”) recommended Allboro — has anyone worked with them? Also, when we moved in we were made aware that the electrical system in the house is inadequate and should be upgraded — both the wiring in the house, and the service going into the house itself. We’ve been putting off this repair since we haven’t experienced electrical problems, but we thought since the front of our house (and the street) will need to be dug up to replace the sewer main, is this a good time to upgrade the electrical service going into the house (not the wiring though), or is that really a separate job altogether?

tmiller823

in About Brooklyn 9 years and 9 months ago

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emmajacob | 9 years and 2 months ago

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@ncl209 We may have discovered the same issue at our brownstone – the sewer main may have collapsed, but we’re getting Roto Router out to diagnose it with a camera. Can I ask how much it costed you to have all the repairs done? Our renovation is already costing us a lot of money, so it’d be helpful to have a sense of what this additional price may be. Thank you!

rehaboyan | 9 years and 9 months ago

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+1 for Harris Water & Sewer. They just replaced the line going through the front wall of the house, so that our plumber could install a new water meter. The house is waiting to go into renovations so we needed a “cheap” option to avoid wasted dollars, but needed to have the work done to comply with DEP regs. They came out to look at the situation, gave a couple of different estimates (quickly, and in writing,) and actually recommended the lower price, to avoid doing unnecessary work before the wider renovation work begins. The other two companies that we had give estimates specced way over what we needed in both scope and price. The day of, the workmen were in and out in 2-3 hours. We will probably need to re-do our sewer down the line, and barring something unforeseen, we’ll almost certainly hire them again.

mdarling1979 | 9 years and 9 months ago

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I have used Harris Water several times over the years, we own a few houses and face these problems every so often. Harris water is always honest with pricing and professional, I would give them a call

theoperadiva | 9 years and 9 months ago

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We had several homes on our block with water main issues this Spring and our plumber recommended JP Plumbing. We shared that recommendation with the first neighbor reporting an issue, and they did such a great job that two other families (after receiving 72 hour notices DEP) used them as well. They were timely, thorough and very pleasant folks. Having to traverse our block with lots of construction happening, it was nice to have their pleasant crew around as they were always very respectful of passing families. You should check if you are paying for the insurance through your water company. It may be covered by that policy.

ps158 | 9 years and 9 months ago

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We used Balkan to replace a water main last year, but they do sewers too. I have nothing to compare them to, and our experience was simply fine. Nothing to rave about but nothing to rant about either. ConEd is the company that would have to replace the service/box to your house, which is located somewhere outside. Our box was located directly under our stoop. We had this done recently. I’m not sure how it works, but our 220 service wasn’t working, so we called ConEd to ask them to repair it. From that point it probably took 3-4 months before the whole job was done. It’s mostly just waiting, calling, waiting, calling, more calling, and a lot of luck to get someone to listen to you before it’s done. We didn’t pay for anything. Good luck.

shahnandersen

in About Brooklyn 9 years and 9 months ago

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I believe the Con Ed (not the homeowner) is responsible for upgrading the service from their manhole to the service entry on your building. I am pretty sure that this is done at their cost. I think that they will not even schedule you to do this until you redo the electrical service box inside the house (at your expense) to meet the requirements of the new service. As to the Sewer house connection. We recently used Figliolia to replace ours and were happy with the results.