Answers · Plumbing companies
How to follow up on a sewer estimate after a second opinion
To follow up on a sewer estimate after the homeowner asks for a second opinion, treat the request as a comparison the company can help with, not as a polite no: send the camera video and a written scope the same day, put the follow-up in the name of someone other than the tech who wrote it, and give it three dated touches that end in a recorded outcome. A sewer estimate written after a camera finding is a large ticket that started as a drain call, and once the drain runs again the urgency leaves the house before the decision does. This guide covers what the homeowner is comparing, who should own the follow-up, a 15-minute check in the estimate report, and the consent question before any automated text goes out.
By Tamara Stepanyan, founder of Lumina Business Advisory · Updated · Sources checked · Editorial standards
A second opinion on a sewer estimate is a comparison, not a no
Free self-check · two taps · no email
Hand-off 2 of 6 · Quote → Contract
Choose the answer that sounds like your business.
That was one of six hand-offs where money changes hands, from first inquiry to collected cash. The other five take about three minutes and end in a dated sheet that names where to start.
A homeowner told that the lateral needs replacing — roots at the property line, a belly, a cracked clay section — is being asked to spend real money on a pipe they have never seen. Asking another company to look is a reasonable step, and the company that wrote the first estimate can treat it as one.
What the homeowner will compare is mostly on paper. One sewer contractor’s second-opinion page, written for homeowners, asks them to bring the written quote — scope, pipe length, method, restoration terms — and any camera footage, and calls a contractor who will not share the video “already useful information.” That is the standard the first estimate is measured against before the second truck arrives.
So the first follow-up is not a call. It is making the estimate easy to compare:
- The camera video, or a link to it, with the finding marked by its distance from the cleanout.
- The written scope: feet of pipe, method (open trench, pipe bursting or lining), depth if known, cleanout, permit and inspection, and restoration — who puts back the driveway, the lawn, the sidewalk.
- The options side by side, with what each one leaves in the ground.
- What happens if the homeowner waits, stated plainly and without a scare.
- One named person to call with questions, who is not on a truck.
When the second company arrives, the homeowner can then compare like with like, footage with footage and scope with scope, instead of a number with a number.
Why the sewer estimate has an author but no owner
The sewer estimate can start on a drain call. The tech clears the line, runs the camera, finds the problem, writes the options on a tablet and leaves for the next address. The drain runs that afternoon, and the homeowner’s urgency drains away with it.
A week later the tech who wrote the estimate is on another call, and whether anyone follows up depends on whether he remembers. If spiffs pay only for sales closed on site, a follow-up call a week later is nobody’s paid job. That is a design question, not a sales-skill question.
The fix is a follow-up owner who is not the tech: a service manager, a sales coordinator, or a CSR with the camera video open in front of her. The tech can stay credited for the find. ServiceTitan’s estimate report records Estimate Created By and Sold By as separate columns, so a shop can keep rewarding the tech who found the problem while someone else owns the second conversation.
How to follow up on plumbing estimates: three dated touches
Every sewer, repipe and water-heater estimate that leaves the house without a decision gets the same three touches, entered as follow-up dates on the day it is written. No one pre-decides which homeowners are worth chasing; the follow-up decides.
- Same day or next morning: the office sends the video and the written scope, and names the person who will call.
- Day 3 or 4: the named owner calls. The question is not “are you ready?” but “did the second company see anything different?” If it did, the two findings can be compared on the footage, with the tech on speaker if needed.
- Day 10 to 14: one direct question — keep the estimate open with a new date, or close it out. A homeowner who has decided can say so, and the company learns which way and why.
Then the estimate closes with an outcome and a reason: won; lost, to whom and why (price, method, timing, trust); or declined, with a recheck date if the line will be looked at again. A roots finding that the homeowner chose to manage with periodic clearing is a future call, not a dead file.
The 15-minute check in the estimate report
In ServiceTitan, the Opportunity and Estimate Follow Up report lists each estimate with its subtotal, its age in days, the Follow Up Date, the Number of Follow Ups, the Last Follow Up Date, the estimate status, the opportunity status (Open, Not Attempted, Unreachable, Contacted, Won or Dismissed), Estimate Created By and Sold By. It filters by creation date and by business unit. Housecall Pro, Jobber and other platforms keep an equivalent list of open estimates or quotes; paper copies work too.
Set the creation date to the last 90 days, pick the drain-and-sewer business unit, and ask four questions of the list:
- How many open estimates have no follow-up date?
- How many show zero follow-ups, or an opportunity still marked Not Attempted?
- Of the sold ones, how many were sold on site by the tech who wrote them, and how many later by someone else?
- Of the dismissed ones, how many carry a reason?
The blanks are the finding. A blank does not prove nobody called; it means any call left no trace, so the shop cannot count how its sewer estimates end. After four weeks of the three-touch rule, the same report shows a number that did not exist before.
Before automated texts: the consent check
Follow-up texts from the field-service platform can sit underneath the three touches; they keep the video link and the scope one tap away. Before switching them on, check consent. The FCC’s rule at 47 CFR 64.1200(a)(2) requires prior express written consent for telemarketing calls made with an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice, and one paragraph of the same rule states that the term “call” includes a text message. Whether an estimate follow-up counts as telemarketing, and what the booking script should say about texts, are questions for the company’s attorney; nothing here is legal advice.
The operational step is the same either way: record at booking whether the homeowner agreed to texts, and on which number, and keep that record with the customer. A person from the office calling by hand about an estimate the homeowner asked for remains the touch that answers questions.
What an open sewer pile is worth: an illustrative count
Illustrative example: a shop runs the report and finds 30 open sewer and repipe estimates from the last 90 days, averaging $9,000 each. That is $270,000 of written work. Eighteen of them have no follow-up date — $162,000 that nobody is assigned to ask about. Nothing in that arithmetic says how many would close; only the outcomes recorded over the next month can say that. The figures are hypothetical; the shop’s own report gives the real ones.
Each of those estimates has already been paid for once. It took a truck roll, a camera run and an hour or more of a plumber’s time. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median pay for plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters at $30.67 an hour in 2025, and that is the wage alone, before the truck, the camera and the paying call the slot could have held. A follow-up call costs a few minutes of an office person’s time against that.
When not to chase, and when not to hire anyone
Some estimates should close. A homeowner who compared the footage and chose the other company has decided; one more call is noise. A homeowner selling the house may want only the inspection report for the buyer. Record those outcomes and move on.
A shop with one or two trucks, where the owner writes and follows every sewer estimate personally, does not yet have a hand-off to lose. The three-touch rule and a Monday look at the report are free, and they may be all the shop needs.
If open estimates are one of several leaks — after-hours calls that never became a booked visit, extra trench footage agreed in the driveway and never billed, finished jobs waiting for an invoice — the Revenue Review takes two weeks: read-only access to the shop’s own field-service records, ending in a written report that puts a monthly dollar figure on each leak it finds, ranks the fixes and lays out a 90-day plan. It trains no techs and sells no leads. The free 20-minute call is where to ask whether it fits, and part of its job is to say when it does not.
Before any next step
What should you do next?
- Fix it yourselves.
- If the cause is clear, it lives inside one process, and one person can own it — take the play from this page and run it. That outcome is fine with us; it is why the play is published in full.
- Order one bounded build.
- If the fix is known but needs configuration or integration inside your stack — a cadence wired into your own system, an alert, a handoff — scope that one build, with us or with anyone you trust. The six systems we build show what bounded looks like.
- Start with the Review.
- If the causes are debatable, the problem crosses departments or systems, or the economics are unclear — diagnose before anyone builds. The Revenue Review: $4,500 fixed, two weeks, computed from your own records. Read a sample finding before you decide — free, no email.
Asked right after
- How long should a plumber follow up on a sewer estimate?
- Long enough to reach a decision: three dated touches over about two weeks — the video and scope the same day, a call on day 3 or 4, and a keep-open-or-close question around day 10 to 14. After that the estimate closes as won, lost with a reason, or declined with a recheck date. We know of no primary source that sets a standard length; the shop’s own outcomes are the measure.
- Should the tech who wrote the sewer estimate make the follow-up call?
- The tech can make the first call while the visit is fresh, but the follow-up should belong to someone who is not on a truck, because a week later the tech is on another job. Keep crediting the tech for the estimate, so the hand-off costs nothing in pay, and give the follow-up to a named person in the office.
- What should a sewer line estimate include so it holds up against a second opinion?
- The camera video with the finding marked, the feet of pipe and the method, depth if known, the permit and inspection, restoration of the driveway or lawn, the options side by side and one named contact. A homeowner comparing two estimates can then compare scope with scope, not only price with price.
- Is it okay to text homeowners about an open plumbing estimate?
- A person texting by hand to answer a question is different from an automated sequence. Before automated follow-up texts go out, record at booking whether the homeowner agreed to texts and on which number, and ask the company’s attorney how the FCC’s rule at 47 CFR 64.1200 applies to the shop’s messages.
- What if the second opinion found something different?
- Ask to compare on the footage. Two companies can read the same line differently — a belly versus a sag, a spot repair versus a full replacement. A calm look at both videos either confirms the first finding or improves it, and either outcome is worth recording.
Keep reading
Related answers
Sources
- Opportunity and Estimate Follow Up report · ServiceTitan Help Center (product documentation), 2026
- 47 CFR § 64.1200 — Delivery restrictions · Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School (Code of Federal Regulations), 2026
- Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters — Occupational Outlook Handbook · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026
The next step
Bring us the process that keeps getting stuck.
A 20-minute conversation about the workflow, the teams and the systems involved — and a straight answer on whether The Revenue Review is the right next step. If it is not, we say that on the call.
A real person answers or calls you back the same business day.