Having found a decent commercial plumber to fix up the issues at our office, the day had come to stand back and let him work his master plumber magic. We were especially pleased with this candidate, not just because of his confident analysis of our issues, and realistic estimates and time frames, but also because he was willing to come in and work after hours so that the noise and disruptions in service would not impede our workflow.

So if you’re a commercial plumber reading this, take note- it wasn’t just craftsmanship or word-of-mouth, or a nice decal on the local plumber’s van that won him the contract, it was simply the willingness to work non-traditional hours to get the job done. We knew, given his dedication and willingness to work on our parameters that we were dealing with a commercial plumber who really cares about the work he does.

Once the building was empty after the business day, the work began. He arrived at 5:30pm and set to work on the plumbing repairs and installations that we had requested in our contract.

As time passed, day by day, we saw the improvements mount up. Every once in awhile, over the course of the two week project, we would find little notes on sinks or toilets with special instructions not to use them. Other than that, things seemed to be going pretty smoothly.

A Job Well Done with Our Commercial Plumber

After two weeks of temporary outages and little notes, we walked in on Monday morning to see why we hired a local plumber for the plumbing repair and renovation. There were beautifully functioning toilets and sinks in our bathroom, as well as the water fountains and hand washing sinks we’d wanted installed ever since we moved in. There were still some cosmetic changes we wanted to make, but we would have those for another day- they had nothing to do with plumber work.

Our experience with this commercial plumber was very satisfying, and the work he did held up for as long as we owned the workspace. We kept his card around just in case, but we never needed it. But you can be sure that, any time some friends of ours needed advice on what commercial plumber to turn to, we would refer them to the local plumber that made our plumbing experience so great.

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Most people are familiar with plumbers who come to their home to unclog a drain or fix a leaking toilet. Plumbers, pipelayers, pipefitters, and steamfitters install, maintain, and repair many different types of pipe systems. Some of these systems move water from reservoirs to municipal water treatment plants and then to residential, commercial, and public buildings.

Plumber work:

Plumbers work in commercial and residential settings where water and septic systems need to be installed and maintained. Pipefitters and steamfitters most often work in industrial and power plants. Pipelayers work outdoors, sometimes in remote areas, laying pipes that connect sources of oil, gas, and chemicals with the users of these resources. Sprinklerfitters work in all buildings that require the use of fire sprinkler systems.

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After the plumbing fiasco that occurred while we were remodeling our home, we knew it was time to show a bit more discrimination when it came time to hire a Home plumber for the addition we planned to build.

Some people seem to luck out and hire a plumber they can trust at the very first go; someone who loves his work, cares about his customers, doesn’t charge an arm and a leg, and earns himself lifetime customers on virtually every job he works. Also, it wouldn’t hurt if they were a good plumber with experience as a plumbing contractor.

Then there’s those of us who hire a plumber who seems to have missed his calling in life and takes it out on every pipe that crosses his path, charging outrageous sums for shoddy, ill-planned work.

When we originally planned our home remodeling, we did not realize just how complex a matter plumbing could be. The contractor we hired to coordinate several aspects of the project warned us that he was not much of an expert on plumbing, so we decided to hire a plumber who certainly seemed like he knew what he was doing. He was confident, prompt, as well as concise and straightforward in his plan of our plumbing repairs.

It Didn’t Feel Right

The setbacks began in the later phases of the project. The more walls were knocked out and new additions made, appliances removed and replaced, the more surprises seemed to come out of the woodwork (literally). The local plumber would arrive at the house two days a week, and every time was seemingly more and more caught off guard by the changes that were happening, and what these changes revealed about the underlying framework of our plumbing that he did not anticipate. That’s when we began to suspect that his work was ill-planned and that we might be paying too much of a premium for a so-called professional master plumber who did not foresee these developments.

Fortunately we had a close friend who lived in a nearby house who became our advocate, and reference. He said this local plumber should have known our house’s design, and how the systems were laid out when our home was built. Basically this supposed master plumber should have had plumbing contractor knowledge. It soon became clear that we needed to hire a plumber who actually knew our house and knew where we were going with this project, and our friend more than came through.

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It’s a jungle out there. When we returned home to a flooded house, we began our search for quality plumber work to remedy our problem. This was when things really got confusing.

We started off with a simple Google search for local businesses and contractors available for plumber work and found a myriad of results. We had already decided that we didn’t want to use a large company. The only trouble is, we realized, that you never know just how big or small an operation is just be looking at its name. The only way you can know for sure that you’re dealing with an individual plumbing contractor before you call is that the plumbing outfit is just a simple name, like John Doe Plumbing. For what it’s worth, we were more comfortable with an individual with an actual business name. We learned to look for things like “LLC” to denote that these were the small, one-man operations we were looking for to do our plumber work. But there’s plenty of Inc., locations too.

We knew it was awfully superficial to make our decisions for plumber work on such petty criteria, but what else did we have to go on? We don’t know many people on our side of town to recommend a good candidate for plumber work, and there aren’t any good free review sites that we know of. So we were left with our search bar and our gut instincts.

A Second Opinion: Ask a Master Plumber

As much as we wanted to pick one local plumber and stick with our decision, we called up four different local plumbers (who were also licensed plumbers and master plumbers) who seemed reputable and organized. We asked each of them to come to our house, diagnose the problem, propose a solution to prevent any future complications, and give us an estimate. Honestly, we weren’t sure just how much master plumbers are willing to compete with one another for plumber work, so we didn’t tell them that we had others giving plumbing repair estimates. The last thing we wanted was for a plumber to make false promises of low prices or cut corners just to win the job.

The first two licensed plumbers quoted some very high prices and extensive plumbing repairs, and the second two gave us more modest estimates as well as an optimistic outlook for a lot of the equipment that the others wanted to replace. The third plumber won the bid.

With the candidate now selected, it was time to get down to business.

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Everything about our vacation in the Rockies went according to plan, but not our arrival back in Atlanta. We came home to a flooded house, and what we feared would be a big plumbing repair bill.

Once the basement drained, the water shut off, and the carpet ripped out, we were still in need of a lot of work to get things back to normal. Our first priority was our need for a local plumber to see to the plumbing repairs so that we could turn the water back on and regain at least some civility.

We did what everyone does when it’s time to find a good local plumber: we hit the yellow pages. Okay, we didn’t have a copy of the yellow pages- we hit Google. Hopefully, we thought, our dream master plumber has gotten with the modern age and listed his business online. A local plumber in our area usually has the reputation for being manually rather than technically inclined, but this is no complaint; we needed plumbing repair savvy, not internet savvy.

Choices, Choices: Hire a Plumber- A Good Plumber

A simple search revealed the myriads of local plumber companies, lone wolves and shade tree plumbers. We already decided we didn’t want to use a major company. Large companies have much more overhead than a one-man operation, and they hire employees that may not be of the same talent level as a local plumber whose business rests upon his own skills.

Granted, we also realized that this was a risky move. A full-scale plumbing company has much better insurance if anything goes wrong, and if any plumbers find themselves stumped, they have superiors to fall back on. Also, in the absolute worst case, if we feel we’ve been cheated, a well-established plumbing contractor company is much more capable of compensating us if we end up in court for any reason.

So with this in mind, we had to remember that we were navigating a minefield, and with this being our first foray into any plumbing needs beyond unclogging a toilet, it was important to do some research and be as careful as possible in our search for a local plumber.

But for all our forethought, we still didn’t realize how tough it would be to actually find a good plumber. In the next entry, you’ll get to hear all about the selection process, so stay tuned.

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After sorting through contractors, carpenters, electricians, architects and landscape designers, we finally narrowed down the crew that we wanted working on our home’s new addition. But we still needed to find a licensed plumber or plumbing contractor who could do the job right, unlike the last one.

Of the four licensed plumbers we brought out to our property, all seemed knowledgeable and realistic in their expectations. But one, unbeknownst to us, had already worked on several houses in our neighborhood, and was even the licensed plumber who worked on the addition that was built on the property two blocks away from us. If we were to get a plumber from the current lineup, it certainly seemed like this was our guy. Admittedly, he didn’t promise the lowest price or the best time frame, but his experience in our area gave us the reassurance that he had the most realistic expectations for these concerns.

Plumbing problems from ice cold showers and freezing pipes to basement flooding and serious leakages – tend to sneak up on us at the most inconvenient time. Chances of plumbing emergencies are considerably higher in homes with poor plumbing maintenance, but unfortunately emergencies have also been known to occur in homes that have diligently maintained their plumbing.

With emergency plumbers across the US ready 24 hours a day, Hire a contractor Now can provide help with most expediency.

Before jumping in head first, we asked our neighbor up the street if he was satisfied with the work that this plumber had done. He replied that he was absolutely thrilled with the plumbing repairs and work that was done on his property. This made our decision pretty easy—as much as we’d like to get a plumber who promises the lowest price or to get a emergency plumber who assures the fastest delivery, we want the job done right more than anything else.

Our home remodeling last year set us back quite a bit more than we’d planned thanks to shoddy plumber work, hence our careful and deliberate selection process this time around- but we were thankful to finally get a plumber who knew what he was doing.

Getting it Done

Once the project was underway, the licensed plumber we chose was able to lay down pipes to fit through the foundation before any concrete was poured. He knew all the right places to put them so that they would flow efficiently into all the outlets planned for the final product. He even navigated around the areas of the new addition that were most likely to settle over time, reducing the risk of cracked pipes and major foundational repairs.

After the project was completed, we had a simple but effective plumbing system that we were more than happy with. Sure enough, everything worked just as it was supposed to with readily available hot water and plenty of pressure in all the places we needed it most. Our addition was ready for guests, tenants, or whomever we needed to put up for a little while.

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Unlike licensed contractors who are always being accused of inflating bids and overcharging (usually by homeowners who have no idea what this type of expertise is really worth), a good handyman will usually charge lower fees and, for many homeowners, this is not only a viable option but in many instances, the preferred one.

The project at hand will of course determine the exact type of pricing structure you will be looking at.  Most Master handymen will usually be called in for multiple projects because it’s human nature to wait for “little things” to add up until it’s almost an emergency to get things done.

A typical work agreement might be similar to this:  fix a screen door, paint the half bath off the kitchen, hang new doors for a closet.  Nothing that needs a license or a building permit – just enough experience to not cause further problems.

When jobs / tasks are similar in nature, he may give you a quote by the hour.  In the situation described above, these tasks would be considered similar and usually could be handled quite well by a master handyman who, of course, likes to paint (not all handymen do!).   In a situation like this he may be able to quote you by the hour or by the entire job.

For homeowners, paying by the hour is usually not their first choice.  Anyone who has ever employed any sort of hourly domestic help such as a housekeeper will usually lament that the tasks at hand were stretched out beyond belief in order to be able to charge more, even though the job wasn’t performed any better.

It could be the same with any worker you have around the house:  hourly payments are looked at as an open ATM machine.  There is really no need to pay by the hour – ask for a per job estimate.  How much to paint the bathroom?  How much to hang the new door?  This way assures you that no time will be wasted just to increase the bill.

Occasionally you may be asked for a deposit.  Unless you expect the person to buy supplies out of his own pocket, there’s no reason to provide a down payment or deposit, certainly not in cash.  No matter how great someone’s references, there is always the possibility of having him not show up, at least when promised, if he already has some cash.

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Being a licensed plumber is one of the most important, though often underrated professions in the world.  After all, licensed plumbers will never go out of business and everyone depends on them. Though it may be tempting to do a job yourself, it is always better to find a plumber who knows what they’re doing.

A licensed plumber, though they are great in number, are often looked down upon. Why, exactly is this the case?  Perhaps it is because most people don’t like to think about that which those in the plumber service have made their personal business.  Maybe it’s because they are considered “dirty” as their job does imply a certain amount of literal filth.  It could even be because people think that being in the plumbing service is a horrible job to get into for the money, which isn’t the case as plumbers are generally quite well paid. Regardless, the fact remains that licensed plumbers are very useful and society, as a whole, needs them.

Home plumbing

It is actually surprisingly difficult to become a licensed plumber, the United Kingdom version of this title being a Master Plumber, and this is not only due to the United State’s lack of nation-wide federal laws to establish licensing for plumbers.  In fact, becoming a licensed plumber takes over five years of training!  Just think about that the next time you think about your plumber.  After all, five years of job training would be even longer than your average full time college degree if one were to be going to school for their bachelor’s degree.

To become a licensed plumber first one would need to apply to a tech school and research local plumbing companies to see whether or not they are hiring for an opening for an apprentice plumber.  By going to tech school you may have a better chance of working for a larger company.  After that, you would want to work towards your journeyman license, or lic for short, and you would be allowed to work under an actual journeyman until receiving your lic.  Make sure to keep track of hours since most states require 580 hours of school and five years of on-the-job training.  After completing everything else the final challenge would be to pass all the required tests.  If you failed, don’t worry study and try again in six months when you’re once again eligible to take the test.

As you can see, becoming a licensed plumber isn’t as easy as it sounds so think about that next time you need to find a plumber or use your regular plumber services.  Even though it’s difficult to become a plumber, it’s still easy to find plumber services in all areas of the United States.

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Finding a good handyman might not be the toughest part of the job.  Figuring out if he’s as good as you hope is usually the most difficult part!  One common problem is that even with good references, no one is going to keep everyone else happy.  A handyman might do a great job for one family, but fail miserably at someone else’s home.

Here are some simple guidelines to keep in mind when you interview and hire what you hope to be a good handyman:

• Do you like how he communicates with you?  Or does he talk to you in a very condescending manner?
• Did he keep his appointment?  If not, this could become a major problem if he is expected to be there on multiple days.
• When you asked for references, did you check with families where he did similar work to what you need done?  It’s nice to know that the fence he put up for the Richardsons down the street came out better than expected, but that doesn’t mean he can replace your garage door.
• Does he focus on the tasks at hand, or is he on his cell phone iPod all the time?
• Does he bring his own food and thermos with him, or does he just assume you’ll be feeding him?  (This is perfectly OK – many families are more than happy to do this but it needs to be discussed up front.  You don’t want to come home to find out he ate the lasagna you were saving for dinner.)
• Does he seem to be running into problems that he shouldn’t be?  If he is hanging draperies and realizes he forgot his electric drill, that’s just plain inexcusable.
• If he is doing work outside, does he clean his feet before coming inside?  Or does he get mud all over your floors?
• When he showed up to start work, did he take precautions to prevent making any more of a mess than necessary?  Did he put down drop cloths?  Did he wipe up spills and vacuum if needed?

Of course, above all else, did he do what you hired him to, and did you like what he did?  Did the job come out the way you envisioned, for the price he estimated (unless of course there were problems that he told you about as things progressed and they weren’t his fault)?

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All too often when it comes time to try to hire a local handyman, we are in a rush.  Things have been let go and now suddenly there is no more time – projects needs to be done soon before the house just about falls in around you.

When it gets to the “mission critical” point, we tend to act out of desperation rather than logic.  What happens?  We make assumptions that lead to bad judgments, and these bad decision usually result in inaccurate bids, miscommunication, poor planning, no written work agreement, and plenty of unforeseen problems all around.

To avoid problems and confusion – no matter what kind of emergency you are having – you need to not only put something in writing, but there are key elements that should be addressed no matter how simple you think the project will be.

1. Make sure a written estimate details the exact work you want done.  Don’t make any assumptions like, “Well, I know he means…”.   He doesn’t.  Clarify!
2. Have a definite start and finish date.
3. If the project isn’t going to finish on time, then what?  Don’t put yourself in a position where the kitchen still needs one wall painted and it’s a week overdue.  Decide how YOU want to handle a situation like this.  It usually entails a reduction in the overall price for the job.
4. Know ahead of time who is providing all supplies.  If the estimate says “paint bathroom white” you don’t want to assume the handyman is showing up with his own white paint.
5. What about any damage he might cause?  No matter how small a job is, all sorts of problems can occur.  His truck tires can rip up your front lawn, or he tracks the white paint all over your marble floors and leaves it there.  If he has no insurance (most freelancers don’t!), you need to figure out how damage will be repaired.
6. How will unforeseen problems be handled?  For instance, if he is patching some dry wall and he discovers mold – what then?
7. If he injures himself on your property – which is not out of the question! – this could be a major problem.   Have him sign a waiver so that he can’t sue you for accidents incurred on the job.  (Of course, if your dog bites him, that’s a different story!)
8. How will you handle additional expenses?  If he runs out of paint can he go buy more or does he wait for you to do it?
9. Who supplies all the tools?  Not all handymen have a complete tool set.
10. Payment! He wants to know when you plan on paying him, and that’s only fair.  Will he be paid no matter what, when the job is done?  What if he does a lousy job and you need to have it redone?  Outline all this!

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