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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