Finding the Best Plumber
As we always say, you can never know when a plumbing problem will find you. Plumbing problems come out when they are least expected. Even a simple pipe leak can cause massive damage to the property and cost a lot of money for a house owner or a business owner. Some small, easy-to-fix problems might be no big issue for some handy folk. But if you are not one of them or you have more significant plumbing issues, you need to find a decent plumber, preferably the best plumber or the best plumbing company. It is not an easy task.
Of course, you would want a skilled plumber, like a local professional plumber company worker. You need to be sure that an incompetent plumber wouldn’t spend your time and wouldn’t take your money without giving you a decent service and reliable repair after all. So, here we are giving you the best tips to find the best plumber or the best plumbing company.
How to Find the Best Plumber or the Best Plumbing Company
First of all, use your contacts. We talked about this before, one of the first sources of information you should use when it comes to finding a service provider is the people you know. It must be impossible for one to have no friends or relatives who had experienced a plumbing problem in the past. Call or text people you know and ask if they can recommend a good local plumber and ask why they think it is the best plumber. Additionally, you can ask about the experience they had with the best plumber they told you about, and the cost paid for the service they got.
Other than your friends and family, other people’s experiences are also useful for finding the best plumbing company. You can research through the user-review websites to see some comments about your local plumbing companies. Yes, most of the time, these comments are not detailed and trustable as you can get from your friends. However, they would serve you well as they can be rich in numbers. And a tiny, exceptional detail which is written only by a single customer on a website can affect your final decision.
You should select at least three “best plumber” options out of all the referrals you get from your family, your friends and the websites you found. While choosing these three plumber companies, consider options which got recommended by multiple people first.
Describe your need to the best plumber or a local plumbing company
Decide what you need as a service. If you can describe what you need to the local plumbing companies when you call them, your local plumbers can give you an accurate quote. Also, while some plumbing companies offer all the plumbing services including maintenance, installation, and repair, some other plumbing companies might be specialized in certain services. The second type can provide you with a better service if your needs match with their specialty. Try to learn about this kind of specialties of plumbing companies or the plumbers when you call the companies.
Make your best plumber search calmly
Don’t make your plumber research an emergency task. If there were one mistake in finding the best plumber, it would be picking it in a rush. While the stress of the plumbing problem in your property on you cannot take your time to compare your options. And if you give the job to the first plumbing company you find, there can be a lot of factors that might make you regret. They might be expensive, there might be hidden costs, their service quality might be quite low. So, try not to delay your plumbing needs until they become disasters. If you know that a pipe is leaking, even though it is manageable, start your research on finding the best plumber. This way, you can call them early and save some cost of possible, incoming damages on top of the rushing decision regrets.
Even when the plumbing problem came without warning, working with the first plumber you find should be a way you avoid every time. As we told you earlier, even in an emergency, you should stay calm, turn off the valves in your home and start calling the people you know and do your research online.
How to Find the Best Plumber on the Internet
The trick of finding the best local plumber on the internet is the usage of the right keywords. Even though search engines would know your location mostly, you should always add the name of your area in your keywords along with the service you think you will need. For example; let’s say you live in Manhattan, and you have a clogged toilet, you can search a query like “Unclog toilet Manhattan” or something similar. While doing these online searches, give attention to customer reviews more than advertising content. However, don’t forget that your local plumbing companies can fake some comments and reviews. For that possibility, you can be picky about the negative aspects of the customer reviews. If they criticize the company in some negative aspects, it is probably a legit review. You can choose the least criticized plumbing companies for your needs.
Nowadays, big companies like Amazon or Google are working on online services for finding certain service companies such as plumbing. If you use Google for your searches, you will probably see some suggestions in your results. The truth is, those “suggested plumbing companies” in your search results are mostly paid ads. This means that they are not necessarily the bests of your local plumbing companies. They can be suggested just by paying some amount of money, even if they give awful services. However, this doesn’t mean that they are not the bests eighter. Those suggestions can be useful for being a starting point for your researches. If they are spending some money to be there and they paid more money than others, perhaps they have a lot of customers to cover the ad cost. So, keep these suggested local plumbing companies in your mind but before deciding that they are indeed good, look for some customer reviews about them in third-party websites.
Remember the insurance aspect of the subject
After creating a list of candidate plumbers, call your insurance company and ask which companies out of your list are working with them. This information will be useful in the future as well. If one of the options is giving services covered by your insurance, they would automatically get some points in your research. Since we are trying to find the best local plumber you can work you will work with them possibly a lot of times, and it will be costly when you pay for all even if they are inexpensive.
You may also want to read this related article: How Can I Plan My Bathroom?
With the filtered and scored list in your hand, call the companies one by one. Of course, don’t give the job to any of them in your first calls. At this conversation, there are some details you should ask the answering member of the company. First, ask if you can talk to a plumber. Most of the time plumbers themselves can give you more information about the service. Tell them about the detail of your needs and ask them how long it would take to do the job. Then ask about their hourly labor rates and the estimated cost you will pay in the current problem you have including the materials and spare parts. You can note these prices on your list if you want.
Also, you might ask them about the experience amount they have on the topic and if they have any license. The licenses they have can be considered as signs of their expertise in the relative areas. You would want to know about them.
Learn their working systems
Lastly, ask if they have any membership system or a discount method for returning customers. If you decide to work with them, you will benefit from that kind of discount. So, this is also a factor that should affect your final decision. At the end of your conversation ask for their final quote and end the call. Some plumbing companies can resist giving a quote on the phone, and they can tell you that they need to examine the situation in your house. It is normal and acceptable. On-location quotes are always more accurate and safe. It would take more time, but it is worthwhile.
Finally, compare the companies after you got all the information you need. Be careful about the details being comparable, by this I mean, don’t filter out any plumber just because one of their services is expensive than “another” service of another plumber. The overall value of the plumber you think is expensive might be higher in the end. By marking the best in every different aspect such as cost, repair time, work weekend, expertise and other factors you care you can give some scores to the plumbing companies in your list and find the best ones of all.
Ok, that is it. If you follow our instructions here, you should be able to find the best plumber out of your local plumbing companies. We hope that you find this guide helpful. And hopefully, in the end, you will be satisfied with the local plumber you decide to work with.
You may also want to read this: Before You Call a 24-Hour Plumber