Translating…
If you have already ensured that your plumbing is properly installed, maintained, ventilated, and upgraded, the chances are that you already have an excellent plumbing service. However, if you haven’t taken these precautions, you may be in the market for a new plumber. Even if you have, you don’t want to ignore any potential problems and leave yourself unprotected. Wherever you live, having a good plumbing service is important.
If you need some help on narrowing down services, you’ve come to the right place. Most likely, your home is covered by a variety of plumbers operating out of different areas. If you live in a big city, there could be as many as 20 areas covered by a single contractor! Don’t just limit your search to the immediate area around your house. Have a look around and see which contractors cover which areas and go from there.
When you are calling up plumbers, treat it as if you are interviewing a candidate for a job. In reality, this is what you are actually doing. Feel free to ask about their strengths and weaknesses, try to throw them off and see how they react. Are they going to get argumentative or temperamental with you? This could be portents of things to come.
Finding a plumbing contractor that provides emergency plumbing services will be in your interest as well. Make sure that they are available, day or night, to meet your plumbing needs. Just about every plumber out there claims to be an emergency plumber but not all of them truly are, so if you can check up with any references they have and see if they’ve needed to use them in an emergency situation before. Remember, a pipe could burst in the middle of the night, letting it flood your house for up to 8 hours before your plumber can get to it is going to cost you a fortune in water damages.
Remember to talk with your friends, neighbors, and co-workers and see if they have a plumber that they prefer above all others. If you’re not sure of anyone personally you can also ask them to see if anyone they know might have a plumber to recommend. Recommendations are great, and who knows, you or your friend might get a discount out of it!
Checking out online reviews is a good way to qualify plumbers as well. If you’re really looking to pinch pennies, some contractors might be willing to cut you a deal if you agree to leave them some really glowing reviews to help them bring in more customers. Ask them about maintenance plans, referrals, any promotional deals they might have going. Mostly you are looking to see how well they communicate, and how involved they are with their business.
Finally, make sure you take your search to the social media networks, if you use them. Make a post asking if anyone has ever had to use a plumber in your area and if they can recommend someone to you. Be careful though as the online world is not the same as in person, so people can recommend others without knowing fully if they are truly the best choice.
Once you do locate a plumber and have a decent chat with them, if they’re rude, disrespectful, or unresponsive, move on. Make it known up front that you do your research and keep an eye on customer relations for services that you hire. This will let them know that if they do a shoddy job or ignore you, you have the know-how to post up some bad reviews that may seriously impact their business. This may sound rude or extreme but it is a good way to ensure that you are hiring someone that plans on standing behind their services. After all, if you put this sort of attitude up with a plumbing contractor that isn’t a real professional they may simply back off before they cause you problems.
If you need to have a plumber out sooner than later, for instance if you have a leaking faucet or a clogged sink you should call them out as quickly as you can. Make sure you go over with them exactly what the problem is and double-check that you know what they are going to do. They should be providing you with a written estimate detailing the job and associated costs. Some plumbers will try to upsell in a very aggressive manner, if you run into someone like that a good idea to stay away and find yourself another plumber – you can only be sure to run into more upselling as this plumber tries to squeeze ever last penny out of you.
Good luck, and when you do find a good plumber you better hold onto their phone number. When someone asks you if you know of a plumber, you can be the one to make their search easier!