Finding a Good Plumber

I never realized how important plumbing was to a household until I moved out and got a place of my own. Now, while the plumbing in a home may not go bad and need to be worked on every day of the week, when it does need that work, chances are it needs to be done quickly. The main problem when this happens is not that the work has to be done, but that since it is a crisis or emergency situation you are afraid that you are going to be taken advantage of by the plumber when he gets over to work on your situation.

There are ways and methods that a person can help protect themselves from being held at the point of a leaking pipe. With some simple advanced planning and a little work before the crisis, you are going to be able to save a bundle when the crisis actually does hit. Here is how you can find a good plumber, before you actually need one.

• Paid Advertising. When looking for an inexpensive plumber you want to avoid using the yellow pages if at all possible. Yellow Page adds are fairly expensive, and the larger the ad, the more money that was spent by the plumber for running it. That cost has to be recouped somewhere. If you can, take advantage of your local newspaper directory, similar to the help wanted section, and go with one of those.
• Free Advertising. One of the best ways to find a good plumber is to ask around. This is called word of mouth and typically provides the most accurate type of information to the potential customer. When a person has a bad experience with a particular company they are likely to tell between 5 and 10 others about it, where as if they have had a good experience, then they are likely to tell about 5 others.
• Company Size. Believe it or not, the best plumbing companies to go with are the small owner operated ones, if you are only looking for initial cost that is. The reason for this is that since they are self employed, many states do not require them to pay worker's compensation which translates to large savings for both them and you.
• Commission. Try to stay away from companies that charge, or plumbers that receive, a commission. The reason for this is simple when you stop and think that the plumber is paid by receiving roughly 30% of everything that they charge. Simply stated, if they want to make money, they are going to have to charge you more.