Maybe you’ve finally had it with that drippy faucet. Or slow-running drain. Or balky toilet.
Or maybe it’s more urgent: Your dishwasher flooded the kitchen, or there’s an ominous water stain on the ceiling directly beneath the upstairs bathroom.
Whether it’s routine or an emergency, you need to find a good plumber. Our ratings of outfits will steer you to plumbers who do fantastic work but won’t soak you with high prices.
Several of the plumbing outfits evaluated were rated “superior” overall by 90 percent or more of their surveyed customers. But for other companies, many customer reviews included words like “overcharged,” “unprofessional,” “incompetent,” “rude,” “messy,” “no-show,” and “dishonest.” Some companies were rated “superior” by fewer than 60 percent of their surveyed customers.
We found companies vary both in service quality and price. When our undercover shoppers collected prices for the same routine jobs, some plumbers quoted fees that were dramatically higher than others; some quoted prices for the exact same work that were three times higher than their competitors’.
Fortunately, you can hire a lower-priced plumber who provides top-quality service—we found that the companies that received the highest ratings in our surveys of consumers were just as likely to charge low prices as the not-so-great ones.
If you need repairs, explain over the phone exactly what’s wrong, and ask the company how it computes its charges. If possible, obtain a price quote over the phone. Confirm this information with the plumber upon arrival.
For installation and remodeling jobs, be sure to get multiple bids—for large projects you may save thousands of dollars by getting just a handful of prices.
