Plumbing pricing models get a lot of scrutiny from consumers like yourself, and they should. Lately, the biggest plumbing price trend has been a movement towards flat rate pricing and away from charges based on time, materials and the equipment your plumber uses for your repairs.
We’ve kept to the time-and-materials pricing model for all but a few predictable installations, including tank-type water heaters and garbage disposals. We’ve resisted the fixed price model in all of the less predictable, far more common plumbing repairs like that dripping faucet, that leaking sink or that drain clog that suddenly affects more fixtures than the last time. Those fixes, the majority of our plumbing service calls, are where we’ve kept the time-and-materials pricing model. We’ve kept that model because we believe it is in your interests, and because we believe that what is most fair for the customer and what’s most fair for our business too.
There’s a few reasons we believe this model serves you best as a customer.
You pay for the plumbing work actually being performed.
When plumbers charge a flat rate price, you pay the same for labor whether that repair you need takes one hour, or three, or half the day. In skilled hands, and we believe our plumbers have the most skillful hands, most repairs take a shorter time than most customers imagine. Don’t pay a three-hour-bill for an hour-and-a-half repair.
Don’t subsidize another customer’s larger plumbing job.
Get the plumbing work you pay for without subsidizing what other customers get done.
When you call up Really Big Plumbing Corp. and schedule that hour-and-a-half plumbing job, but you end up paying the same as the person who scheduled that three-and-a-half hour job. You’re helping to pay for that other repair. You’re helping to keep that other person’s bill for labor lower, and you’re doing it by paying too much for what you need.
Even that larger plumbing repair, the one where you think the repair is coming at a flat rate bargain, might not be the bargain it looks like. Your flat-rate-plumber might just have more incentive to hurry through the job than to do the thorough, thoughtful plumbing job you deserve. When we’re done with a job sooner than expected, it’s due to efficiency on the part of your service tech and a little caution on the part of the scheduler. It’s never because anyone was less than thorough.
The way a good plumber proceeds through the job is an argument against flat rate labor pricing. A good plumber, a thorough one, doesn’t just repair a problem. Before that, your plumber often has to diagnose the problem. The apparent plumbing problem and the actual plumbing problem might be very different things.
You don’t want a plumber who’s potentially rewarded for fixing the apparent problem and leaving that problem’s real cause untouched, perhaps not even having looked for it. Instead, call the time-and-materials plumber. Call the plumber who knows it is in your interest and his to be thorough and thoughtful enough to fix both the problem and all its visible symptoms. That’s the plumber who’ll do it efficiently enough that you save money by not hiring the plumber who only fixes the visible problems.
That part about treating both the plumbing problem and the plumbing problem’s symptoms also touches on another part of every service call performed by every conscientious plumber, diagnosing the source, the real cause, of the problem your plumber is fixing. Your plumber’s diagnostic talent is as much a part of his tool box as his wrenches or a drain snake. Just as you wouldn’t want to pay for a plumber who might only repair the symptoms of a larger problem, you also do want a plumber who will make certain to find any larger systemic problem and fix it. The plumber who charges you time-and-materials has good reason to use all of his skills, both intellectual and mechanical, to fix your plumbing problem.
You are absolutely right to look for the best price for plumbing work. You are absolutely right to look for the best quality of plumbing work. Calling on the plumber for whom you and your plumbing problem are more than a repair on a price sheet is the best way to get the quality plumbing you should expect. You’ll get that quality, because we want you to call us again when you need to. Our service techs don’t delay plumbing repairs. They have too much to do. When that’s the plumbing repair you want, call us at 1-352-728-6053 and get your plumbing repair scheduled.