This is the fourth post in a series about our front-yard water line emergency that occupied much of the Thanksgiving holiday week.
Our plumber returned today with digging and trenching tools. The yard dig is on!
Here’s what digging for a new water line looks like:
I’m quite satisfied with my choice of plumber – Top Gun Plumbing located in Bothell, WA is great. I hope people in the Puget Sound area trying to find a good plumber find this post and give them a call.
Here’s why I chose Top Gun:
- Quick response times over the phone – even if I had to wait for a call back, I never waited more than a few minute. Also, I was able to get an in person estimate at 9am the next day after calling the previous afternoon
- The over-phone-estimate was accurate
- They are minimizing the mess that is inevitable when digging trenches in the yard by using tarps and boards to protect unaffected parts of the lawn
- They came in $4200 under my highest bidder for the job (YOW!)
- They got a permit for the work and the job will be inspected when complete – of the three plumbers I contacted, they were the only team to mention permits
- They had the utilities marked – again, the only plumber to mention utility markings
- The usual goodies: licenses, bonds, insurances, all the stuff to show they’re pros and not just some random guys with a painted truck
- Top Gun is one of my favorite movie soundtracks OF ALL TIME (yeah, I grew up in the 80s… :) )
When choosing a contractor for a big job, always consider the whole package:
- Are they timely with responses?
- Are they on time to the job site?
- Do numbers they quote seem reasonable?
- Can you actually read what they write on your estimate? You don’t want ambiguities here.
- Do they explain stuff? Ask 1st grader questions – if you’re shelling out thousands of dollars, you get to ask 1st grader questions.
- If your project requires digging, do they seem eager to “play by the rules” with permits and utility marks? Waiting on a permit and utility marks did not add wait time to the job, and Top Gun coordinated everything. All I had to do was pay – perfect.
If you’re not sure what’s a reasonable cost, get more estimates and search for your job on Google. Doing this saved me $4200, do not skip this step!
It takes time to get multiple estimates and explain your problem repeatedly, and I am just as guilty of skipping the “get multiple estimates” step, but on these bigger jobs the grind pays off: you will get a wide range of professionalism and costs, even among pros with high marks on Yelp and Angie’s List.