Has your do-it-yourself plumbing repair taken a turn for the worse?

Perhaps its time to call a certified and experienced plumbing technician to help come and save the day.. and the key words I must stress in this sentence are “certified and “experienced” !!!

So you’ve made the call to a plumbing company. You have checked their ratings with the Better Business Bureau, done all your home work on the company. You intuitively feel that your comfortable with having the plumbing company over to do your repair.

Make sure before your certified plumber starts your job that you understand clearly what the scope of work entails.

YIKES…You don’t want a situation like that ! or like this:

Some other points you will need to know are:

1. How long will it take to do the work? As much as we love our plumbers, do we really need them to become temporary house guests?

2. The price of the work? What work does this price include and does not include?

3. You should also have a written quotation or invoice which details the scope of work that is going to be done.

DON’T be afraid to ask as many questions as you need too. You should also do a walk-through before and after with your Vancouver plumber . Make sure that you both are on the same page and there are no miscommunications.

Good Luck to everyone in any future plumbing repairs you may encounter !

Oh and Tomorrow June 13th is GAME 6 of the Stanley Cup finals.. LETS BRING HOME THE STANLEY CUP !! GO VANCOUVER CANUCKS GO !!

Whether your hiring a plumber, roofer, carpenter or mover, its important to be a smart consumer and research the company you are going to hire.

Here are some reliable review website’s that ensure truthful reviews from real customers:

• The first and most important place to start is the Better Business Bureau. Here is the site for Vancouver and The Lower Mainland: http://mbc.bbb.org/find-business-reviews/ I always find if I google the keywords “BBB and the location”, that will bring up the BBB you are looking for. There are certain standards that the BBB holds in the marketplace and the businesses that belong to the BBB hold these high standards. The BBB maintains a level of trust and honesty in the marketplace, so be a smart shopper and start with the BBB first.

• Home Stars: http://homestars.com Here you can find customer reviews on home service trades. The founder actually made this website, because she herself found it challenging finding the right contractors. Home Stars is very secure, I once tried adding a review from one of our customers, and it actually tracks your IP address and my review was rejected as they had my IP address recorded under Papa Plumbing. So there is definitely no false reviews or contractors putting up their own reviews. This is what Home Stars says: “We’re rigorous about ensuring that reviews are real and provide substantive information about the job and the quality of the work such that others can learn from the information provided. We are constantly improving our review verification process to ensure we have only high quality reviews on the site. Business owners are also free to respond to both positive and negative reviews, demonstrating their openness to feedback and improving their service”.
  

• Yelp: www.yelp.ca Yelp has over 50 million users and over 18 million local reviews. They are also members themselves of the BBB and maintain an “A” rating. I often check out reviews on Yelp for local eating spots. They have a smart phone app, which makes it easy to look up reviews when your on the go.
  

• Gigpark: http://www.gigpark.com/. This review website is powered by Canpages. Its also very user-friendly to use and offers real reviews from real consumers.
  

I also found using the FourSquare app or site: https://foursquare.com/ also helps. If you are at a place, you can read tips that previous consumers have left.

When you google the company, there is also a place on Google Maps which allows you to see reviews for that particular company. This also can be useful when hiring a contractor.

Its also important to realize that contractors sometimes do get negative reviews from consumers. Not all businesses are perfect! But its how the company reacts to those negative reviews that counts. Has the company taken that extra care to respond to complaints on these review sites? Did the business make a honest effort to resolve the issues? How long has the company been in business? The BBB report does a great job of outlining the company profile and complaint history. I am attaching a copy of our BBB report so you can see what it looks like and how easy it is to understand.

I am sure there are many more websites that offer great reviews, please feel free to leave comments below on any websites I have missed.

Wishing everyone success in their quest to find a contractor that suits your needs and budget. It is advisable to get 3 quotes when hiring a contractor, and of course be a smart shopper and do your research …

oh I almost forgot: GO CANUCKS GO !!