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Tips for finding a good plumber and what to look for in a bid. Finding a good plumbing expert shouldn’t be an overwhelmingly hard job but unfortunately it can be. Where do you start? Using the yellow pages used to be the only option unless you knew someone who knew a good plumber and even that was hit and miss. Today it is a little easier to find a prescreened plumber without paying for an expensive service to do the screening process for you. Call it a little taste of luxury for the common folk. Today with consumer based web sites like Angie’s List for example, that are driven by consumer need it is almost too easy to find someone good at plumbing. By reading the consumer written reviews both good and bad it is easy to eliminate plumbers who don’t make the grade and pick three or four to interview for a bigger job or simply do a brief phone interview with and hire for a smaller job. If you’re hiring a plumber for a bigger job make sure to get a written bid that spells out very clearly the cost of labor and the cost for materials. The materials your plumber ends up using need to be as high quality as you can afford to go with. Using cheap materials is one way to guarantee a job that won’t last as long as you need it to even with the best workmanship possible. The plumber should list out what materials he will be using and the price should be broken down so it’s clear where the money is going. If your plumbing professional hates paperwork and simply gives you a price without the breakdown don’t be too shy to ask for a detailed bid in writing. If something does go wrong at in point in the job your paperwork is the only proof you will have that you paid for and requested the better quality materials. Don’t just select your plumber by his bid price or his personality though. It is important that you can communicate with your plumber especially on big jobs where you will be interacting quite a bit but personality aside you need to make sure you have the highest quality plumber you can afford and the most professional. When you are looking at the bid prices, the breakdown will help you see where the money is going and why the bids are so vastly different. If all of your plumbers are planning to use the same quality of material the price difference will be found in the labor aspect. The lowest bid may not be the best bid. With all things relative out of four bids two will usually fall close to each other and one will be high, one low. The mid range bid is usually the safest especially if it is close to a like bid. Like your mother always said, “You get what you pay for.” So pay attention and get the best plumber possible. Finding a plumbing professional that you can trust can be very difficult. Let someone help you find the right person for the job: http://www.angieslist.com/.
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