Plumbers Who Won't Drain Your Wallet

Need a plumber you can count on? Here are 24 of the best in the Chicago area

By Robert Krughoff

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Try jiggling the handle! Or plunge with more gusto! Can the misuse of drain opener cause blindness? Some problems just can't be solved without professional help, and some can cost a stiff price to fix. With luck, most homeowners don't see a plumber often. But a good one who bails you out in a crisis won't be forgotten.

"It sounded like a minor explosion," remembers Joshua Kriner, a Glen Ellyn resident, after his ancient water heater—he had recently moved into an older home—blew out. Kriner called one plumber who quoted a steep $950 for a new heater plus installation. Not only was quote number two ($700) from Lombard-based D'Andrea Plumbing a better deal, but the company's owner himself came to do the job. "I'm sure that won't be the last plumbing work we'll need, so it's great to have found D'Andrea," Kriner says.

The nonprofit magazine Chicago Consumers' Checkbook hears plenty of happy reports on plumbers: "Very prompt and price is very reasonable"; "Follow through on everything"; "I tell everyone to use them. They are great." But in evaluating 199 plumbers throughout the area and poring over more than 8,000 customer surveys (see the note on methodology), Checkbook all too often comes across complaints such as "dishonest," "incompetent," "rude," "messy," "no-show," and "overpriced"—the latter, often the real stickler.

When Checkbook's shoppers got hundreds of prices on plumbing jobs in order to compare Chicago-area plumbers, the shoppers found big price differences: To install a specific model of an A. O. Smith 50-gallon water heater, area plumbers' prices ranged from $616 to $1,130. To install a specific model of an InSinkErator garbage disposal, prices ranged from $175 to $514.

Price differences are much larger on big remodeling jobs. For the plumbing work on a bathroom remodeling job, it is not unusual to find prices ranging from $4,000 to $7,000 for exactly the same work.

As Checkbook finds with many kinds of service, there is no relationship between price and quality. You can get top-quality work at reasonable prices. The list on page 105 includes 24 plumbers that not only rate high on quality of service but also have roughly average or below-average rates. For example, Thompson Plumbing, in Willowbrook, was rated "superior" overall by 94 percent of the 49 Checkbook magazine and Consumer Reports subscribers Checkbook surveyed and also had prices that averaged 10 percent lower than the average company's for the jobs Checkbook's undercover shoppers checked. The key to getting top-quality work at a reasonable price is to choose a plumber carefully. But you also need to deal carefully with whichever ones you consider. The strategies for remodeling jobs are different from those for repair jobs, so be sure to check out more tips on updating the entire bathroom versus tackling that flooding toilet.

Photograph: Erica Dufour