Marin's Best Plumber 2010!!!

Just a quick thank you to everyone who voted for us in the Pacific Sun’s annual Best of Marin Contest.   We are here to serve our community, and your votes are the ones that count.  Thank you to all our loyal customers, friends and family who support us and our families!  Without you there would be no us!  See you soon!

You can check out the rest of the winners here Pacific Sun\’s 2010 Best of Marin

Posted by: Paul Guzman G.M.

With the recent earthquakes worldwide, we at O’Connell Plumbing felt it was our obligation as plumbers to highlight one of the best ways to safeguard your home.  You may not know this, but the natural gas you use every day in your home, is the #1 cause of earthquake related death and damages.  Broken gas lines that are not shut off, cause fire and explosions, which end up being responsible for around 85% of the actual destruction that occurs.  We felt it was vital to let people know there is a simple way to protect their homes, and we also wanted to use this as an opportunity to help those less fortunate in any way we could. 

So here is what we decided to do. First, we are letting you all know that the best way to protect your home and family in the event of an earthquake is to have an “Automatic Emergency Gas Shutoff” installed at the gas meter on your home.  These will turn off the gas to your entire residence if it senses a quake with a magnitude of 5.4 or greater.  This will save your home from any gas related fires if you are not there, or possibly save you and your family if you are trapped inside. (Yes we install these.) Second, we are going to give $25 to our local “Habitat For Humanity” (They just recently started working in Marin County.) every time we install an “Automatic Emergency Gas Shutoff” for one of our customers.

Now, you may ask, why Habitat for Humanity?  What about Haiti, or Chile?  Originally, we were going to send the money to the other countries, but then a wiser, older friend asked, “What have you done for your local community lately?”   And, sure, on an individual level, the people who work here all give of their time on their own, whether through their church, or local groups, or schools, but what has O’Connell Plumbing done lately?  Sadly, the answer is not as much as we should.  So we decided that the money we give from our “Earthquake Valves” should stay here and help the families that need it on a local level.  We are also putting together a program where all of our plumbers will be available to help on Habitat For Humanity projects throughout the county.

Normally our Earthquake Valves are $811 (That includes all taxes, parts, labor, and standard ¾” installation.) and our Elsie’s Club Members get them for $689.  But in an effort to protect as many of our neighbors as possible, for the rest of the year we are going to offer our Elsie’s Club price of $689 to everyone, and give our Elsie’s Club Members another %10 off for a total of $620, and of course, donating $25 of the proceeds from each valve to Habitat for Humanity.

We look forward to working with all of you in the future, making our community a better and safer place to live.  See you soon!

Posted By: Paul Guzman

Jun 24, 2009

I’ve not done this bloggin’ before so bear with me as this old(er) dude launches hizelf into the 21st century … not that I’m about to do any twitterin’ or the like.

I was so sick and tired of hearing the word “Green” applied to stuff like, “This broom is a green product because it is human-powered and cleans your home without using electricity” that I almost passed up the real opportunity to be of green service in the plumbing industry when it came along.  Thankfully, I did not — enter ”Green Plumbers, USA”, an offshoot of ”Green Plumbers, Australia”.   

Skeptical at first, I decided to attend one of their trainings in Sacramento, California to see for myself what they were all about and found they were the real deal.  Subsequently, I made the investment of time and $ to attended 1 more workshop in Sacramento and 3 more in Las Vegas.  What I learned literally shook me, and made me glad I’d not fallen in to that old trap of “contempt before investigation”. 

Bloggin’ should be short, so for now I’ll simply say I had only the vaguest impressions about the connection between water use and energy.  If I was surprised to find our local Marin County water districts were the heaviest users of electricity in our area then I could only imagine that most of my clients did not know this either.  Add the fact I did not know these water districts sent water meter readings to the various sanitary districts so they could tax us accordingly and I knew I had found a new passion — Green Plumbing. 

I am now embarked on the attempt to educate the folks I do business with about the positive aspects of green plumbing – even if it’s just one service call at a time.  With 6 guys workin’ in the field, visiting an average of 2 or 3 homes a day, that’s 12 to 18 customers every single day, or 90 a week, or … well, you can do the math.  To be brief, I saw that finally I could be of real service to ‘ol Gaia rather than simply give lip service.  That feels good, that’s what I want to do now that I’m not involved with the day to day running of my biz, and that has become my new passion … and without passion life’s relegated to bein’ simply a bit of a bore. 

Best,

Ed