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

Just a quick reminder, there is hope even though the newspapers and TV don’t talk about it much, there is community even though the Internet gets bigger every day, and there are a lot of people out there who are working really hard to bring change.  Thank you all for your support through the last year, and we look forward to another year of helping you take care of your homes and serving our community together.  See you soon!

From all of us at O’Connell Plumbing!!!!  

Promised I’d follow up with info about “free” estimates, so this is my take on “free” after over 45 years in this industry.  Originally, even as late as the 1960’s, the plumbing union held sway.  They trained and dispatched plumbers to all shops, so there was a pretty even base of talented plumbers no matter whose business you called for service.  With such a dynamic in place, you actually could price shop with every confidence in having a well-trained individual come to your home … and one you could trust because the union saw to that.

Then, speakin’ only for California, when the union lost the residential side of plumbing because of the “right to work” laws and the ease of getting a sub-contracting license, almost anyone could call themselves a “plumber” and set up shop.  And it gets worse.  In our state, there is no test, no license, and no regulation at all for “plumbing” employees.  Hey, a biz can hire a person who worked at a hardware store for a week and LEGALLY send them to your home when you call for a plumber. 

Okay, okay I’m gettin’ to the “free” estimates part.  With all the slack laws in place to allow such a problem to exist, what I consider un-ethical employers could now pay their people as cheaply as possible, refuse to invest in training, offer no medical insurance whatsoever, so could afford to come to your home and give you “free” estimates.  These folks can’t pay for background checks, drug testing, training, and don’t even look too hard at the history of any dude or dudette who say they can turn a wrench.  And just for your info, teaching the “trades” is the number one educational “benefit” taught in prisons — San Quentin included. 

So there’s your “free”.  There’s the profile of many companies that come to your home for “free”, and there’s the profile of the individual you are allowing into your home to give you that “free” estimate.  If this is the company you want in your home — well, good luck, because you might need it.

What’s the alternative?  O’Connell Plumbing, Inc. – Diamond certified; Green Screened; PHCC trained; Green Plumber’s, USA accredited.  Want more? Just phone and ask.

Ed O

Why do we charge a diagnostic fee?  The bottom line is a professional company cannot afford to pay a professional plumber to drive to your home, diagnose your problem, and quote prices.  Just can’t be done — and they’ve got families to feed.  Plus, do you really want some half-trained, half-professional, half-caring non-professional individual to show up at your front door?  That happens more than not when things are “free”.  Yeah, free — so is lunch!

The part for you and I as consumers that comes into play is how do we afford multiple service or diagnostic fees if we’d like to have different companies look at our problem?  The simple answer is to call a company you can trust from the gitgo.  Well, “Duh!” you say, but that’s where our company and Diamond Certified come into play.  Go to our home page and follow the Diamond Certified connection under the Plumbing Category.  (There are other plumbing companies listed in D.C. but they’re locations are in Heating or Sewers … enough said?)  Anyway, in a couple of clicks you can find out what hundreds, if not thousands, of customers have said about us over the years.  Oh yeah, one more little note: ALL of the money you “invest” with us stays in Marin.  We’re a local, home-grown company so you don’t pay extra for franchise or licensing fees that head out of state.  I mean, California needs every penny spent in California to stay in California.

I’ll explain how you can still get “free” estimates in another post to follow. 

Posted by ‘ol Ed