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Understanding a Plumber’s Qualifications

Residential Plumbing

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There are a few different ways to assess a plumber’s competency. The most common credentials that a plumber can have is their journeyman’s license or master’s license. To obtain a journeyman’s license, plumbers need a minimum of 4 years field experience and some classroom training. They then must pass a test administered by the state. In order to take the exam for a master’s license, plumbers need to either hold their journeyman’s card for a year or have at least 10 years of practical field experience. Someone who hasn’t obtained a journeyman or master’s license is referred to as an apprentice or just a plumber. (We hire and train apprentices.)

In our company, we have skill levels that go from 1 to 5, which are based on different criteria. These levels are really important to define what someone is competent to do, even though they might have credentials from the state. There are certain tasks that a skill level 5 can do that a skill level 1 cannot do. Most of our skill level 5 people are either journeymen or master plumbers. (We call people who have credentials to go along with their experience senior technicians.) But it’s important for us to acknowledge that just because someone can pass a test doesn’t necessarily mean they are competent to solve all problems. Someone with a journeyman’s card may be at a skill level 3.

We’re very passionate about making sure we send someone who’s completely competent to solve the client’s problem. If a gas water heater is malfunctioning, we’re not going to send a skill level 1 person to that home because they’re likely not competent in that area. That doesn’t mean that we will not send a skill level 5 person to fix a faucet, though, depending on availability. Sometimes certain problems need to be communicated thoroughly and effectively to the homeowner, too. So whoever we send will have competency both technically and in terms of communication skill.

If you have any questions, reach out to the team at Wisler Plumbing & Air by contacting us online or giving us a call at 540-483-9382.

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A plunger is probably the cleanest, most sanitary way to unstop a toilet. However, if the toilet isn’t installed properly, its seal can be compromised by using a plunger. A big red flag is if a toilet keeps getting stopped up weekly or even daily. Frequent clogs are indicative of an issue that needs to be addressed. If the toilet only gets clogged every six months or longer, then it’s probably fine.

Toilet snakes are cable tools used to clear stoppages, but they have to be used with extreme care. Otherwise it’s very easy to scratch the porcelain on the bowl of the toilet. (Professionals generally use toilet snakes instead of plungers.) It’s also possible to actually uninstall the toilet, take it off the floor, bring it outside, and then turn it upside down in a safe area to clear it out.

Most people probably get squeamish about this next part, but if you can see an object in the bowl that shouldn’t be flushed, you can probably remove it before it ends up going down the trap of the toilet. If a toy or foreign object does fall into the toilet bowl, I would highly recommend putting on some rubber gloves, reaching into the toilet, and just getting it out before the problem becomes much worse. Do not flush the toilet to see if it’ll go down, because more than likely it won’t. It’s going to end up getting stuck and you’ll have a much bigger problem to handle.

You can definitely cause damage if you’re not experienced dealing with a toilet. A plunger is the safest, easiest, and most economical thing you can do. If you’ve tried a plunger on a stopped up toilet and it’s just not working, or if you’re using the plunger on a daily or weekly basis, it’s a really good idea to contact a professional. You can always reach out to the team at Wisler Plumbing & Air by contacting us online or giving us a call at 540-483-9382.

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One of the things I always like to mention when talking about utility bills is the word ‘overpayment’. We don’t think about our utility bills most of the time, and when we do, we accept that the utility bill is just what it is. But you may be overpaying much more than what’s necessary for your home. I don’t think any of us likes to overpay, so let’s look at how little issues with our plumbing fixtures could really be costing us each month.

If you pay for water, a dripping faucet—even if it’s just a drop every second—can add up to over 2,000 gallons a year. To get a better idea, there’s actually a pretty cool downloadable app that tells you how much water is being used by tapping your screen with the same timing as the drip. A lot of people don’t know about this, but if a dripping tub or sink faucet is using hot water, your water heater has to fill up and heat however much water is used. One drop per second is about 5 gallons per day. Imagine filling the water heater with 5 gallons of cold water that then has to be heated, even though you’re not actually using it. You’re not just using extra water at this point—you’re having to overpay on your electric or gas bill, too.

When we say a toilet is running, we don’t mean in the literal sense. It just means that the water is continuing to fill up or going into the overflow. A running toilet can use over 10,000 gallons per year, which gets very expensive if you’re paying for your water. Even if you don’t pay for water, a constantly running toilet or dripping faucet can damage the septic system. Septic systems are not made to receive a continuous amount of water. Instead, they’re only made to accept a few gallons at a time from a flushed toilet or from water going down the drain. Constant water will be enough to flood and leech out, or simply saturate the septic system and never give it a chance to dry.

Scale buildup on the water heater (e.g., an electric element with calcium buildup) is another area that causes homeowners to overpay their utility bills. On average, it leads to paying 30% more than what the bill should actually be. If you have one or two of these little plumbing issues going on in your home, you’re going to be overpaying way more on your bill every month. That’s real money you could be saving in your pocket.

We live in an area where energy is priced pretty reasonably, at least when compared to the rest of the country. Conservation might not be as much of a hot topic for us, but it’s definitely something which we should all be aware. I’d recommend people get their plumbing inspected no sooner than once a year, but no less frequently than every 3 years. Every 2 to 3 years is usually a good enough schedule. HVAC systems need to get checked twice a year, though, because they go from hot to cold depending on the season.

Diamond Club members can call to schedule an appointment for these inspections at no charge. Otherwise it will range from $150 to $200 depending on the situation. Our Diamond Club schedule is pretty full right now, so it’s definitely a good idea to call as soon as possible to set up an appointment. Reach out to the team at Wisler Plumbing by contacting us online or calling 540-483-9382.

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I think there are a couple of primary reasons why people are dissatisfied or don’t feel like they got what they wanted from their plumbers. What I’m going to share is based upon my experience in the industry and feedback I’ve received from some of our clients. (Their feedback pertained to both us and other providers.) I don’t want to come across dramatic while addressing this subject, either. We’re not working on the human body and this isn’t brain surgery, so I don’t want to make it sound that way. However, plumbing is really important in ways we might not always consider.

If you have someone come to work on your home’s plumbing system, you shouldn’t minimize the value of hiring a professional. Part of that involves taking the time to make sure all the details are covered. Someone who works on electrical or water in your home could cause a huge amount of damage by causing a water leak or flood. Gas lines or gas water heaters involve carbon monoxide, which can be a silent killer. A sewage backup in your home could cause you to come into contact with disease-ridden waste. The bottom line is, we have to protect the safety and health of homeowners, which should never be underestimated.

A lot of times, though, I think the reason people become disappointed is because of the lack of adequate communication. A lot of homeowners fall short by just leaving the door open for a plumber to take care of a small issue in the home. Even though it might just be a dripping fixture, that kind of thinking can really set the stage for mistakes to happen. We always want to have someone at home if possible when we make a visit. That allows us to make sure we discuss the situation as effectively as possible. We can also ask questions about what’s going on, which is really crucial to resolving the problem correctly on the first visit. After all, nobody wants to have multiple visits from a plumber if it could have been taken care of properly the first time.

I’d recommend that you communicate clear expectations and also make sure the plumber has communicated exactly what results you should expect. As a company, we should explain when we’re on our way to someone’s home, what we found after investigating the situation, and how much everything is going to cost in a straightforward way so that you have no unanswered questions. Clear communication across the board is the most proactive way to prevent disappointment.

Sometimes people in the plumbing industry don’t value training and staying at the cutting edge of innovation. Items like tankless water heaters can be very difficult to diagnose if someone has never had any training with them. Homeowners also might not like paying big dollars for plumbing, and therefore might choose someone who charges less. (The trades are not inexpensive if you hire a qualified professional.) But I highly recommend against spending a couple of hundred dollars for someone who’s likely to do the job incorrectly. Not only will this lead to dissatisfaction, but it will end up costing twice as much in the long run when you throw your money into the wind.

If you have any questions or you want to work with the team at Wisler Plumbing & Air, contact us today or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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The most important thing for us to do as a company is make sure the right person goes to the right call. Everyone loses when that doesn’t happen. If we send a technician who doesn’t have the relevant competency out to someone’s home, they will be frustrated because they struggled to complete the task. The client is going to be very frustrated, too, because their concern was not efficiently resolved. Time is very important to everyone, so if we have to go back to do something twice, it’s absolutely no fun for anybody involved. We’re very much keyed-in to trying to get the right tech on the right job so these things don’t end up happening.

It can be very challenging to pull this off sometimes, though, because we may not fully understand the issue that we’re sending someone out for. Sometimes we’re making educated guesses about what potentially could be going on, so we have to compensate when we’re assigning the job to a technician. We also have a lot of technicians who specialize in a certain area. For instance, our plumbing technicians don’t cross over to HVAC and vice-versa. Our maintenance technicians specialize in maintenance and are not service technicians.

We always look at the skill level of the technician and the skill level required for the actual task being requested and try to match them up. That way we can divvy out jobs and tasks to the individuals who are specialized in those areas. If they do a specific kind of task day in and day out, they’re going to be much better at it than someone who might run three HVAC calls, four plumbing calls, and a couple of water treatment calls every week. If a technician was constantly doing different tasks, they’d never find a groove. We think the best strategy is to have specialties within our techs so we can field the right person for the job.

We also look at the priority of the call. For instance, no-heat calls and no-water calls are very important and generally are given a higher priority over a dripping sink faucet. We also give priority to our Diamond Club family members as one of the benefits of the program. When one of our Diamond Club family members calls in for service or maintenance, we try to give them priority over someone who isn’t a Diamond Club family member.

We have a role in our company that is entirely dedicated to dispatching technicians. Kresta is our dispatcher here, and she has a couple of people who back her up while she’s away. (She’s been with us for about 7 or 8 years now.) She’s very capable of getting a handle of any situation and knowing how to match a technician’s skillset with the task. The dispatcher’s role is ultimately to get the right call to the right tech as the calls come in.

If you have any questions, reach out to us today by giving us a call at 540-483-9382. You can also request an appointment online if you’d like to get a technician out to your home for plumbing or HVAC maintenance or repair.

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Pricing is one of the more important topics for our clients. Sometimes it even causes us to have a strong emotional response. I think we could all agree that whenever we’re making a choice, especially if there’s money attached to it, we do a better job if there’s not too much emotion influencing our judgement. That’s one of the fundamental ways I think Straightforward Pricing helps our clients. Aside from removing complexity, it results in better decisions for a home’s long-term health.

Let’s compare Straightforward Pricing to time & material pricing, where the homeowner/client doesn’t initially have a clear idea how much the job is going to cost. It can be very nerve-racking and anxiety inducing. After all, the price is always going to be too much. We don’t want to spend anything on a plumbing or HVAC repair. Even if it only ends up costing $50, it’s still too much because it wasn’t in our budget. A homeowner’s anxiety level starts low with time & material, but it peaks at the end when you find out how much it ended up costing. After that, you might have emotions about the technician taking too long, or maybe not being as efficient as they should have been.

With Straightforward Pricing, the actual price is given upfront before any work happens. Your anxiety is going to peak at that point, but then it’s going to be lower as the repair is made. After all, there’s no pressure around variables you can’t control, like the efficiency of the technician, whether they came prepared, or how long they’re taking. I think this helps clients make better decisions simply because the overall anxiety level is lower through the whole process.

Uncertainty is stressful, especially if a homeowner has to wait until the very end of the repair. People like to be well-informed, and they don’t like to be surprised—especially when it comes to money. Time & material and other similar pricing methods charge for variables outside of the homeowner’s control, which doesn’t feel good and makes it more difficult to choose the best option. The homeowner might be forced into saying, “If you don’t have it on your truck now, then don’t bother. I’ll choose another option instead.” It might not be in their best interest, but they choose unwisely simply because they feel pressured to pick the faster and lest costly option.

We also believe giving a list of options to customers allows them to make better decisions. Let’s say you had a toilet that needed to be replaced. If we just asked if you wanted it to be replaced or not, that’s just a yes or no choice. You wouldn’t have any input about the cost of the toilet, or other tasks that might be done at the same time. We give the customer three or four options so they can pick the best fit. Time & material doesn’t allow that to happen because the price is unknown. Straightforward Pricing allows us to easily pinpoint how much each option will end up costing. It enables us to give very detailed options that empower the customer to make a decision that’s best for their situation.

We apply Straightforward Pricing to both plumbing and HVAC. If you have any questions, contact us today or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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