When it comes to hiring a plumber in Houston, many people feel they don't need to. In many cities, it is not required to use a master plumber for new installs or repairs, allowing the homeowner to save money and make repairs themselves. Two stories come to mind when someone asks me if they should hire a licensed, insured plumber or do it themselves, and yes, they are both disaster stories.
The first story that comes to mind is a plumbing do-it-yourself story. A homeowner purchased a reverse osmosis water filter to install below his sink. He dabbled in plumbing here and there in his youth, and the reverse osmosis filter came with directions, so he decided he would save the money and install it himself. It took him all day and he returned to the store for parts 3 times, but he got the system in. He "bled" the lines for 3 gallons of water worth to clean out any contaminants from the installation. Then he went to take a shower and clean up from the days work.
When he walked through the house after his shower, he heard water running. He couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Suddenly, it dawned on him. The sound he was hearing was water leaking from the reverse osmosis unit. He ran to the kitchen to find a lake of water awaiting him, drowning beautiful hardwood floors. He opened the cabinet under the sink and immediately got soak with spraying water, shooting across the room, as it poured from inside the cabinet to across the floor and down the hall.
After he managed to shut off the water, he discovered the problem. One of the connections he put in place did not hold, and a water line from the reverse osmosis unit was loose, shooting water constantly from it until the main was shut off. It didn't burst before he left because there wasn't enough pressure in the lines during installation, and then testing and bleeding of the water line. It was only as the pressure was allowed to build up that the connection failed. He was lucky he had not left for dinner before discovering it, or his whole house would be under water.
Final Cost: he hired a plumber to reconnect the line and test all other connections, and the water damaged over $4,000 worth of hardwood floors, which would have been covered by a plumber's insurance if this occurred after a master plumber installation.
The second story is a case where the insured plumber had an oversight.
My friend hired a reputable, insured plumber to install a sump pump in her home. Sump pumps are somewhat unsightly, and it was needed in the middle of her home, so they cleverly hid it in the back of a closet with a fake wall in front of it. Insulation kept the noise down, and the project came to a close. After all, if everything is working, why look at a sump pump? Six months later, the hardwood floor in her hallway began to buckle. No sign of water or leaking at the sight or surrounding plumbing fixtures. Odd. She called a contractor to check it out, and was scheduled for an estimate weeks away.
Christmas was approaching, and she decided to wrap some presents one day. Rooting through the bottom of her closet, she searched for a gift bag, and pulled one out that was soaking wet. What happened to this? She pulled another, and another. The entire floor of the closet was flooded, everything on the floor ruined. She investigated further. The sheetrock walls were wet. She opened the fake wall at the back of the closet. Oh no. Disaster.
She called the insured plumber that installed the sump pump earlier that year. One of the fittings had a washer that was defective, allowing water to come out whenever the sump pump was in use. It had been intermittently leaking for 6 months. Floors and walls had to be replaced. it had seeped through the other rooms from below the hardwood floor, doing damage unseen on a daily basis for six months. The leak was small, but the time was long. The damages would cost thousands of dollars. But not to the homeowner. The plumber took care of it all, even hiring the contractor of her choosing to complete the flooring and wall repairs.
Sometimes, events like these cannot be foreseen. While it is still inconvenient when things like this happen, you will always be thankful when you have a insured responsible party. Using an insured plumber can turn a disaster into an inconvenient, or even an upside of getting new floors if the unthinkable happens.
Home >
Articles > Benefits of Using Insured Plumber in Houston