You’ve just discovered a large puddle of water next to the water heater in your basement. You are understandably alarmed and scour your local listings for a plumber to put things right. Naturally, you are also concerned about the cost of doing business. How can you ensure that your plumbing bill is fair?
We may as well put the (uncomfortable) truth on the table: Outfitting and maintaining a fleet of service vehicles, together with training and retaining a crew of plumbing experts, is costly. To stay in business, plumbing service companies must pass those costs on to their customers. Reputable plumbers will always work with their customers to keep costs as low as possible. However, as you research local plumbing businesses, you will discover that plumbers have different approaches to how and how much they charge for their services. You must pay attention to those differences because they can greatly affect your final bill.
“Free” Initial Plumbing Service Calls Aren’t Really Free
Many companies advertise a free initial service call to assess your problem and estimate time and cost for repairs. A free diagnostic service call sounds great, but It’s fair to assume that the companies will recoup the costs around that ‘free’ visit through a higher hourly rate. If your repair requires several hours of work, you may even pay for that ‘free’ diagnostic several times over.
Atlas Home Services has a different approach. We charge $100 to send a plumber to your home to diagnose your plumbing problem. Our hourly rate is lower than the competition because we don’t have to recoup the cost of that initial visit. Furthermore, if you hire Atlas to do the work, we apply that $100 initial charge against your final bill.
Plumbing Company Hourly Rates Vary Greatly
As you call around, you may be startled by the pricing of hourly rates for plumbing services, especially in those companies that have a national reach and greater than usual advertising costs. As a locally owned business whose advertising costs are limited and whose success is largely due to word-of-mouth recommendations, Atlas Home Services can offer rates that are substantially lower than many other plumbing service companies in this region.
Hourly Versus Flat-Rate Plumbing Services
It’s not uncommon for the final cost of a repair to exceed the initial estimate due to unforeseen complications or even misrepresentation. Atlas Home Services offers several common plumbing services for a flat rate so that you know exactly what your final bill will be.
Plumbing Service Contracts
Atlas offers comprehensive and affordable service contracts, which are another great way to keep plumbing repair costs down. For a low monthly rate, you can depend on Atlas’s experts to maintain your plumbing systems so that breakdowns don’t occur, and to effect speedy repairs when something does go wrong.
When you need a plumber’s services, you want a trusted plumbing company whose pricing structure is transparent, competitive and fair. Atlas Home Services delivers on all three!
