A lot of people ask me what it is like to be a 24 hour plumber.  It certainly brings about unique challenges to us that many other plumbing companies don’t experience.  We thought we would put together a few of our thoughts on what it is like and what are the unique aspects to it.

Scheduling

This is certainly a unique challenge for running our business.  Our plumbers have families and they have their own commitments.  They certainly don’t want to be on call for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  As a result, we had to go through some growing pains to figure out the best ways to make sure that we could handle any phone call that comes in, no matter what time it came in.  At the same time, we felt strongly that we wanted to be available 24 hours a day and in emergency situations, because we know that plumbing disasters can happen at any time.  We ultimately created a flexible scheduling situation that allows our plumbers to maintain a somewhat consistent schedule while still being available for our customers whenever they might need us.

Plumbing Calls

We have noticed that because we are available for 24 hours a day and in emergency situations that the types of plumbing service calls we get are different on average from the standard plumbing company.  If there is any sort of emergency situation, it is way better to call someone who you know will be available very quickly rather than risk having to wait a couple of days for a plumber to finally be available to come out and see you.  As a result, we get the more emergency and dire situation plumbing calls, which makes things I think more vibrant exciting when it comes to plumbing.  We definitely don’t get as many quick and easy fixes.  Usually the situation is pretty bad and needs to be fixed pretty quickly.

Outside of that, we try to operate just like any other company.  Being available 24 hours a day makes life very interesting, but we have done everything in our power to make it work great!

We get questions all the time from friends and family members about what it is like to live here.  People are always fascinated to learn more, so we thought we would put together some of our thoughts.  Overall, we wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the world.  New York is our home and will always be, no matter where we may go.

Food

The options you have for food in Ipswich are unparalleled.  Whether you want some high-quality ramen noodles or some upscale French cuisine, you can pretty much get it.  It’s hard to think of another city that has more and/or better options for food.

Nightlife

The nightlife in Ipswich is amazing and might be the best overall in the world.  When you consider not just Riverlink but also Brisbane Street, Limestone Street, and the RAAF Amberley base, the diversity and scale of options is truly astounding.  You can go to any number of dive bars, clubs, sports bars, beer gardens, salsa clubs, etc.  Whatever you want to do at night, you’ll be able to do it in Ipswich.

Cost

It is true that the cost of living is very high in Ipswich.  The cost of rent is just about as high as anywhere else in the country, save for maybe certain parts of Tasmania.  Going out at night costs more.  Food tends to cost more.  Pretty much everything costs more.  No matter what you are trying to do, you are going to have to pay up.  There’s a reason everything costs more, however.  It’s because everyone wants to be here, no matter what the cost is.

Conveniences

There are a lot of conveniences that people take for granted across the country that just aren’t readily available a lot of the time in Ipswich.  A lot of apartments don’t have central air conditioning.  Most apartments don’t have in-unit washers and dryers.  Parking isn’t readily available, and if it is, it is certainly going to cost a whole bunch of money.  Most apartments don’t have a lot of space either, and the vast majority don’t have backyards or common areas where you can hang out.  What’s telling, however, is that still so many people want to live in Ipswich City when these conveniences aren’t available.

There are so many other aspects to living in Ipswich, but we think this is a good quick list.  Let us know what you like about living in Ipswich in the comments!

Ipswich definitely gets to experience all four seasons in full.  For a plumber, that makes life interesting.  When it’s winter time, you’ll get a lot of unique plumbing issues and have a lot of emergency and 24 hour calls that you won’t get in the summer.  Do we like the weather of Ipswich?  We do, but it depends on the season in question.  As such, we will go through each season individually.

Spring

Everyone loves spring in Ipswich.  You get sunny and pleasant weather, and you get to see flowers starting to bloom in the park.  For us, it’s a relatively calm time of year after the pretty hectic winter.  We like to do lots of things outside, so we might even head up to a place like Walker Mountain and go hiking or something like that every once and a while.

Summer

Summer is a very interesting time to be in Ipswich.  There are tons of tourists that come into Booval and Amberley, and they really change the entire makeup of the city.  It really becomes an international city during the summer.  At the same time, as this past summer has shown, the heat can become pretty oppressive at times.  Maybe it’s our unique geographical characteristics, but it does tend to get very humid during the summer months.

Autumn

We absolutely love autumn in Ipswich.  The leaves start to change colour.  All the people who leave the city a lot during the summer come back to the city for good.  The oppressive heat of the summer goes away.  I always recommend that friends visit during the fall, because the weather is nicest and all the tourists tend to concentrate their visits to the summer months.

Winter

Winter can be a tough time in Ipswich.  What makes it okay is that the winter is never near as bad as it is in places like the Midwest.  As long as other cities have it worse, that somehow makes it okay.  We get a lot of special plumbing calls in the winter for things like burst pipes and other cold-related emergencies.  We do love the winter, but it can get pretty old by the time another season rolls around.

That’s our overview and our thoughts on the weather in Ipswich.  Let us know what you think in the comments!

Ipswich is a crazy place, especially as it relates to plumbing.  The issues that arise in Ipswich are quite different from the issues that arise most anywhere else in the country.  The vertical buildings compactly placed into a small, dense area make for special challenges as they relate to plumbing.  What exactly are those challenges?  Well, I’m glad you asked.  I will run through them here.

Shared Space

Generally, people live in apartment buildings in Ipswich.  You might get lucky and find a town home in Mount Walker, but generally the calls that you receive will be in a big apartment building.  The problem arises when you get a call from just one tenant in the building.  You aren’t sure if it is a problem that is systemic to the entire building or to just the unit of the tenant who called you.  You have to first make that assessment.  If it’s then a problem with the entire building, then there are going to be a host of other issues that you will have to deal with.

Emergencies

Because of the vertical building structure, there just so happen to be more emergency phone calls than normal as in other cities.  That’s just the nature of being in Ipswich.  As a result, you have to make yourself available to respond quickly to phone calls in emergency situations.

Older Plumbing

Ipswich is an older city.  Places in the south that didn’t develop until the past 20 years have much more modern plumbing systems.  As a result, it is a bit more difficult to manage through the Yamanto plumbing systems than it is to manage the systems of any other city.

Ipswich has a number of challenges.  This is especially true with plumbing as well.

What are the keys to surviving an emergency plumbing situation?  Well, we like to think that proper maintenance and planning will make it so that you can prevent such a situation from ever happening in the first place.  Certainly it would be wonderful if you could prevent emergencies from happening to you.  That might not be realistic, however.  Here are some keys to surviving a plumbing emergency.

Number 1

Know how to shut off the main water valve in your home.  Spend time one day figuring out where exactly it is and inform everyone in your household where it is in case you don’t happen to be there when the emergency happens.  If you live in a home, this tends to be in the basement, or it could be in a closet on your first floor.  Those are the two main places where it might be.  It is possible that it is outside the home as well.  Wherever it is, make sure you know exactly how to locate it when the emergency happens, so you can shut it off and prevent the emergency from going into full disaster mode.

Number 2

Have an emergency plumber in mind before you ever face such a situation.  Not all plumbers are available at all hours, and certainly there are very few who can actually respond to you and come out in an emergency when it happens.  The best thing to do is to have someone in mind in case such a situation ever arises.

Those are the two most important things.  You need to act cool under pressure.  When an emergency strikes, make sure you can turn off the main water valve and have your plumbing contact on speed dial or easily accessible.  That’s the best way to survive an emergency.

One of the things that makes us truly unique in this business is our scheduling.  No matter what time of the day you call us, we will have someone standing by ready to call.  What’s more, if you ask us to come out and service your call at 11pm, that’s no problem for us, because we will have one of our plumbers on call ready to go whenever they are needed.

We don’t necessarily like doing work at 3 in the morning, but we wanted to make ourselves available during those hours because we know that it is just so rare in the industry.  We sacrifice a bit of our personal lives because we know how much it would help folks out if we had that kind of flexible scheduling.  Usually when you work with a contractor or another plumbing company, you have to work around their schedule.  You might have to take some time off of work to make sure that you are around the house to let them in and let them do their work.  We wanted to take the opposite approach and let the customer dictate when we would come out and not the other way around.

As you can probably tell by what we are indicating here, our schedule is intentionally extremely flexible.  We do flex staffing and have figured out a way to make sure someone will always be available both to answer the phone but then also to service a call.  This means if any emergency situation comes up, we’ll be able to come out and help you fix the problem right away.  It also means that if you have a tough work schedule, we’ll be able to come out first thing in the morning, in the evenings, or even on weekends to fix the problem.

Don’t let a company’s schedule get in the way of fixing your plumbing issue.  Give us a call, and we’ll come out and service the call whenever is most convenient for you.

There are a lot of plumbers out there.  If you walk 20 blocks in Manhattan, you are bound to see at least 3-4 plumbing vans on the street doing a service call.  With that many options, it’s hard to know who you should pick.  What most people do is just try to find the first plumbing company that seems legitimate and go with them.  Most people don’t think that there’s any real differentiating factors between plumbing companies.  The truth, however, is different from this perception.  Why should you choose us instead of another plumbing company?  We’ll list out the reasons why.

Responsive

We are very responsive.  That means whenever you call us, you can expect someone will answer.  If no one answers, there will be someone who will call you back very soon after you leave a message.  This is very important to us, and we feel it is one of the differentiating factors for our business.  We are always available, so even if it’s late at night or on the weekends, we will have someone standing by ready to take your call.

Flexibility

Our schedule is very flexible.  We can come out and service your call whenever you want us to do so.  That means mornings, nights, and weekends.  We make ourselves available when other plumbers aren’t.  This flexibility is one of the biggest factors why you should choose us, as we’ve seen that it can be fairly rare in the industry.

Quality Work

We have tons of experience, and there is pretty much no plumbing issue that we haven’t seen before.  We are licensed professionals who take pride in our work.  If you talk to any customers that we have worked with in the past, they all will say we did a top quality job for them.  We take our work very seriously, and we will do a great job with your plumbing issue.

There are several other reasons why you should choose us.  We think these are the top three, but there are certainly others.  We are friendly people, so we think you will enjoy working with us.  Give us a call today for any plumbing needs you may have!

The best thing to do to handle a plumbing disaster is to prevent it from ever happening.  This means having really good inspections before you ever purchase a house.  It might mean having someone come out to your house on a somewhat regular basis and making sure everything looks fine.  Taking some basic preventative measures is the best way to avoid any major sort of disaster.  Usually, a problem is kind of bad, then it deteriorates, then it finally goes into disaster mode.  If you do regular maintenance, you’ll be able to detect these potential problems before they turn into disasters.

The best way to deal with an emergency is to avoid it from having.  We’ve just gone through that.  What happens when it happens anyways?  Well, the best thing to do is to understand that there are emergency plumbers available in your city most likely.  Here in NYC, you should simply have our phone number on call and give us a call when the emergency strikes.  We’ll be able to guide you through the process as we also send out a team to fix the problem at your home.

There’s really not much else you should do.  You should generally understand where the main water valve is at your house, so if you need to completely shut off the water, you can.  That would be necessary in any sort of water emergency.  For everything else, it’s best to leave it to the professionals.

Imagine this situation if you will.  It’s late at night.  You’ve been trying to go to sleep for a while now.  You decide you’ll get up and go to the bathroom one more time.  You go into the bathroom and you see that the sink is really flowing and leaking and there’s nothing you can do to fix it.  If you don’t fix the situation real soon, you’re going to have a really annoying problem on your hands.  Furthermore, you are going on vacation in two days, and you’ll be gone for two weeks.  You really want to get this thing fixed before you leave on vacation.

What do you do?  You head onto your computer and go onto Google.  You type in some relevant searches looking for a plumber.  You see a couple of good websites and you make a call.  The problem?  No one answers your phone call.  You find another business and the same situation happens.  You really are dying to give anyone your business who actually answers the phone, but it doesn’t seem as though anyone wants your business because no one is picking up the phone.

That’s a really annoying scenario, but it’s one that is also all too common.  This is where we come in.  We are the company that answers your phone calls, whenever they may happen.  We understand that plumbing issues can arise at all hours of the day and night.  That’s why we make ourselves available.  We also make sure we are available to come out to service your needs quickly.

We want you to avoid the nightmare scenario we just described.  We hope that you see the value in our approach!