For those who don't care to read my lengthy review, I have hired Much Better Plumbing for 2 utility sink installations. Both times, they were awesome! Their prices were very reasonable ( beat 2 other estimates by miles) and they were super nice. Also, weigh the risks of a DIY plumbing job, I certainly learned my lesson!
For a little more in depth review, I found Much Better Plumbing when my dad and I installed a utility sink in my laundry room where the plumbing had already been roughed out by the builder. The plumbing pipes used in our newer construction home are called PEX, which my father had never worked with before. He had worked with copper pipes in the past (we are not plumbers) but needed a little guidance for the new PEX pipes. After a few trips to the local home improvement store in which a friendly associate guided us to the parts we needed, we had the sink up and running.
After several hours pass with 2 dog baths in the books and many cervezas consumed in celebration of our accomplishment, we hear the sound of water hitting the tile. When I checked the sink, it was obvious the compression fitting failed and caused the shut off valve to blow off. Luckily, I was able to turn off the main water supply to the house quickly and avoid any real damage, but it was a horrifying experience. Had we not been home or asleep or outside or watching the action movie we'd planned on, there would have been so much damage! Plus, we would be SOL if we needed to make an insurance claim. We aren't plumbers, just people with a LITTLE experience working with cooper plumbing and a more carpentry based skill set. Plus, it isn't as if the associate at the store is to blame because ultimately it's my responsibility to hook it up correctly when I decide to do tackle it myself.
We cleaned up the mess, left the water off over night and called Much Better Plumbing in morning. The owner Daniel was able to come over quickly and fix our mistake. He knew immediately what went wrong and had everything up and running in less than 10 minutes. The way my non-plumber self understands it, the compression fitting failed bc we hadn't installed a little piece of metal in the PEX piping required to properly secure/seal the PEX to the shut off valves.
Daniel was super nice about it and said he actually had an influx of people having self induced plumbing disasters and errors bc of the quarantine that we've been under. I went ahead and asked for a quote for another utility sink in my garage that my dad and I had been planning on installing. There was no plumbing roughed out and the job required some drywall to be cut out inside the house in order to access the bathroom sink plumbing. I'd gotten 2 quotes for the installation of the garage sink from 2 very highly rated plumbing companies. 1 quote was twice the price of Much Better Plumbing and the other almost 4 times the price.
About a week after Daniel was able to fix our first utility sink, I called him to schedule the appointment for the garage sink. Daniel and his tech Chuey (sorry if I spelled it wrong!) came over during their scheduled time frame and had the sink installed in no time. I actually ended up asking if they could also install a spigot inside my garage just opposite of the normal spigot on the outside of the house. They were super cool about my request and were able to knock that little job out for me too for just a little extra.
I don't normally write reviews but my experience with Much Better Plumbing warranted sharing my experience. I think it's important to support local business and especially one that is owned by a clearly hard working and ambitious person. When I asked Chuey for a bit of his time, he educated me on what they had to do in order to make it work and some of the differences between copper and PEX. I appreciate that bc while I will always hire a plumber in the future, I like to understand things about my home. Both Daniel and Chuey were really nice about answering any questions I had and made me feel like no question was too much of a bother or stupid.
Take a lesson learned for me and don't attempt pluming projects unless you know very well what you are doing. The stakes are high! Thank you Much Better Plumbing, I'm happy I found a great, reliable plumber!