John Baethke & Son Plumbing

All the servicemen who have come for one reason or another have been very kind, friendly, and able to explain cause and way to fix any problems we've had. Also, we were able to get emergency service at no extra cost thanks to the annual (silver) agreement. One minor complain: the last problem we had with the water heater (also installed by them 4.5 years ago) is that we were never told that (unlike older heaters) it was going to need an annual service for cleaning. So they had to come 3 times within 3 days to resolve the issue completely. more

Baethke does a good job but just priced way too high compared to other plumbers doing the same work. RESPONSE FROM John Baethke & Son Plumbing: We consider Laras review a great compliment. Brad and Lara have been customers of ours for nearly 4 years and although we may not be cut rate priced, we provide a great value for the service that we provide. more

I would love for Steven to come back and help us again. He was very professional, courteous and efficient. He was able to fix all of our problems and recommend new things that we hadn't thought of. He is one of the reasons we stick with Baethke each year, the service and comfort he provides is wonderful. more

We've been using Baethke for years and have never had a reason to complain. more

We had three things needing to be fixed. One bath tub's faucets were fixed perfectly. After a valve was replaced on a toilet,it worked only marginally better than before they came. Part of the problem with the toilet was a water pressure issue that was never looked into. The more expensive replacement of parts was the only thing done. A second bath tubs' faucets leaked, so the stems were replaced. But after the work was completed, the leak was worse than before they came. Along with the leak from the faucet that was never stopped, water was leaking from somwhere through the floor into the basement. They came back the next day, but were still unable to resolve the problem. We got a second opinion, and the leaks were stopped at a very small fraction of the cost paid to Baethke. RESPONSE FROM John Baethke & Son Plumbing: The way Lawrence felt was very unfortunate and I called him right away. In the past Lawrence has always been very happy with our service and on this particular account we let him down. We were working on all old, very old fixtures and we had success on the toilet and one of the tubs. The second tub repair did not go well and initially it leaked worse than before we started. We came out again and at no additional charge spent some time and made it much better but still it was not able to be fixed 100% due to the years of damage caused by the water leaking. The last issue was a leak into the basement from the first floor tub drain. We unfortunatly did not bring this to Lawrences attention and rightly so he felt that we were not as thourough as we should have been. Our plumber should have made note of the cause of this leak and given Lawrence options for the repair, instead the plumber left it in Lawrences hands to ask us instead. That is not professional and I appologized to Lawrence for that lapse of judgement on our part. We hope that we can have the opportunity to work with Lawrence again in the future should another plumbing issue arise, Lawrence agreed that we could have that opportunity. more

I've been very pleased with all the work they've done us. more

The plumber showed me a standard pricing list from a manual and replacing a faucet showed a 'standard' price of $352. It took him no more than 5 minutes to replace the cartridge. I realize that complications could have come up and that it could have been a lot more invoved, but because that didn't happen, I thought the price was very high. RESPONSE FROM John Baethke & Son Plumbing: It can certainly seem that our work is effortless and simple due to the fact that we have very highly skilled and professional service people licensed in the plumbing trade. We arrived first to find a leak that was not at first visible. Once the leak was identified and located we gave all options and Joe did decide to have the faucet repaired. The actual time on the job was just under 2 hours and was over 2 hours with travel time so it may have seemed like 5 minutes, but in all it was much more. We did follow up with Joe as we do on all service calls and we appreciate all feedback both positive and negative as both help us to constantly improve our service. more

You guys do good work. more

Great service, punctual, always has someone answering the phone & getting back to you. Really give 100% to getting things fixed and set. Love the service agreement diagnostic. But the prices are high compared to others. And that dissuades us from getting every little thing done since little things are well over $100 each and when we spent hundreds more for a slightly bigger thing we can't take care of non-essential fixes on top of that--and that's with the service agreement. We can have little things taken care of by others. The other issue is that there is a destination charge--even if you have a service plan and even if you do need repairs. At the least the charge should be applied towards the repair total not on top of it. more

very satisfied more

I think you guys are great, very professional, competent and all-around great guys. BUT, today's flood control maintenance took all of 30 minutes to do... and cost me over $400, and that was the discounted price with my "annual fee." The same morning, I had my HVAC guy doing routine mainenance on the three building A/C units - he spend the whole morning, over 3 hours, and charged $300. I don't get it, I really don't. I just can't use you guys for most things due to exorbitant cost. I've found another plumber who is also very good (he didn't want to do the flood control maintenance due to lack of experience with it) and who charges far less. RESPONSE FROM John Baethke & Son Plumbing: Steve has been a good customer for nearly 4 years. We did spend over an hour on the maintenance proceedure for his system and of course all of our technicians are qualified, licensed, and thoroughly trained in both mechanical and customer service skills. We do not employ a lower level of professional, so all of our services are performed by top notch individuals. We greatly appreciate complements and criticisms as they both help us to improve our service. more

My home is 76 years old and, as you may suspect, needs repairs often. During the past 24 years that I have owned this house there have been many calls for plumbing services. Most often the work was inferior and, unbelievably, most of the plumbers were arrogant. One particular person actually told me he hated working on these "old houses" ! Another showed up drunk ! Needless to say I was apprehensive when I placed my first call to Baethke, hoping for the best but expecting the worst. That time, and every time after, I have found their technicians to be timely, polite, willing to listen to my plumbing complaint and, MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, the work done was excellent. Even though Baethke is a little on the expensive side, the quality of work is worth it. That really is the bottom line for me . . . once the technician leaves I can relax knowing that particular problem is resolved. more

Professional, competent, knowledgeable, friendly and clean. As always the only gripe I have is the cost. This is a case of getting what you pay for. more

Service was as expected and as has been in the past: thorough, knowledgeable, informative, professional and good natured. I am confident that the information received was correct and that the company stands by its work. more

My experience with Baethke & Sons plunbing has been pretty good. The plumber arrives on time, is conscientious of cleaning up and fixes the problem. The one issue I have is that I think they try to sell unnecessary services and over charge. For example, I had a toilet that overflowed. The plumber was going to charge me @ $500 to take the toilet off and reset it because it needed to be rodded. I told him that I know how to take off and reset a toilet so I wasn't going to pay him to do that. Then, what do you know?! he finds our sewer pipe that he can use to do the rodding instead of taking off and resetting the toilet. Basically, it was unnecessary to go through the toilet he just wanted to get the extra charge. Makes me very leary and sceptical of some of the services that are recommended. RESPONSE FROM John Baethke & Son Plumbing: I immediately called Elizabeth and first thanked her for taking the time to comment on our company. Elizabeth has been a customer for some time now and our technician not finding the cleanout right away gave a perception of inpropriety and having had the opportunity to further discuss this with her it is more clear that it is always our goal to not only perform our work in the most professional manner possible but also to communicate in a manner that is clear and leaves each and every customer feeling good about the whole experience. more

I was upset when they came to put in the water line from the outside into the house. Ithought they was going to let us know when they was coming to do it the only way we knew is when they showed up and started digging in the yard.Ithought someone from John Baethke was supposed to be here when they did this. Someone didint show up unit late in the afternoon. RESPONSE FROM John Baethke & Son Plumbing: We did have a scheduling mistake. Our excavator showed up and began to dig without even notifying our office and that was very unfortunate. We have communicated this to our excavator and in the future this same mistake will not happen. This family has always been the best of customers and they will be contacted to insure their satisfaction. more

Andy, the serviceman was very knowledgeable and took the time to explain things to me. He took notes of everything I wanted done. He did not rush the job, but took the time to make sure that everything was completed to my satisfaction. He covered his shoes when he came in the house to make sure that he did not carry any dirt in. The only negative is that I thought that their services were a little high compared to others. more

The technician arrived on time. I printed a picture of the covering over shutoff valves and the technician was able to shovel the ice and snow off the covering which took him no more that 5 minutes. The technician completed the job in less than an hour - to the delight of the residents of my building who had no water use. more

Always timely, efficient, pleasant and clean up after the job is done. more

I live in a condo building that was built in 1933. Pretty much, everything is original to the building. We had a horrible clog in our tub that I couldn't snake out. Patrick, our plumber, came out looked at our issue and quoted me a price before doing the work. After several attempts to "snake" the clog, he came back and suggested that we need to change out overflow pipe, and replace the drain tank. Within a couple hours the work was completed, and not a speck of dirt was left behind. more