Alexander's Plumbing

Jacqui A.

After having a less than stellar experience with another local plumbing company, we hired Alexander's Plumbing to finish replacing our old, corroded galvanized pipes. Mark and his coworker Robert were excellent! When Mark came out to bid the job, he took time to understand all of our needs and went through our options. While they were here working on the house, they were incredibly professional. They laid down drop cloths to keep from tracking in dirt, they were great about keeping me up to date on their progress and they were even very patient in dealing with my young children's 1,001 questions. Add to that, the price seemed very fair.
Both Mark and Robert are extremely knowledgeable in their trade. I am thrilled to finally have a plumber that I can trust!

B K.

Mark is the best plumber in Santa Cruz. He has been working with me on various issues that pop up from a full on bathroom reconstruction to clearing drains, to getting hot water to my shower faster.

All 100% successful. He is so reasonably priced it makes me question the old sterotype of plumbers driving Cadys.

Stephen S.

Mark Alexander took over a shower trim install project after I ran into problems with another contractor. He was straightforward and excellent to work with. Pricing was super fair. Never did he caution about picking up someone else's mistakes - he just assessed the situation and fixed me up! I now have a go-to plumber in Santa Cruz.

Chris B.

Simply the best. Great guy, awesome service, excellent advice (free!!!) & reasonable rates. I highly recommend.

Megan W.

We had, what we feared, was a major leak behind our shower causing dry rot damage. We called Mark in and he did a super job triaging the issue and assessing the damage. He then helped us identify the necessary repairs and made key recommendations so we could stay in our budget. Mark is the most professional, collaborative plumber I've ever worked with and I would call him again in the minute.
Thanks, Mark!

Diane B.

Mark Alexander has been the plumber for five years for a duplex that I co-own. He and his assistants have consistently done excellent work on the property and Mark himself has gone FAR beyond the call of duty on many occasions.

When I first bought the property Mark inspected the much-neglected plumbing throughout the property and gave us a list of what needed to be repaired right away and what could wait. Since then he has systematically repaired all of our deferred maintenance on the property (ie, installed a new main line to the street) and also repaired innumerable leaks in our old funky pipes. He is extremely conscientious, trustworthy and fair.

We trust him completely to be on the property when we are not present, and he communicates with our tenants directly to expedite scheduling repairs when we are not there. In fact, we have his name listed on our rental agreement as the person to call in case of an emergency. One time when both I and my house partner were out of town our tenants called Mark about a severe leak that was pumping gallons of water onto the back of our property on a rainy Saturday morning. When I retrieved my messages a few hours later and called Mark myself, he was already at the property working on the problem in the rain! His willingness to answer the phone on a weekend and go out immediately to address the problem saved us hundreds of dollars in lost water.

I frequently call Mark for advice on plumbing and other maintenance problems and when he's not able to go out immediately for an emergency or the job isn't something he does, he always gives me an excellent referral. The contractors he recommends are equally conscientious. Mark is extremely well-respected by other contractors of all trades and is known for being very thorough and having tremendous integrity. He takes his work seriously and strives to make things right for his customers should unexpected costs arise. He's the kind of plumber that people hug when they see him in the local cafe. We'd be sunk (in mud and water and huge bills) without Mark.

Heather M.

I am astonished at the poor review here. I called Mark because Surf City Plumbing couldn't deal with our pugged kitchen sink for over a week. I left a message for him at 7:20am and got a call back within 15 minutes. He quoted me an hour's time at a reasonable hourly rate. He sent someone over who worked for over 2 hours on it, including going up on the roof. It wasn't completely fixed, so he said I could pay half (the original one-hour quote) or nothing if I was really displeased. I was shocked that I wasn't going to get charged the full amount! We have a janky plumbing situation, and I don't believe it was their fault at all.

Mark himself came back out to go under our house and give us a quote on how to proceed. He said we didn't need all new pipes (which we would have believed), but did need to fix a bad angle, and suggested a clean-out near our kitchen. The quote he gave us was about half what we thought it would be. After the work was done, there was a little leaking under the sink, which I've heard can happen. When I called Mark, I got a response within a day, and they came back out the next day to fix it.

To summarize, their response time was excellent, their prices low, and they are really nice people. I will use them again and highly recommend them.

Rebecca B.

Mark did a number of small jobs for us up in Bonny Doon, including having to wrestle with some really old pre-existing pipes. His work was awesome, and he was really nice about it.

We will definitely call on him again: great plumber!

Anthony M.

I hired Alexander's Plumbing to replace the float switch on my electric sewer pump. When the new switch was in, the toilet wouldn't flush properly unless I ran the bathtub for about 45 seconds. I asked him to adjust the level and he said that the level was not adjustable - and that the problem was that I had a bad toilet. I said the toilet worked fine before the float switch was replaced, but he insisted that it was correctly installed and couldn't be adjusted, charged me and left. So .... I flushed by running the bathtub until I could easily afford a new toilet, but the new toilet had the same problem - still had to flush by running the bathtub for about 45 seconds. I called Alexander's back and the return message (after 3 calls and one week of waiting) said that I needed to have the level adjusted but that he wouldn't do it because he didn't want to deal with anything involving raw sewage (is that like a surgeon who faints at the sight of blood?). I then left a message saying ""b-b-b-b-b-but ... you said the level WASN'T adjustable! That's why I bought the new toilet!"" He never replied to that message.

So ... (are you bored yet?) ... then I called AnyTime Plumbing. The guy from AnyTime (Amer) picked up on the first ring, came right out and fixed the level in less than an hour. If I'd chosen AnyTime to begin with, I would have saved over $500, endless headaches, and enough bathwater to fill Shamu the Killer Whale's tank at Marineworld.

So to summarize my experience with Alexander's Plumbing:

1) he installed a switch with the level set incorrectly
2) he told me there was no way to set the level
3) he told me to buy and install a new toilet that I didn't need
4) he then told me that there WAS a way to set the level, but that HE wasn't willing to set it for me!
5) it takes him a week to call you back - when he does call you back.

But other than that ... absolutely fabulous.

T. C.

Mark Alexander came out several months ago and fixed our leak. Unfortunately the fix did not last. I was happy with the service, but the leak is back and i cant seem to get a hold of him. its been several weeks and iv made a number of attempts to contact him with NO response, i am convinced he has POOR work ethic and is unreliable. BUMMER !