Benjamin Franklin Plumbing

Adam W.

Benjamin Franklin helped us out of a major jam with 1) an amazing emergency dispatch platform, 2) responsive, timely, capable service, 3) a Sunday appointment with a pro who showed up on time and 4) no price gouging.

My family moved into a new house on a Saturday - hauling boxes and moving furniture and all of the general unpleasant things that go along with moving. Cut to 6pm when we'd like to wash-up and make dinner for the kids - only to find there is no hot water (no functioning stove either) because the gas had been disconnected by the utility.

The utility's (PG&E) phone tree is a death spiral of nobody-ness and when reached, they can't help because it's ""off-hours"". Won't come out until Monday, in fact. Using only my phone to web-search for help in a new neighborhood - I leave 2 other companies voice-mails before finding a voice at the other end of Benjamin Franklin's number.

I did go to bed tired & smelly... but in a non-panicked state because I knew I had a 8am appointment for the next morning. Bingo. He tested out the range, the flash heater and the clothes dryer before leaving. Best shower ever. And I did not hesitate 1 second when I needed another plumber only 6 days later to clean out the clogged trap of the home that had been vacant for 5 months. Amazing company.

Michael S.

The 5 star review is for plumber Caleb Pelletter.
He went above and beyond with strapping and bracing our water heater (including providing valuable information on how to maintain and prolong the life of our water heater).
Great work Caleb and thank you!

Robin N.

I am giving four stars not for Ben Franklin Plumbing but for Mark G who gave me great service today. I am a repeat customer of Ben Franklin but recently have had a couple issues, including the fact that they have not showed up during the 4 hour window (today he showed up at 12:08 (my window was 8am-12pm). This was not Mark's fault, he was called last minute to come over. I have two kids under 4 so it is extremely difficult to be at the plumber's mercy of when they want to show up. How many clients can they have before 8am that they run so late?!?! Anyway, Mark was nice and fixed my issue, thanks Mark!

L D.

This is an updated review. On 6/6/14, I expressed my disappointment with the service I received. I want to now thank a Manager named Rafael for rectifying my experience. He promptly contacted me and was apologetic and kind. He said he would reverse my service charge and send a leak detection company they work with hopefully this week. The owner of the company arrived the next day and was punctual, pleasant and quickly found my leak.

Anthony A.

In January 2014 I had BFM come out to investigate a leak in my plumbing manafold that distributes hot/cold water throughout there is sufficient damage to my dryway in my garage from the water leak. At first Sal said he just needed to fix the one valve which would cost around $700 he went back into my garage for about 10 minutes and came back and said he had some bad news and that my manafold was bad and needed to be replaced for $3,200. In the series of one comment he made to me he told me 3 lies .... ""The company that makes it is out of business and they have to special order and custom make my part and it will take 2 to 3 days to get."" I did some research after a friend of mine told me that that company was alive and kickin still that my part is very common and I could pick one up the same day for less than $300. So to recap the lies: 1) the company is still open, 2) my part is not special order, and 3) I could get it the same day....( I could also get a replacement at home depot but a different brand). In the end my part is still under warranty and I am getting it replaced for free form the manufacturer. Way to get Ben Frank I will not be using you anymore after years of service you received from me.

David H.

I've called these guys out 3 times to help and the first 2 times were fine though it did feel like they were pushing hard to sell more services on me than needed.

The third time really ticked me off though. I scheduled to have them come in between 10am - 2pm and only after calling multiple times to their dispatcher that they had someone show up at 3:40p. I was thoroughly mad and it just seemed that I got the runaround about why no one was showing up.

William B.

Didn't arrive on time as promised. Didn't call ahead before arriving as promised. Didn't have the parts on the truck as promised. 3x the price of other options. Giant waste of my time and a ripoff. They wanted $3,500 to replace a hot water tank, outrageous.

Jeremy O.

I had a leaky shower spout that did not seem like any big deal but I didn't have time to deal with it. I heard Ben Franklin Plumbing advertised on the radio and figured I would give them a shot. They came out on time and were very nice. They looked around the house and discovered my drainage pipe under the house from the shower was also leaking. It is plastic black pipe. Also did not seem like a big deal.

The plumber was able to take apart the shower issue in about 10 minutes and tell me the seat had worn away. He showed me a small metal part that looked like it costs about 3 dollars. He suggested I replace the stems also. He put it back together in less that 5 minutes.

Then they worked up the price. Wow!!!!! It was going to be $523.05 just for the shower and $1,816.35 if I did the drainage pipe also. I knew I was getting ripped off. When I questioned how they could charge so much I was told their employees were drug tested and well trained. I had to give him $179 just to go away. Thanks for nothing!

I called a contractor I knew and had him do the work. He charged 50 bucks an hour for labor and it took him 8 hours to do everything. Parts were $123. So the total was $523 for everything. So when I do the math I figure Ben Franklin Plumbing was going to charge over $200 an hour to do the job. I guess I am in the wrong line of work.

Mo O.

How do you miss an appointment with a 24 hour window. What's worst after waiting for more then 24 hour I called them to check the status of my appointment and they told me to reschedule. The professional thing to do was to call earlier and not have your customer wait for a plumber that didn't show up.

Tobys D.

I have a very complicated hot water radiant heat system that developed a leak in the floor. I was a bit nervous going with a standard, large plumbing operation like Ben Franklin.

Carl, the technician came out and assured me he was familiar with PEX tubing. He didn't have the correct tools on board but had the tools delivered to him from the Concord warehouse.

In total he probably spent 1.5 hours at our house. While waiting for the tools to arrive he explained to me how to fix PEX pipes. What plumper would do that?

I'm pleasantly surprised. The charge was very reasonable.