Flader Plumbing & Heating

Tara P.

These guys are hands-down the best in the business be it plumbing, hydronics, or HVAC. They are a service and quality minded company. I never hesitate to recommend the name Flader. They have hired fantastic employees from the office to the field. Flader continually worked with me above and beyond the expectations for our job. You pay for what you get and I'd say they are competitively priced, but their delivered product is outstanding. Again, they are service minded too so if you have issues they will actively troubleshoot for you.

Gerry G.

They apparently live up to their reputation. Unreliable and expensive. Steer clear!

Will A.

What great guys! They are fair priced and stand behind their work. Our heating system has never worked as good!

Mcgurty R.

They are juicing hours and fuel charges.

Hired them for a rental property of mine to clean the burners on a on demand water heater. I wasn't there but my tenant was. Got a bill for $330.00 which was strange because last time i used them two years ago and i was present the bill was $240.00 and they installed brand new parts. This time all they did was clean it. Bill should bill not as much right?

So the $330.00 charge threw me off because i was not there and got out the invoice from last time and it was more work for less maybe i am wrong about this so i called my tenant and ask them how long was the service call and they said ohh no time at all he was gone in 25 mins....but charged me two hours for a service call!

Called them to gripe a bit and got the run around big time i guess david the ""owner"" did the work and he would call me back. Four days later and no call bye bye for your service calls forever! Watch there billing and call them out on it if your dumb enough to use them overpriced and charge you for everything even gas to get to your house.

Doug H.

I called Flader because they were on the approved list of contractors for my hot water heater, which was under warranty for parts but not labor, BIG mistake.

I was told I'd be the first call at 7:30 this morning, at 8:00 I called and was told ""he's running late, he'll be there soon."" No apology. When he showed up, he couldn't identify the source of the problem, and attempted to BS me with possible causes. Putzed around for 1 1/2 hrs, said that was all he could do, and went to his truck to generate my bill.

$89 service call, a little high since I'm 1.5 blocks from their shop, but ok. $270 labor for 1.5 hrs of ""work""...holy crap! That's $180/hr! If I want to pay that rate for getting BS, I'll go sit in a lawyer's office. In all, $366 for being late, not knowing the problem and BSing me. Never again.

Tiffany P.

had to call their office on some business and was cussed out. several cuss words were used by the guy who answered the phone. There was really no need for it, I had been professional and polite. I have lots of friends/family in the Chicago area, I grew up in Springfield myself. I would not recommend this place.

A A.

Be aware of their charges, ask for a quote first or you will be hammered with unexpected charges if you live far, I usually call a local plumber so I found them listed on the web site on the town next door, according to google map 7.4 miles, about 15 minutes from my house. Well they are actually based in Evanston which is quite a distance; an easy 50 minutes drive. I got charged 1,580$ for only installation to 75 gallon water heater that was defective and under warrantee, and was installed previously by my plumber which was not available at the time for 600$. So the water heater was provided for free by the manufacturer, I drained the old water heater to save time, the two plumbers were in my house for about an hour and 30 minutes. I got charged for 5 hours for each plumber at 79$ per half an hour per plumber, 790$ each plumber. Total of 10 hours The installation plus travel time to and from Evanston for two people but one truck!! Why was I'm calling a local plumber for then? My advice to everyone is to GET A WRITTEN PROPOSAL IN ADVANCE, it's the right thing to do. I broke my own principal of not requesting a proposal and now accept the outcome.

THE WORK WAS DONE PROPERLY AND EFFICIENTLY.

I called the office to question these unexpected charges, after a few minutes of arguments, the office took around 130$ off, I didn't want to proceed any further as I had many calls waiting for me to answer.

Solution:

I would urge the owner to reconsider future travel time charges if he wants to continue grow and reach out to outer suburbs and be competitive with local plumbers, as I don't think it is fair to have the same charges for the actual hard lifting, working, and sweating time by the plumbers, to sitting driving, sipping coffee and listening to music while reaching destination time. I'm not oppose to travel time charges as I have 6 delivery trucks of my own and new one on the way, I charge per 5 miles increment radius flat fee based on many considerations, but this system is unreasonable, or needs revision.
Thank you and Good luck

M F.

These guys are bad news. Way over priced. I have a 9 unit bldg. they converted galvanized to copper for me small section of pipes. They left a leak quoted me $5k+ to do more work. They turned off hot water in 3 kitchens and then quoted me 3 hours of labor to turn it back on. They were a referral. Apparently new ownership are crooks.

Tom A.

Was given a range of 10a-2p the next day, was a bit annoyed they arrived at 1:45p, but was withing the range promised. Met Kevin, very knowledgeable, experienced, awesome, and helpful with my caulking questions. Kevin found the source of the problem right away why the bathtub facet leaked through the wall while the facet was on. Once Kevin left I immediately discovered the bathtub facet he was working on dripping. Kevin came back the next morning and said the drip was related to the valve source, an area he was not working on. To me, not knowing plumbing, I still thought this was a load. A plumber arrives without a dripping facet, and leaves with a drippy facet. The manager offered me a 'free' service call, but had to pay for time and parts. I couldn't help thinking a plumber leaving with a leaky facet doesn't look good for them. I insisted Kevin should come back and fix it for no charge as a means of negotiating. The manager claimed no responsibility of the leak suggesting maybe it had been leaking down the wall before the repair. I gave in on that point, but it was purely speculation. The manager did not budge on his original offer of only waving the $85 service charge.

Here is what I expect from someone who wants my business.

1) Accept some responsibility instead of taking such a hard line. I am clueless when it comes to plumbing, and was on the defense for possibly being taken for a ride.

2) Offer to diagnose what the problem is for free. It took Kevin maybe 5 minutes to figure out what the original problem was. If it took 10 minutes this time to diagnose this problem, I think time well spent to keep a customer.

3) I would have paid for labor and parts if the diagnosis sounded reasonable.

What annoyed me the most about Flader was the inflexibility of the manager. Kevin the plumber was very professional. I live in a condo with over 100 units whom I will never recommend Flader. I mentioned this to the manager, and that I was going to post a review here. The manager said he would post a rebuttal. I say, bring it on.

L S.

In short, we were charged over 400 dollars and our faucet still leaks. They came to our house twice and it still wasn't fixed!

We called Flader because our bathroom faucet is leaking.

When the plumber arrived, he seemed more interested in finding other things wrong with our home, looking for potential work items. He worked very slowly and I was shocked to find for an hour we were charged over 300 dollars. He couldn't fix our leak on the first visit due to not having the parts.

On the second visit, he spent a further hour and couldn't fix it, but the office still demanded payment, despite us seeing no improvement.
We will go with someone else next time.