Gruber Plumbing

Khadija L.

The water heater did not work and wad on recall and I got the chance to work with Phill. He came in twice and ordered parts.
He was professional, knowledgeable and showed up on time even during the coronavirus challenges.
Thank you Phill for saving the day!
Highly recommend

P K.

This guy is class act. I call and ask if he can come out and look at my clogged sink. His website says ""free quote"". He offers $375 for an hour service call. I ask if that would include an estimate if it is a problem that will take longer than an hour.

Apparently he doesn't understand what an estimate is, or what a quote is. He seems to think a ""Free quote"" is telling me his hourly rate on the phone.

That isn't a quote at all. How can you be a business person and not know the very basic language of your business.

A quote is coming out, assessing the problem, and giving me an estimate of the time it will take to fix the problem, along with an estimate of the materials you will need to fix the problem. If you require a service call, I understand that. If you can fix the problem within the hour, then the service call fee should take care of the cost. I understand that too... but to not be able to say you'll provide an estimate of the amount of work something will take is ridiculous. ESPECIALLY at nearly $400 an hour.

David R.

We've been having weekly problems with our water heater going out since installed in December 2018. After numerous calls with the manufacturer and suggested ""fixes,"" the manufacturer provided us with a list of 3 plumbing companies that do business in San Francisco. Phil was by far the most responsive. He showed up on time and, because he understands not just water heaters, but other factors like venting, combustion, etc. required for optimal operation, he was able to quickly figure-out the burner issue and fix our water heater plus show me the pages of the manufacturer's guide where I needed to make additional changes. Thanks Phil!

Jon P.

Phil is great and was a pleasure to work with. After my Whirlpool gas water heater broke, first burning with a loud roar, and eventually failing to re-ignite after the insulation on the ignition wire failed; I called their support line and learned the burner/ignition issue was covered under an open recall. They shipped me a replacement burner unit, and referred me to Gruber Plumbing.

Having called Phil on a Saturday and left a voicemail, he returned my weekend call an hour or two later and confirmed his availability to install the burner once it arrived. When to my surprise the burner arrived a day early, on Monday morning, Phil was able to fit me into his schedule and replaced the bad burner and the gas controller in the early afternoon, restoring hot water to our home. Thanks for the rapid replies, and quick turnaround in fixing our water heater!

Dave K.

Gruber Plumbing is the most dishonest plumber that I've ever encountered in my lifetime. The owner, Phil, is not trustworthy and only thinks about getting paid.

When our water heater broke, we called Gruber Plumbing because they were the approved plumbers from our water heater manufacturer. My wife and I went with them in order to satisfy the conditions under our water heater's warranty, where parts and labor would be covered by the manufacturer.

Phil, the owner, came over and saw that we had a water recirculation pump installed in front of the water heater and told us that he needed to move it in order to fix our water heater's burner. He quoted us $350 for the additional labor -- $250 to remove the pump and another $100 to put it back. My wife and I aren't plumbing experts nor handy, but that amount seemed high to us. When we asked him why it cost the amount it did, he responded in an extremely condescending tone ""why does anything cost money?"". The conversation continued in a similar manner. We asked more questions and he had responses to the tune of ""I don't know why you would do that"", ""see... that's what happens"", etc. He was so scornful in his responses that it brought my wife to tears!

At this point, my wife and I were going on two weeks without hot water and we were desperate to get it fixed. I knew of another plumber that would be able to put back the pump, so we suggested to pay Phil from Gruber Plumbing the $250 to remove the pump and fix our water heater. Phil responded by increasing the price to remove the water pump to $350, citing that the previous quote he gave us minutes ago was no longer valid. We were in total shock. Even though my wife were desperate for hot water, this didn't seem right. So, we refused and he left.

I ultimately called another plumber and we were willing to pay whatever the price. When the other plumber came and saw the same situation, he simply used a wrench to loosen the water recirculation pump and rotated it a quarter turn. It took less than one minute and he didn't have to remove it. He was then able to fix our water heater.

Gruber Plumbing is not trustworthy. I do not recommend them.

Ifran A.

This company and PHIL GRUBER the owner of the establishment is a joke. I'm a plumbing contractor in the peninsula and he was sent over by state water heater due to a recall on the heater and state water heater would not ship the the parts for the repair due to the recall. So they dispatched PHIL GRUBER from Gruber plumbing because he is contracted with state heaters. These customers have spent thousands of dollars with me in the past and for him to remove a circulating pump from a union and charge $350 for is just ridiculous. Customer returned to notify him that they were willing to pay the $350 he simply refused because he was simply lazy to go back to his truck and get his tools. He told the customer to make another appointment to fix the heater after they have been out of hot water for 2 weeks. Unfortunately she called me to order the part which she was willing to pay for from her own pocket. I simply called state water heater and filed a complaint and had the warranty dept send me the burner assembly and I simply went back and installed the burner assembly without removing the circulating pump. This company is so horrible and I felt for the customer that I felt obligated to write a review on this business. STAY AWAY FROM HIM AND HIS BUSINESS!

Joanne C.

Writing a review on Phil Gruber is really a waste of time since I'm sure he does not care what people think of his service. He came to look at a Tagaki unit that was not producing hot water. After 25 minutes he announced that this was a problem for PG&E and then proceeded to charge me $408 for service. And on top of it, he was rude. Don't use
him if you don't want to get ripped off.

Claudia L.

This post is over a month over due. During one of the heavy rain/wind storm last month, our water heater would not heat up. We were forced to take cold showers that day as we could not get a plubmer to come in on such short notice. On one of our last calls, we called Gruber Plumbing and talked to Phil. He too, could not come on the same day to see us due to his schedule, but he was kind enough to troubleshoot the problem. Phil knew exactly what was wrong, our burner was not turning on due to a problem caused by the heavy winds. We were afraid of turning off the very dim pilot at the time for fear of not being able to ignite it again. He instructed for us turn off the pilot for at least 10 to 15 min and then restarting it. It worked and I was thankful to be able to take a hot shower on that very cold day
Thank you Phil, we will be calling you with any future plumbing problems.

Rachel L.

I wished I could give them NEGATIVE STARS (-VE). Have water heater problem, Phil came and compliant that he can't fix it because the cabinet area which we were willing to take down the cabinets and still he found other excuses to not help us out. He did NOT fix it and probably broke it even more and just took off. We called Janice, the scheduler, sucked. She can't do anything, there is no customer service at all. Multiple people in my family called them and they kept switching up the stories on what the issue was and it is still unclear what the issue was. At first, he said it was just fine and then right before he RAN out he ""happened to mention"" that there was no hot water leaving us with no real explanation. We called back and he said there was no way for him to fix it because of ""x,y,z"" but in reality it seemed as though he did not even know what he was doing to begin with. They were really rude and immature and unprofessional in their way of business. Find another company.

John T.

We bought a new water heater and the pilot light would not stay lit. Called the mfg and they called Gruber Plumbing to come out to do the warranty service. At first Phil the owner came off as a bit of an jerk, but when he showed up he was fast and efficient. He replaced the thermocouple and the pilot light stayed lit and we have hot water!