Nelson Plumbing

C C.

Very quick response. I called to fix a clogged drain and after my name and number were taken, about one minute later I got a call from Richard. He wasn't able to work on my problem but referred me to Williams Plumbing. He assured me that Williams was the best and told me if I wasn't happy with them to give him a call back. I called Williams Plumbing but they were booked for a couple of days and they gave me a referral for Noah's Plumbing. Noah's Plumbing did a fantastic job and I wouldn't have had the work done quickly and cleanly if it weren't for the referrals from Richard @ Nelson Plumbing. I'm only giving 4 stars because Nelson Plumbing didn't actually work on my problem so I can't rate their workmanship.

Michael P.

Nelson Plumbing did an amazing job installing a new copper water line in front of my house. If my house was not already re-piped I would have them do it in a second. Richard explained my options and really helped me by working with my budget. I also have to say that Carrie and PJ are the Rock Stars of plumbing. They did a meticulous job and didn't mind me being somewhat of a ""groupie"" onlooker while they were working, I got to learn allot. The whole crew of Nelson plumbing goes beyond what anyone would expect when they make that first call to a plumber.

Susie F.

Richard Nelson from Nelson Plumbing just completed an excellent job of repiping our home within the time and cost estimated.

We had water damage at the beginning of Oct. that required replacing the furnace ducting under the house. The ducting installer discovered a weak area in our pipes and suggested we clamp it. We decided it was finally time to get rid of the 46 year-old galvanized pipes and repipe with copper.

Logged onto Yelp and got estimates from two highly rated businesses. The estimates were practically the same but how the job would be done was completely different. One would bring in 6 to 8 workers and basically do the entire job in 10-12 hours on one long day. At first this appealed to us. You know, getting it done as fast as possible and not being inconvenienced for very long. The other was Nelson Plumbing, with Richard Nelson at the helm. Although it would take 10 days to a couple of weeks to get the entire job done, we determined that having one Master Plumber taking his time to do a thorough and professional job was much better than having numerous workers rushing through the work so they could get it done in one day. Either way it would take close to 100 man hours to get the work done. All things considered, we decided we would rather take the time to have Richard do the job, and we're very glad we did!

b. R. c.

Carrie and PJ did an excellent job re-piping our entire house. They did exactly what they claimed on their website by providing a stress-free environment for this project. They were considerate of our family and our home, and made sure every detail was covered, and that the project was done thoroughly. They also took care of all the permits and made sure the entire project was done according to code. We also had little side jobs that needed attention that they took care of without hesitation, such as an unbalanced, leaky toilet. When Carrie was unhappy with her drywall patch job, she called in an expert from San Jose to redo the work at no extra charge. It was fun to have them here in our home; we actually miss seeing them! How many plumbers can you say that about??

* Written on behalf of my parents, Joanne and Karl from Aptos, CA *

Kevin H.

Nelson Plumbing installed copper pipes in our home and we are very happy with the outcome. It has been a few months since the project completed and we haven't had any issues at all. Both PJ and Carrie are incredibly hard working and they were very patient with us. They made a point to make sure we understood what they were doing and they politely and patiently answered all of our questions in a thorough manner. I would also like to mention that they go above and beyond the scope of the project to impress their customers. They handled an unrelated plumbing issue at no charge as well as cleaned up years of debris in the crawl space, which they didn't need to do. My wife even mentioned to me that our house is cleaner after they leave compared to before they get there. Attention to detail is definitely a strength of theirs. If you are looking to do a repipe project or just need a plumber for other issues/projects I would highly recommend them.

Renee M.

I'm now the proud (ha!) homeowner of 2 additional cleanouts and a backflow device after Carrie and PJ of Nelson Plumbing brought our sewer pipe up to West Valley Sanitation District and Los Gatos requirements.

Replacing our old clay sewer line and galvanized water service pipe and installing the cleanouts turned out to be quite a project. Carrie and PJ planned to hand-dig the trenches for the pipes to avoid damaging the irrigation and gas lines in the yeard, but soon realized they would not be able to get through the matted redwood tree roots and rock-laced soil and get the job done in a timely way. So they went to plans B and C: a trencher for the water service trench and a bobcat for the sewer line trench. They worked slowly and carefully with the bobcat operator to dig the sewer line trench without nicking the nearby gas line.

They worked 6 long, hard days digging, laying pipe, and then refilling the trenches and compacting the soil by hand. I was home most of the time, and they kept me informed about what they were doing and how things were going. Carrie is a great communicator and explains things very well and thoroughly.

Carrie and PJ knew exactly what they were doing and were very exacting about laying the sewer pipe at the proper pitch, for example, and cleaning up every evening.

We ended up paying a bit more than the original estimate because we had to pay the bobcat operator and because the sewer line trench ended up being longer than we expected (runs diagonally across our yard instead of straight to the street), but the extra was fair given what we encountered on the project.

I am very happy with the work that Carrie and PJ did. I think they take a lot of pride in their work and want to do the best job possible. I also really enjoyed having them around while they were at my house.

Bill H.

Nelson Plumbing replaced my house to street-meter water main. P.J. was the main man, but Carrie also came out and did some work. These folks are great to work with and know their stuff. When I first called, if got the answering service, and then a call from P.J. about 5 miniutes later. He then came out shortly to check out the situation. Since the leak was probably under the driveway and could not be verified visually, except the water meter turns, P.J. was very thorough and careful in verifying that the water main was the problem, and not some other strange leak.

P.J. is a top notch plumber and does the job right, and to code or better. Used first class materials and did not try to skimp. He is very much in touch with the custoer and makes sure there is mutual understanding and agreement of how the job will be done and the estimated price. This job required rerouting of the pipes and some unknowns but P.J. stayed true to his estimate and did not try to nickle and dime or upsell. P.J. was very professional and honest. He asked me on several occasions if I was happy with the way the work was going. P.J. was very patient in discussing alternate ways of doing this job (since there was no straight forward easy way to run the new pipes) and we arrived at the best answer and meeting of the minds, before the work started. He brought out extra help for the digging part to get the job done quickly.

I would highly recommed P.J. He is great to work with, sticks with it until the job is done, and does it right, and makes sure the customer is satisfied. Can't get much better than that.

I would highly recommend P.J.

Devon B.

Worst customer services! The operator was nice and I explained that I think my cold water hose was leaking but not sure, I want to get an estimate. When Nelson called back for the qoute, he said ""What's the problem!"" ""I explained again. He said ""So!"" I said again, can you give me an estimate? He said ""It is $125/hour for the service call and $25 for the parts."" Then I said that's good, but what if it is something else, I'm no expert. If there is something more than a hose, can you give me a qoute after looking at it? He said ""Look, I don't have time to waste, I'm busy. If you want to do it, do it. I don't have time to play game with you."" I was surprised with the attitude he has as if everyone supposed knows extactly the plumbing problems they have in the house before calling him.
Nelson, You've just lost a business from me. I then call 3 other places. Everywhere else qouted a service call for $95/hour, and they agreed to come get an estimate to make sure what the problem it. If there is something else, I would be qouted and ageed upon before charging. And if it is just the hose problem like I mentioned, they would charge me $12 to $25 for the part, plus $95 service/repairing fee. That is the most basic customer services. On top of that his price is at the top end of everything, labor and parts. I think Nelson is just too cocky for getting loads of business from the previous reviews.

Zurie D.

Oh man ! Richard Nelson .. he is SUCH a character, but more on that later. So we had a leak in our pipe .. we've had it for about two months or so and every time I saw the water dripping down my driveway I imagined all my neighbors whispering amongst themselves, ""Oh those people who live there .. they need to keep up appearances."" but the fact was, I was just super lazy about it, and our gardener at one point tweaked it so it no longer flowed down our driveway but into our lawn, but one day the city came by and wrote us this note that read something like, ""There is a leak in your pipe. It is YOUR responsibility to fix it."" so I thought, oh okay .. (we've had major pipe problems with my house because of this big tree in front) so I came on Yelp to look for a plumber. I'm very nervous about looking for service-type things, mainly because I'm usually not very knowledgeable about it, and I'm very wary about people ripping me off (it definitely happens, esp when I owned my Volkswagen).

Anyways, we called a few plumbers and some didn't pick up, some picked up and arranged to meet us and didn't, and some arranged to meet us and did. We called and a lady took down our information and said we would get a call back. I walked away from my phone because I wasn't sure how long it would take, and a few seconds later, my phone rang. I picked it up and heard an extremely cheerful, ""HI EMILY!"" At this point, I was confused, because I thought it was one of my friends (the voice had such familiarity to it), but it was Richard, and he was very chatty and said he would head right over.

One of the things that impressed me (and my fiance) the most about Richard was that he immediately knew what was up. We had one plumber who wanted to charge us to get another person to dig it up and patch the pipe, another one who couldn't figure out which pipe was which, and Richard took one look at our pipe and was spouting words I've never heard like, ""galvanized steel pipe"" and such. He also knew the sizes of the pipes from sight and was telling us the difference between plastic, steel and copper pipes and stuff .. and he is so animated and excited talking about it I couldn't really get a word in edge-wise, and in the end he wrote me a quote because I needed to discuss this over, and I expected to shake his hand and thank him for coming but he was still talking and climbed into his truck and so we were like hm, okay ! and went into the house. We heard the truck come to a stop and Chris (the fiance) peered out and said, ""Hey, he stopped in front of our house,"" so I'm like, ""Oh! Maybe he wasn't finished yet"", so we waited .. but Chris was peeping through the peephole and he said all puzzled, ""Hm, I'm not sure what he's doing, it looks like he's on the phone."" Well, it turns out, Richard was calling me (I had missed the call because it was in the bedroom).. so I was cracking up because he called us from our driveway, but he was super nice and telling us how he remembers it was to be young and by the time we hung up, I was pretty positive we would hire him.

I'm pretty bad at answering my phone, and I was at work, so I asked Chris to call Richard around 10:30, and he started working two hours later, and stayed there until around 8ish. I wasn't home most of the time (Chris's brother Nick just moved to California so he was inside the house the whole time and Chris popped in and out), and Chris thoroughly enjoyed chatting with Richard and would update me online on things like, ""He's from Michigan too!"" and ""He has two kids and said it's the best thing he's ever done!"".

He has a truck that's filled with a bunch of gadgets and set himself up a little tent, and his work is absolutely amazing. I honestly can't say enough good stuff about Richard and Nelson plumbing. He gave me a quote that was lower than the other plumbers (who wanted to do plastic or just to repair it) and stuck with it, really knows his stuff, does quality work and in such good time. His son-in-law came to help towards the end and was very friendly also.

One thing that made me laugh like crazy and gives Richard bonus points was when I, Chris and Nick came out of the house and Richard saw Nick and exclaimed, ""Who are you and where did you come from!"" and we explained that he was in the house the whole time and he said, ""NINJA!""

Ivette L.

These guys are the best! We had a pipe leaking under the house. Richard Nelson came on a Saturday and crawled into our tiny crawl space to fix it. He was reasonably priced too! When he noticed there was a loose heating duct there (that came apart when he touched it), he actually bought a replacement and installed it at no charge. He has a truck full of supplies that he brings with him so he seemed prepared for everything! Highly recommend him!