SMART Plumbing Hawaii

Michael C.

From start to finish, we had an amazingly smooth and delightful plumbing experience! Smart Plumbing Hawaii was: Prompt * Professional * Knowledgeable * Friendly * Fast. Every interaction we had, whether it was in-person, on the phone, or by email was handled with excellent customer service. They were always on-time, and any follow-up questions I had were answered quickly. Smart Plumbing Hawaii is family run business done right! Thanks Lei + Gabe you are the greatest! OUR STORY... We saw their truck driving around town, wrote down their name and went online to check them out. We found their great website, which answered most of our questions, so we shot them an email to see if they were up to tackling our unusual project. We bought a TOTO model: TMF47 (Japanese Bath/Shower combo with tub filler + thermostat) while we were in Japan and needed it installed. Most plumbers we talked to had never seen one, and were hesitant to help us. (And, of course all the specs + instructions were in Japanese). After a few emails and pictures, Gabe was willing to take a look at our bathroom and our new TOTO bath/shower combo, to see if it was possible. It was, and a week later our new faucet was installed and working like a dream! It is so much more fun to take a bath + shower now! We will absolutely do business with them again in the future and would whole heartedly recommend them to friends & family. We look forward to calling them again when we install our dishwasher and upgrade our other bathroom. Smart Plumbing Hawaii is a true pleasure to do business with and a real asset to the Islands! With Warmest Aloha! D + A

Greg K.

I had a plumbing emergency - and of course, it occurred just a couple days before I was headed to the mainland. Respectfully, I cannot believe that last reviewer could have been talking about Gabriel and his business. I was contacted right away after sending them out my SOS. Because this happened just before a weekend, I was frantic to get the problem taken care of. Gabriel's friendly wife spoke to me twice on the phone during her personal time off. They listened to what was going on and assured me that he would do his best to come out Monday, despite his busy schedule. He did indeed come out. He is a kind, patient and friendly man and had the entire disgusting problem sorted in less than two hours. I expected to be charged a lot of money - instead, he handed me a bill for $147. WOW! I am a home owner and a business woman here in Hilo. For me to say that I was impressed with Smart Plumbing is really saying a lot. I will never call anyone else for my plumbing needs and I will be sure to be passing his business cards around to my friends and associates. My sincerest thanks to both of you for taking such great care of me!

Daniel Y.

This is the absolute worst place to call for your plumbing needs. My husband and I hired them to come out to our home and they sent two of their techs to diagnose our home. We didn't hear back from them for about 3 months. I had to call this company to do a follow up since they failed to call/email me about quotes and prices and scheduling for them to come over to do repairs. Not only did they drop the ball on that, but even after Gabriel, the owner of the company, came down to do the diagnostics again, there was still a lot of problems with their employee, Lance (who answers all phone calls) with not being up front with prices (i.e charging us to look up parts that we needed, never disclosing ""research fees of $125"", with all the back and forth phone calls and emails between he and I, that there was a 30% up-charge fee until the very last minute, even after we had asked him if there were any other hidden fees that we should know about). Which makes them a very shady company. Also, be prepared to get some very bad attitude from Lance should you have a problem with something and have the gall to tell him that you're upset that he failed to disclose certain things to you. Very unprofessional. After we spoke to Lance, we spoke to Gabriel over the phone and explained to him the situation and everything that had transpired up until that point and why we weren't told about certain charges/fees beforehand. He seemed genuine when he said that he and his wife would speak to Lance and figure out what happened. When we ended the phone call, I was a bit optimistic that everything would get better from there. I was wrong. We did not receive any phone call from Gabriel or his wife. Instead, we received an email from his wife (Rosalei, whom, before this, we had never had a conversation with) basically saying that they didn't want to do any business with us because we had a problem with the quote. My husband and I were both shocked as there was never any mention (from our end at least) that we didn't like the quote. We were willing to pay the quote on everything else, but we were very unhappy on how there seemed to be always another surprise-out-of-nowhere cost that would creep up every time we spoke to Lance. After receiving the-slap-in-the-face email from Rosalei, I was livid. Disrespectful, time consuming/time wasting, unprofessional, failed to get the facts from the customers, and at this point, we had already paid $600 in diagnostics fee with nothing to show for! No repairs were done!! And this company had the audacity to imply in their following email to my husband and I that since they refunded us the $600 and since they're willing to work with us to make everything good between us, that we should take down our bad reviews and remove the word ""shady"" in the interest of ""fairness"". This was requested prior to any remedy work to be done, which we disagreed with. At this point being 6+ months too late, we cannot get that wasted time back, so this is not an issue of fairness anymore, but more of one that is based on facts. Had we not communicated the facts of numerous events that transpired up until then, we may not have gotten a refund nor a response given Rosalei was quick to jump to conclusions without getting both sides first. Regarding the discussions to remedy our plumbing issues, Rosalei continued to try to control how she would make it right even after she asked my husband and I how they could make it right with us. This company is such a huge migraine to deal with. Save yourself some grief and stay away from this company. Shady! We were also informed by Rosalei that Gabriel would not be able to work on our property to remedy the situation and so we could hold someone accountable since the majority of the miscommunication and failure to disclose important details were previously dropped by one of their employees. But we find a recent review stating how he was able to find time on a weekend to go to someone else's house to do plumbing despite being told that he has no time to work on our property. Shady! We outlined our requirements to remedy the situation, but their last email to us was that they couldn't meet our requirements in full. Refunding our $600 back is not doing us any favors because all we wanted was to have our plumbing issues repaired and were willing to pay for it all.

Clarence R.

Wow! I love these people. They were quick to answer our calls. The staff was polite, friendly and efficient. We have used their services twice and each time I was pleased with the results. Their prices were reasonable too. I highly recommend them!

Jeff K.

In checking back through my records, I couldn't find where Smart Plumbing advertised 25 hour service, but it's possible that their advertising was changed after the fact. It's a moot point in any case. Not sure what number they called, but I received no text or voicemail messages from Smart. A service company like this should offer 24 hour service, end of story.

Moe M.

Incompetent! Called to set up an appointment- didn't get an appointment until the following week. I clearly told Lance several times that I have no phone and no internet where I am located and would not get a confirmation email or call. The morning of the appointment, I waited 2 hours before driving into town only to see an email ""we won't come with out confirmation to this email"". I called Lance who said ""oh yeah, that's right, you did say that, well we can put you on a waiting list""... If they can't handle simple instructions such as that - I wouldn't trust them with complex matters like plumbing.

Niznack W.

Fast, efficient service! I had an outside spigot that had the treads stripped so water poured everywhere when I tried attaching a hose. They were able to quickly replace the spigot so all works well now.

Retsehc D.

When I moved into my new house in Hilo in late January, I had a succession of plumbing-related issues stemming from the fact that the house-flippers I bought it from had cheaped out on a few things that hadn't shown up in the home inspection. Among other things, there was a water leak in the line leading to my shower and, most distressingly, a newish but totally crappy water heater that regularly malfunctioned. I tried Smart Plumbing Hawaii based mainly on online reviews, and they were consistently responsive, helpful, and made an effort to keep my costs from getting completely out of control. While I definitely hope not to need a plumber again soon, if I do I'll call them.

Lea H.

Can't even get them to call back to schedule an appointment . Disappointing, when they were a smaller company they were super nice and reliable.

Derek M.

Smart Plumbing came highly recommended from a fellow mom in a facebook group. Everything was great with the first round. I had issues with my water heater, they sent two guys around who looked up my issues and found a solution. They went above and beyond too, fixing small issues with the sink. But then, about 10 days later, my hot water wouldn't go on. I called them again. This time, Gabriel - who was really, really nice - came around for an estimate. Relying on what the previous guys said, he didn't even open the water heater; he just checked lines. etc. He said I'd be put on high priority, even though pieces in my place would need permits. I'd be on high priority because I'm a single mom with 3 little kids and my mom who is elderly and sick is also staying with me, and the water was COLD. So, 5 days later, still nothing from them in terms of an estimate - total silence. I wrote and asked if the estimate was coming, we were all waiting for it. They said it was a complicated bid they were overwhelmed with work. I said ok, and that I had my little kids and mom taking the freezing showers and washing dishes in cold water, we'd really appreciate it, thanks. They said sure, then 5 days later, contact me to ask me if I STILL WANTED THE BID. I was furious. I'd been waiting 10 days for... what? Since I had a feeling at that point they were not going to pull through, I contacted another plumber who came and opened my heating box and found the switches were incorrectly flipped. THAT WAS ALL. Hot water back on. A couple of days later, Smart Plumbing contacted me to say they were still working on the bid, did I really want it, etc. I wrote back and told them how disappointed I was in their communication. I trusted them and I really liked them and it actually hurt that they just left me like that, when I really needed help. They did not respond, not even to apologize. So... yes, they can be great. Yes, I do think they have a lot of expertise. But that was a simple issue and they made a mountain out of it and left me when it seemed too hard for them to handle.