Recently, there seems to be a paradigm shift in the service plumbing industry in regards to how companies charge for their work.  It wasn’t too long ago that all plumbers and plumbing companies charged for their services on an hourly basis.  Now days, there seems to be a movement within the plumbing community to utilize a flat rate pricing model.  This sort of pricing is very similar to how most auto mechanics charge for their labor.  The companies that use this method of billing have a master pricing book, which is about 4 inches thick.  This book will show almost any possible plumbing scenario that could reasonably exist, and what it will cost you.  The advantage to this, is that you will know exactly what you are going to pay for the service performed ahead of time.  For some people, this is a must.  The disadvantage to this sort of billing, is that it will probably be more expensive at least 90% of the time.  Since there are almost no plumbing problems that will take the same amount of time to repair every time, the flat rate pricing book will account  for the worst. Simply put, you will pay for the worst case scenario of your particular repair EVERY TIME, no matter how long it took the plumber.   This is almost always a winning formula for the plumbing companies, and an expensive repair bill for the customer.  While most of our repair and service work at All Area Plumbing is done on an hourly basis, we do have a few of the most common jobs listed on our website with a set price.  The reason for this is to make it easier for our customers, and to help save us some time on the phones. 

The main advantage of an hourly plumbing company would be the add-ons or extras you may think of while we are there.  If you suddenly remember that your toilet is constantly running upstairs, or that you had a little drip coming from a shutoff valve, we aren’t gonna stick you with an additional charge of $100 or more.  It may actually cost you NOTHING!  Since we are already there, and either of those two things would most likely take less than a minute to fix, it wouldn’t even reflect on our time and your bill.  Obviously, our hourly pricing plan is not nearly as profitable on a job to job, or house to house basis as the flat rate companies.  We are confident that we will make up for that with many, very satisfied, repeat customers.