Most people choose a plumber while standing in water, which is the worst possible moment to assess anybody. Here is what to look for, ideally before you need to.
Check the license, and check the number
Florida requires a licensed plumbing contractor for most plumbing work, and requires the license number to appear in advertising.
So: a company advertising that it is “licensed” without printing a number is worth a second look. Ask for it. Anyone legitimate will give it without hesitation, and you can verify it with the state.
This is also why you will see our number in the footer of every page on this site. It is not a design decision.
The red flags
A price on the phone, before seeing the job. A number given without looking is a number that gets revised upwards later. It is the single most reliable predictor of a dispute.
Pressure to decide immediately. Emergencies are genuinely urgent; contracts are not. Anybody manufacturing urgency around a signature rather than around water is selling, not fixing.
“We’ll sort the paperwork after.” Get the scope in writing before work starts. Not a total — a description of what is included and what is not.
Diagnosis by replacement. A plumber who proposes replacing something without establishing why it failed is guessing with your money. This matters most with big-ticket items: cast iron, repiping, water heaters.
No mention of permits or inspection on work that requires them. Water heater installations and significant plumbing work are inspected in Florida. Somebody who does not raise it either does not know or is planning to skip it, and both are your problem later.
Vagueness about who is actually doing the work. Ask.
A cash-only discount for skipping the paperwork. The discount is small. The absence of any record is not, particularly when you sell.
The questions that actually tell you something
- “What do you think is causing it?” A good answer distinguishes the symptom from the cause. A bad answer names a part.
- “What would change this price?” Anyone who has done the job knows what the unknowns are and will name them.
- “What happens if you open it up and find something else?” The answer you want is that they stop and re-quote. The answer you do not want is that it will be “sorted out at the end”.
- “Is this inspected work?” You are not testing them on code. You are finding out whether they think about it.
On comparing quotes
Compare scope before price. Two quotes with different numbers are frequently quoting different jobs — one includes making good and the other does not, one replaces the valves and the other reuses them.
The cheapest quote for a smaller scope is not cheaper. It is a different job, and you will pay the difference later, usually at a worse moment.
And the boring stuff
Did they turn up when they said? Did they protect the floor? Did they explain what they found? Did they leave the property clean?
None of that is technical, and all of it predicts what the work itself is like.
What a written quote should actually contain
“We’ll sort it out and let you know” is not a quote, and neither is a number on its own. A quote you can hold somebody to has five parts, and the absence of any of them is the thing that becomes an argument later.
- The scope, in sentences. What is being done, to what, and where. “Replace water heater” is a line item; “remove existing 40-gallon tank, supply and install new 40-gallon, new flex connectors, new expansion tank, new drip pan and discharge” is a scope.
- What is excluded. The honest part. Making good the drywall, permit fees, upsizing the gas line if it turns out to be undersized — whatever is not in the price should be written down as not in the price.
- What would change it. Every trade job has a discovery risk. A quote that names it (“if the shut-off is seized, replacing it is $X extra”) is a quote that will not surprise you.
- Who supplies what. If you are providing the fixture, say so in the quote, because warranty follows supply.
- Permit and inspection, where the work needs one. Whether it is included, who pulls it, and whose name it is in.
On permits, since nobody enjoys this part
Water heater replacements, repipes, sewer work and anything structural generally need one in Miami-Dade, and a licensed contractor pulls it in their own name. Two reasons it matters beyond the law: an unpermitted water heater is a line on the next inspection report when you sell, and an unpermitted repipe is a conversation with an insurer at the worst possible moment.
A contractor who offers to skip the permit to save you money is offering to move a cost from today to the day you sell the house — and telling you something about how they treat rules when nobody is watching.
Two questions worth asking last
“Who will actually be on site?” and “what happens if you find something worse?” The answers say more about the next two days than any review does.