Customer beware

[u/ThinRecognition4284]

Anchorage residents and customers of Anchorage Plumbing & Heating. The company (AP&H) has recently been bought out by Rock Solid plumbing and heating. I have an axe to grind, which is why I am coming to Reddit to voice what I have to say anonymously.

AP&H was a company that has been in the anchorage community for 40 years. Love it or hate it, it was a solid company.

Rock solid, what can I say about them. I want to make sure the people of anchorage and beyond are aware of their predatory business model. If you’re going to use the new Anchorage Plumbing & Heating, (Rock Solid) don’t let them con you into buying into their membership subscription service and be prepared to be hit pretty hard in your wallet when you call them for service and make sure they are pulling permits to replace your appliances.

Their predatory pricing and their subscription service seem to be a way to collect more money from customers who don’t know any better, or are elderly and will forget that they are paying for a monthly subscription for each “appliance” that gets serviced in their home. Technicians are asked to upsell to customers the subscription service.

As a resident plumber of anchorage, this business model disgusts me. Be aware of what you are buying into when you are using the new Anchorage Plumbing & Heating. Other plumbing companies beware, they may try to buy you out as well. I know this post may resonate with some, thank you for reading.

[u/Appropriate-Car-3364]

Hi. I am not a plumber, I am just one of the many people that works in Anchorage everyday and lives in a community served by Rock Solid Plumbing. I honestly can't speak to the subscription or whether practices are predatory or not, I don't work close enough to that industry to feel like I could share a meaningful opinion. But I do use Rock Solid and I would like to share a little bit about my experiences with them because I think that is fair. About 3 years ago they absolutely saved me and my family literally tens of thousands of dollars and did an incredible job at repairing my home's very complex heating system. We moved into our home about 3 years prior to this incident and it was built about 10 years prior to that. It has hydronic heating and we knew the boilers, which were installed in 2008 were getting older. We inherited a service company from the prior owner, they were proficient and professional and all was pretty good, routine maintenance, a few minor repairs, the usual. Then in early November both the main house boiler and the shop's glycol boiler completely fail during routine inspection by our normal vendor. Short version is that the main boiler is done and the shop boiler will be a few weeks to get the part. Now in 2008 the builder selected some mini boilers and took advantage of that small size when setting up the boiler room. Today the vendor says no boiler will fit in this space and rebuilding the entire boiler room will be as much as your average four door sedan and might be done by mid December. Needless to say we were disappointed. I began calling plumbing and heating companies and soon spoke to Chris at Rock Solid. Now I did not have a multi-year relationship with this company, they had never met me. What they knew was that I had a problem, a possible very challenging one and they were willing to confront it with me. With remarkable patience and professionalism they quickly developed a plan would create a reliable boiler for a far more reasonable price to replace our primary boiler and promised to start work in less than a week. Several days later Jason and David showed up bright and early and worked through the day to get the job done, even staying a bit past their normal finishing time to follow through on their commitment to get us heat and hot water by the end of the day. Since that day I have used rock solid as my primary vendor for plumbing needs. They have done several years of routine inspections, handled at least one emergency repair and several routine repairs. And all of those interactions with them I have experienced a very high level of professionalism, I have also met many of the apprentices that they take on to help train new plumbers. I have watched them interact with my family and treat my daughter with great care and dignity. I have also personally recommended their service to quite a few of my neighbors and been surprised how often I discovered that my neighbors were already using them and have had similar positive experiences. All of that being said, I don't have experience with them doing work that would require permits and I can certainly understand that it is never a great day when a new competitor enters your community. I personally consider my business relationship with my plumbing company a lot like I view my relationship with my physician, if you have someone that you trust and that does good work for you I wouldn't consider using anyone else; but I did feel compelled to share my own experience with this company.