Chipper Plumbing & Radiant

I called and left a message and never heard back. Wanted to use a local Kirkland business but now I will move on to someone else.

Great! First of all, they answered the phone (didn't go to voicemail), was able to quickly get me to the person who does the scheduling and then was able to set up the appointment for the very next day. Jim Stack, the company's owner, called a bit ahead of the appointed time to say he could be there early and if that would work for me (which it did). He quickly confirmed the issue, put in the new seals, and got it all back in working order. Left the bathroom area clean as well so you never would have known any work was done. Very responsive, professional and personable. Highly recommend them.

I was going to use him without question because he is the first out of 3 on Angie's list that actually returned my phone call. After speaking with Todd he had an estimate over within a few hours which I was fine with because I was planning to use a warranty company for a new home I just purchased. After I called the warranty company, they wanted to speak with Todd who refused to even talk with them. He said he charges over $100.00 an hour and they don't pay his phone time and he was too busy to deal with that. Being a brand new potential customer to Todd I expected him to go above and beyond to keep me as a customer but that was certainly not the circumstance. On to the next to see if I can a company that will work a bit outside of the box.

We called Stack Plumbing when another plumber caused a leak that revealed itself a few days after a faulty faucet installation - part of a two-bathroom remodel we're doing -- and charged us amazingly high prices in the process. Mike Stack arrived a couple of hours after we called and within five minutes had discovered and repaired the leak. He consulted with us on the remaining work, educated us on a few points, and agreed to complete the project for us. Because the project would require multiple visits, he refused to invoice us for each one as that would mean a trip charge on each invoice -- instead, he's invoiced us about halfway through the job (at my insistence, because he's been so amazing in a couple of urgent situations and I worried about short-changing him) and will invoice finally when the job is completed. He has been prompt, reliable and responsive in every contact. His work is neat, thorough, and amazingly quick. As far as we're concerned, he's an angel in a tool belt, and I can't recommend him highly enough.

We found the carpet all wet in our under-the-stairway storage space. It had an opening to our crawl space and our crawl space had standing water puddles. This was on Thursday (9/18/2015). We tried to dry it using a room heater but after three days the carpet was still damp. We decided to come to Angie's List on Sunday night and called Stack Plumbing on Monday around 10:30am. Mike from Stack Plumbing answered and scheduled a 12:30pm (same day!) appointment and arrived at 12:15pm (early!). He carefully investigated our upstairs shower (where I suspected the leak had come from), he ruled that out. He then went down to our crawl and found it "bone dry". His assistant brought him the moisture detector and he found traces of moist on the edge of the carpet in my storage space. Yes, I wasn't dreaming, and it was wet, but it did not appear as anything that was caused from a leaked pipe, because otherwise we should have seen bubbles on our walls, yet we did not find any. Eventually he ruled that there wasn't a leak. We might have had some water that leaked out from some drink bottles but we did not have any continuous leakage... Mike was graceful enough to leave without charging us. For that, I was grateful. I wll come back to Stack Plumbing time and time again whenever I have real plumbing needs. Thank you guys!

Kevin and his apprentice explained what they were doing, gave advice on the work we didn't ask them to do, and were competent and pleasant. They arrived 30 minutes early for the appointment which was a little surprise - but okay. Better a bit early rather than way late. Calling 15 minutes out would be a good practice. There was also confusion with the scheduler - we wanted a bid rather than having the work done, and were informed we'd be charged for this visit as well if we went ahead on the work. We were briefly worried about this being a bait-and-switch, but overall we were happy. Just be warned to be highly explicit and firm with the scheduler if you just want an estimate. Net result: A rating generally around, but room for improvement on being explicit around doing a bid or work, and calling ahead.

We were very pleased with his availability, response and flexibility. His +/- $45 per 15-min intervals after the first 30-mins was very reasonable based on his preparation, speed and focus. Would recommend him without reservation.

2nd StGood Service, great people. Gave me confidence they were doing the job right. Could easily have done some replacements instead of fixes and charged more. Very trustworthy and professional.

They shuffled things around to get us in as we were without a working kitchen sink. Original estimate was $200 more than the actual cost and I can't remember the last time someone charged us less when something was easier than they initially thought! Best plumber we ever used.

Super responsive... I called and they were out the same day. I wasn't home at the time but our daughter's nanny was there and said the guy was very pleasant, on-time and fixed the problem quickly.

Mike stack arrived on time with a coworker and was very professional, knowledgeable and pleasant to communicate with. He advised on the leak we had which needs general contractor help and has provided contractor contacts. He quickly fixed a shower which had pressure drop when moved to hot water. He asked if there was anything else that he could help with and fixed a water level issue in a toilet which was self flushing. The work filled only the minimum service call time and he charged accurately and seemed very honest and straightforward.

Couldn't have been happier with the result. Todd explained the situation, kept close to his estimate, honored the Angie's List coupon and gave us advice regarding potential future problems. Would definitely use his firm again.

Have you ever had a company call to show up early? This one did. I was very impressed with the professionalism and knowledge of the plumber/owner, Jim. He helped me to understand my older faucet and how to operate it better to prolong the life of the valves. I now know how to get it apart myself so that I can replace them in the future. Labor appears to be set at $182.50 an hour with a standard $20.00 travel charge. The quote I received on the phone matched what I paid except for a lower cost for parts.

Allred's arrived about 10 minutes early for the 9am appointment, after calling earlier to verify that I would be there - awesome! After reviewing the situation, they talked me through what was likely the problem, and went to work. After pulling the toilet, they replaced the flange that had rusted away, solving the leak, reseated the toilet, tested it several times. Cleaned up and they were done within 90 minutes. Clean, polite, and prompt. I now have two great plumbers on my call list. Two thumbs up!

Stack Plumbing responded quickly to my email request. We scheduled an appt. over the phone. Mike came out to our house to replace an outdoor faucet. (I couldn't get a hose threaded on; tried two new hoses, no luck, and I couldn't see that there was anything wrong with the threads.) He arrived punctually and told us we didn't need a new spigot, what we needed was a piece that fits onto what was there. Within 20 minutes he had added that piece to each of our two outside faucets and was on his way. He was courteous, helpful and saved us money from what we thought we needed. We are very happy and would call them again.

I'm really happy with the result. My bathrooms look fantastic. You can tell that everyone involved takes great pride in their craftsmanship. Jim and his carpenter (Wayne) and tile guy (Pete) worked with my to find solutions appropriate for the peculiarities of my old house. I'd pick them again in a heartbeat for all my plumbing and bathroom needs.

Although it was not an emergency, he could come by after his 10:00am appointment. He called back right before coming and arrived and fixed the problem in 15 minutes.

the quality of work performed appears good. in this aspect, my experience concurred with what has been stated by other past AL reviewers. no reason (yet) to suspect otherwise. time and daily usage of shower valves, will be the real test however what i want to focus on this review - is what i consider questionable issues re: billing and transparency involved. during scheduling, service rate for labor was informed as - $145 (for first 30 min), then $37.50/15 min for subsequent time spent - $20 travel charge work is estimated to take 3hr, but invoice will ultimately be based on actual time spent. when first invoice arrive, $725 was reported for labor. upon inquiry of hours breakdown, the second invoice arrived with labor reported as $696.25 no explanation or apology was offered by the service provider for the overage of $28.75 immediately, it strike me that $28.75 is not in any way a multiple of $37.50 both of the above facts serve as red flags to me. what i found out at the same time is that this service provider has a GPS/timer tracking system where they can indirectly tell how much time the plumber truck spent time at customer's home - excellent idea in theory but useless in practice if it's not enforced. based on the discrepancy observed between my two invoices, it's clear that this practice is not routinely followed in writing up invoices. from a mathematical standpoint, invoice to client can easily be calculated as LABOR RATE = $145 + [(X hours - 0.5 hour)/0.25 hour]*$37.50, with everything rounded up to the nearest 15 min. so how did $725 arise in the first place? is it really okay for a service provider to just grossly guesstimate a figure they think is reasonable and within some ballpark while writing invoices? if yes, then why bother having a GPS/timer tracking system or informing customers about your rate? the more interesting part to the story began with the second invoice arrival. what i found out is that the rate chargeable to me actually reflects a 30% increase over what is stated before (third paragraph). the 15 min rate is now $48.75, up from $37.50, to account for a second person's presence, an apprentice (apprentice rate = $11.25/15 min). throughout my entire interaction with service provider, i was never informed about any of the following - the fact that (a) a second person is actually coming to my home on the day of service AND (b) this second person's presence and rate is chargeable to me and not yet reflected in my quoted service rate. i cant think of any customers who enjoyed being surprised by uninformed upcharges, or N number of apprentices arrive merrily alongside plumber on the actual day to 'assist' and end up raising the final invoice. To me, whether the business owner wants to have 1 or 10 people doing the work is up to him/her to decide, customers view payments as the presumptive cumulative $X/hr (hourly rate - which any astute business owner would figure out by taking into account the rates of person A, person B, person C, if more than one person will be working) multiplied by #hours spent OR $Y (flat rate) they pay for this unknown number of people completing the task, UNLESS the charging system is clearly stated up front that the rate is $Z/hr/man and any extra person involved incurred various extra charges to the paying client - then the customer better be smart to ask how many workers are coming to his/her house. so again, this begs the question - has it always been a routine practice for this company to charge for an apprentice's presence implicitly? i would have no idea this charge is even present if i didnt ask for a detailed breakdown of invoices. or is my situation a one-off thing because service provider realized the first invoice has a gross overrage and attempted to narrow the gap lest it become suspicious? is an okay practice to charge for a second worker's presence without informing customer beforehand - and then when invoice is challenged, argued testily that the customer is the 'winner' because i scored by having the apprentice do the mundane tasks the plumber would have done with a higher final charge to me? i am definitely not interested in being a 'winner' (since when does this become a contest anyway?), but what i can say is i do enjoy working with people who keep to their word. and when this doesnt happen, it's a huge disappointment. it is highly speculative at best (my word vs. the service provider's word) to predict hypothetically what would have been the final charges if the plumber was at my house alone. however, since i was present throughout the time when the job was performed, and know what the apprentice did (and did not do), i have a pretty good guesstimate. regardless, i would have gladly pay the LABOR RATE = $145 + [(X hours - 0.5 hour)/0.25 hour]*$37.50 in accordance to what was agreed, even if the bill end up being more expensive to me in the absence of apprentice (assuming the plumber just doesnt idle around of course) -- simply because this was what had been agreed, rather than having this surreptitious second person charge that i would not have discovered had i not further probe the invoice. this is what i call the word of honor. in situations like this, there are usually 3 sides to the story - plaintiff, defender, the truth. i will let AL members decide on the last

Allreds fit us into their already full schedule to come over and fix our issue in a very timely manner. They were very efficient and professional. We really appreciate their efforts. Good job guys! Thanks! Joe and Ann Turner PS: We will use them whenever the need arises.

Mr. Stack was very professional, kind and pleasant. He called to let me know he was on his way and would be there within 30 minutes. I felt very comfortable having my baby granddaughter and myself alone in the house with him. We would highly recommend him to anyone and will definitely use him in the future. Thank you for you expert service!

It was amazing. When things were worse than anticipated, Allred's Mechanical came up with pragmatic, creative, cost-sensitive solutions. They scoped it out the day before, knew what needed to be done, the order in which to do it, they showed up the next day right on time and worked at an insane pace for the whole day, making sure everything was finished, worked perfectly, and was cleaned up and cleared out. Plus, the whole time, they were pleasant and nice to have around. I honestly don't know how they were able to work so hard for so many hours. They were utterly amazing. When you hire a plumber, you expect him or her to be competent and professional. You don't expect them to be a hero. But the guys at Allred's Mechanical Solutions are heroes. They understood the situation, they worked with my very tight schedule, they dealt with unexpected complications, they were insanely creative, they were kind, they were personable, they got the job done by going the extra mile, and they turned a really horrible situation into a solution that just made life bearable again. Seriously, these guys, Todd, Josh, and Mickey, are heroes. Everyone should have plumbers as good as Allred's plumbers.

Our old 70's toilet was clogging consistently so having called Jim once before (where he solved my issue over the phone at no charge!) I called him once again. He sent his tech Kevin over and we determined that the toilet needed replacing. We ordered a new one, set the date of repair, and Kevin showed up on time, and in about one and a half hours he had the old toilet out, new toilet in, and no mess or drips anywhere in the house! I would not hesitate to call Stack plumbing again!

I'm a demanding fussy customer. I got lucky when I found these guys. 5 stars. Jeff S.

Two men arrived on time. They were courteous and professional. They laid drop cloths from the door to the work space. They were very efficient. They checked the valves and the pipes and made recommendations. They were very knowledgeable. We will use them again without hesitation.

Todd Allred came out immediately when I called and clearly explained the possible solutions. He always either answered his phone or returned a message within a half hour. He agreed to do the job in two phases for me (my request) and both times arrived exactly on time. He did the work precisely as he had explained (no unpleasant surprises or additions). As he promised, he had the new water line in and signed off with the city completed in a day. Todd and his crew worked efficiently, displayed an impressive depth of knowledge, showed great pride in their work, and clearly cared deeply that they did the job correctly. Most of the work was outside but when working inside, they took care to keep things clean, cleaned up afterwards and put everything back in place. He is the first to admit that he may not be the cheapest but the work he does will be done correctly and there are certainly many who charge more and do less.