Big Blue Plumbing & Heating

I’m going to start with all of the positives, and there are many:
I first met with Kevin, who was extremely professional and courteous. I liked dealing with him, and he was pretty prompt with getting back to me. Communication is important and these guys know it! The guys he sent over, Josh and Bill, were also courteous and professional. Their task was to replace a cast iron drain and vent stack with new PVC, since the old drain was leaking. They had to disassemble a lazy Susan in my kitchen cabinet to access a particular pipe, but at the end of the job, it was fully reassembled like nobody had ever been in there. They kept wall cutting to a minimum and cleaned up after themselves, at least in my condo. So far so good.
Now for a couple of the downsides. Immediately below the joints of the new PVC piping, on the floor of my basement, is caked on pipe epoxy. It is unsightly and does not appear to be easily removable. Some are just blotches. Some are thin lines of it 8 – 10 inches long across the floor. This is apart from the water stains from the original pipe leak. I can take pictures as needed. It appears that Josh and Bill may have not used a drop cloth when they were working in the basement.
Also the $ 1895 estimate given to me at the start of the project was basically exactly what the final invoice was. This is a positive, but I expected a more detailed breakdown of the exact cost of what I paid for. There was only one line item on the invoice with a simple description of the job and the total cost. At minimum, I expect a labor breakdown, including an hourly rate, and a list of parts and their costs. I did some prep work on their behalf, which included carefully removing built-​in shelves (for later reassembly) and cutting exploratory holes to precisely locate the questionable pipe and any adjacent electrical wiring, so that they could gain access to the necessary areas without the additional labor of doing that themselves. But that seemed to have no downward impact on the final invoice despite giving them at least an hour head start on the job.
Overall, I’m still pleased, and hope to give them another star in the near future if they can somehow address these issues. I still consider them my go-​to plumbing service, but they need to take cleanup measures in all areas they work, not just livable spaces.

Neutral comment — just pointing the shaded service area map is not accurate — they do not service Boston South End. They do answer the phones though which is a huge plus for most plumbing services in the greater Boston area.

Initially terrible but problem somewhat resolved…
I had a sump pump issue and explained carefully over the phone where the problem is. I was told it would take 3 – 5 hours for them to repair. The guy shows up and refuses the work and says it’s for a landscaping company. Even though I had carefully explained over the phone what the situation was, he was disrespectful and kept muttering about work order. I should have given up right then but decided to have him look at a leak in the shower. His response is that it appeared someone had worked on it already and so he could no longer do so. At this point, we had to give up and ask him to leave and he starts demanding money for having done nothing or even trying.
Afterwards, the owner realized that he has a terrible employee and sent a written apology with a gift card. This was very nice and professional at the other end of the spectrum. The owner clearly cares that things are fair and done well. Unfortunately, there are sometimes problematic employees and I assume this is why the Unilocal ratings are either 1 star or 5 stars. To be fair, I’ll take the average given that the owner owned up to the problem.

I had a pleasant experience with BBPH. They are fast, reliable, professional, and mostly HONEST. I would call them again.
P.
p. s. Indigaro you should learn from Big Blue Plumbing how to conduct business.

Excellent quality work and very high quality plumbers who inspire confidence. I’d give it 5 stars but the quality of the administration /​front office communication with customers could be improved.

Best plumber in the area. Hands down.
I have a big old victorian home that hadn’t been renovated in decades. We had a leaking estebrook. It’s a very good thing if you don’t know what that is. It’s a huge pipe that in our case, went from basement to the third floor.
I must have called five plumbers. All refused the work. The job was too big, they’d have to go through too many walls, or better yet, they’d just never get back to me with an estimate.
Kevin came in, removed the estebrook, put in a new one, charged a reasonable rate, cleaned up after himself — it was terrific.
Very happy we use them.

These guys are racist. They said they service Southie and South End but won’t service Chinatown despite it being closer.

Big Blue is by far the best plumbing service I’ve come across in the Boston area in awhile. My husband and I own both rental property and a home and I will from now on, call Big Blue when there’s a plumbing problem in either place.
We had a bathroom faucet that was leaking out of the handles. The first plumber we called couldn’t take the faucet apart. Next up was Big Blue. Kumar arrived on time, was very polite and didn’t give up on the issue. He is clearly very knowledgeable in his trade. We ended up having to replace the faucet, which is what I suspected since we deferred the fix for so long. The cartridges in the handles were so corroded that the faucet had to be sawed off. The job was complicated by the fact that our sink wasn’t installed well and it was difficult to make the parts fit. But Kumar kept me informed of every potential obstacle along the way. He explained exactly what I needed to look for in a new faucet in order for it to be intstalled correctly. Finally, Kumar addressed an issue with a gap between our undermount sink and the counter which was causing water to leak into the cabinet below. He really went above and beyond. I wish all home maintenance/​improvement services were as awesome as Kumar and Big Blue!
Bottom line, I’d recommend Big Blue to anyone in the Boston area.

Love these guys. Had a jammed up garbage disposal early on a Sunday morning. Turned out to be a simple fix, and instead of charging me for a visit, they walked me through fixing it over the phone. Oh, and it took them all of 5 minutes to return my call. Honest and good!

Professional, reassuring, honest.
This is my experience in using them earlier today. They were great and relatively inexpensive!
I am a new (er) home owner who has never had to deal with this type of situation. I was nervous and basically had no clue
Kumar arrived on time, performed a complete evaluation of the existing water heater and continuously kept me informed of what needed to be done, how long it would take and even went the extra mile by providing additional information (I.e. This is where the main water shut-​off is located, etc.). He is definitely an asset to this company.
I also had interaction with both Kevin and Donna (who answered the phone) and were extremely polite, responsive by actually returning a phone call when promised, and helpful by answering all of the questions I had — And I had a lot!
I would definitely recommend them to others! Thank you!

This company was very quick to respond after a pipe had burst. Kevin set Kumar up to come by ASAP. Kumar came and worked his magic. He was very friendly and put me at ease regarding the leak that we had. It’s always nice to know that local independent companies are available and willing to take care of us, on a drop of a dime. This review does not take into account the cost Bc we have not received a bill yet. Overall the service was great!

Best plumbing service I have found in the Boston area. Very transparent, down to suggesting that work is not required that i had asked about even if it would make them money. Also punctual and give realistic estimates.
Never had a bad experience in the 4 – 5 jobs i have had them do from servicing central air units, installing a gas dryer, replacing water heaters and fixing a broken faucet for my hot tub.
Could not recommend more highly…

I’m writing to express my gratitude and extreme satisfaction with the emergency late night service that Big Blue provided on the night of January 2^nd. Around 9:30pm, I found water streaming thru my mud room from a burst baseboard pipe in one of my second floor guest bedroom. We had been using an electric space heater upstairs in our main bedroom in an attempt to save some heating cost. Once I found the source of the leak, I called the emergency line and got a call back from Kumar about 20mins later. He said he would try to get to my place in 20 mins. He arrived right around twenty minutes.
I could tell he was tired from working all day and all night but he was nonetheless, friendly, courteous, and professional. He checked out the boiler in the basement, shut off the water to upstairs, cut out and replaced the burst pipe and cleaned up. And there was no attitude, rudeness, or sarcasm the entire repair. Given the bad situation, he was a pleasure to deal with.
Kumar from Big Blue was extremely professional and we were happy to have him help solve our terrible situation.

I spoke to Josh at Big Blue about installing bathroom safety rails in my shower. I explained that I was having surgery in 4 weeks and wanted to have the safety rails installed prior to my surgery date. Josh was very nice — reassured me that he would get it done for me– he assured me that he’d call me within a week to schedule a date for the work. GREAT! Welll… THREE weeks and no phone call so I called him. If he had been honest and told me he forgot — fine. But instead he gives me this song and dance about the plumbing supply store being out of stock on safety rails. Can you say BULLSHIT, Josh??? I called another plumber who was at my house the very next day — completed the job in less than an hour.
Note to Josh — if you don’t want or have the time to do the work — BE HONEST about it. There are plenty of other plumbers out there who could use the work, no matter how small the job.

Had a small gas leak, so called Big Blue. They were able to fit me in before the weekend. The plumber came out on a Friday afternoon, cut out the leaky pipe, and replaced it. Feeling good so far…
Inspector came out on Monday, but the pipe was still leaking, which require several plumbers and a manager to fix. In total, I got billed for 4 leak fixes, 3 of which were caused by the initial fix of the one leak. Will try every other plumber in the area before calling Big Blue again after feeling quite ripped off.

Absolutely terrible experience. Quoted me an hourly rate for work done and was highly reviewed on Unilocal — so I ended up going with them to replace a water heater under warranty.
They arrived — were nice enough — handled all the warranty replacement stuff and came back the next day with a replacement header. With the wrong heater. They claimed it was the only one the warranty would cover — was a lower power (and cheaper) model than the one I had originally. Guy who did the install was a jerk, scratched my floor with the replacement and treated his apprentice like crap (Literally laughed when he burned his hand several times.)
I complained a couple more times and then called the manufacturer who told me that they should have replaced it with the same model. Finally got them to recognize their error and Josh came over and was nice enough about it — Kevin also came over at a later date.
Around this time their first bill came in. $ 1000 to replace my water heater under warranty — and the guy was nice enough to «not charge for any piping.» They were there for under 2 hours and the hourly rate they quoted as $ 125. Every other quote I had for replacement was under half that total.
About 2 weeks, 5 visits and 20 phone calls later they replaced the water heater with the correct one and I paid $ 800 to replace an under warranty water heater.
Nothing about this experience was inline with other Unilocalers experiences.

From the very start my experience with Big Blue Plumbing was 5 stars! We had a gas leak and needed to have the pipe checked and possibly repaired. I had received a recommendation for Big Blue from a friend and gave them a call. The staff was very helpful at scheduling our appointment, mindful of the fact that we might need to have the gas company come back after them and so they gave me the first appointment of the day. Awesome!
They arrived right on time and were very professional. They showed me everything they did and explained the outcome to me. They also fixed an issue with our water heater that was unrelated to the gas leak but that I had been meaning to get fixed. Oh, and did I mention that our neighborhood lost power while they were there and they kept working to finish the job? This company clearly values customer service.
The staff are very knowledgeable and they do things the right, safe way. I’ll definitely continue to use them for future plumbing needs.

Best Experience! Go with Kumar to replace your water heater!
Big Blue Plumbing replaced my water heater. Very efficient service and great quality work. I initially emailed to get a quote. When I saw that it was reasonable, I emailed BBP and got in touch with Donna who was very fast at getting a viewing appointment scheduled. Kevin (owner) personally came out to make sure that the work was doable. After scheduling the installation (and water heater removal) appointment, Kumar came out and did some great work. He pointed out what past plumbers should have done and never complained about the close working conditions. Would highly recommend Kumar and his work as he is an expert at this water heater business. I was charged exactly what was quoted and had a great experience with Big Blue.

I was pretty frustrated with Big Blue Plumbing & Heating. I had a leak in my basement, read all the great reviews on Unilocal,and gave them a call.
Donna asked me to send in a picture of the leak (a hose had been duct taped to a pipe, and that was leaking). I did. She then told me that her guys said the picture was very helpful, and it would take them ~3−4 hours to fix at $ 95/​hour, plus parts, which could cost around $ 200 or more.
I walked the picture of my problem over to my local hardware store, where the plumber sold me a roll of silicone rescue tape for $ 10. I fixed my own problem, cutting off the duct tape and re-​sealing the attachment with the silicone rescue tape, in under 10 minutes.
I can’t believe these guys would have charged me over $ 500 for this. Don’t trust them.

**Update**
They’re awful. Turns out they fixed my toilet improperly. Just had to call a different plumber out because (once again) my toilet would not stop running. He opened the tank and said, «well, here’s your problem. Did you have your toilet rebuilt recently? I said, yes… about a year ago. He said, whomever did this should have their plumbing license revoked!» They didn’t trim the trap primer causing syphonage. My toilet has been running BECAUSE of the shoddy work that Big Blue Plumbing did.
They did come out quickly and fixed my problem right away — in under 10 minutes, however I was charged a ridiculous amount to change out a flapper. I was also charged an amount for «testing» — and let me be clear — the «test» referred to him «flushing the toilet». That’s it.
When I called to dispute the amount on the bill — the woman was understanding and said I would only have to pay the hourly rate plus parts — however the new invoice reflected much more than what we agreed upon. When I asked her about that, she didn’t want to hear it and said basically that she was right and I was wrong. Obviously we remember things differently. All I know, is that a technician was at my house in and out under 10 minutes (including the time he took to use my bathroom for personal reasons) and I was charged almost $ 200.
They were fast and they fixed my problem, however I would not recommend.