Blake & Wilcox Plumbing & Heating

These guys are awesome! They helped us replace our water pressure valve. They gave us a very reasonable estimate and after the job was done charged us less than the estimate. Super friendly and very helpful. I would recommend them to anyone with any plumbing needs.

B &W was highly recommended to me by an electrician. He gave me Chris Wilcox number. I called him 5/31. He quoted me a price range and I scheduled the service call. The plumber was supposed to come 6/2 at 9 am. At 11: when the plumber was still a no show I called Mr. Wilcox who was surprised but promised to get someone to my house soon. At 12:30 Glen arrived. Glen worked for about 1.5 hours before announcing that he needed to ho to the plumbing supply store to"get a part." Although he said he'd return as quickly as possible, it took over an hour. By 6:10 pm Glen was still not finished. He rigged a temporary solution (involving plastic tubing). He promised to return the following morning (Saturday) at 7:30 to complete the job and haul away the old sink. When he had't arrived by 8:30, I called the number he'd left. Glen apologized. He claimed he had tried to call me but had mistakenly used a 703 instead of a 301 area code.Glen said he had to "pick up a part" before finishing the work, He arrived at about 10:30. Glen completed the job but was unable to haul away the sink because it was too heavy for one person. He promised to return Sunday at about 9. I called Mr Wilcox because I was dissatisfied with the job he'd done (a part was plastic tubing) and because Glen never showed. I texted Glen. Just before I spoke to Mr, Wilcox Glen called to say he'd never intended to come Sun, and that I'd misunderstood. He promised to come the next afternoon. He also dismissed my concerns about the tubing. Mr. Wilcox was surprised to discover Glen had worked Sat, and that he'd promised to come Sun. I explained my concerns and texted a picture. Mr. Wilcox assured me that Glen would at my house the next day in the morning. Glen sent me a long apologetic text. Finally the work was completed (fixed). The invoice Glen left was was about 30% higher than the price I'd been quoted. The only bright spot in this fiasco was Mr. Wilcox. He was respinsive and vonsistently professional. I would not use this company nor can I recommend it knowing that Glen is the kind of employee (irresponsible and unprofessional)they send out.

excellent!! Warren and his technician CHRIS the are true craftsman

Fine. Showed us how to do it ourselves.

We did not like them. They tried to gouge us. They quoted something that was extremely high and we got another provider. They had to embed some pipes in our ceiling and they quoted us double the amount that someone else quoted us kind of thinking that we needed to get it done quickly. But, when that happened, Inex threatened to take them off of their referral list and Warren Blake called me and really made things right. He claimed it was a communication issue, but ultimately I think he was trying to give us a really high price and was not thinking we would verify that with another contractor. They did make it right, but they had to get caught in order to do it. We would not use them again. They goofed up our kitchen sink, had to come back three times. They made it right at the end of it, it was just kind of a long process and I didn't think that they were terribly trustworthy.

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Above satisfactory but a little price

After two contractors and a different plumber said that we needed cameras, smoke tests, and peppermint tests to fix the sewer smell in our basement we contacted Blake and Wilcox who had performed other work in our house previously.

Chris Wilcox, said that we should start with resealing the toilet.  I didn't believe him that it could be so simple.  He told me that if resealing the toilet didn't work he would subtract the cost of resealing the toilet from whatever else was needed to stop the sewer smell that was coming into our basement.

Chris one of his guys to reseal the toilet.  He came on time and worked quickly to reseal the toilet.  That was the last problem we had with a sewer smell in the basement.

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They have done quite a few things for me and always do the work correctly. They took care of some radiator problems for me when I first moved to the house. They are timely and do what they say they will. I do think their pricing is a higher on the higher side but not the worst. Two plumbers came out and completed the job in 1 day. They are right across the street from me which is really convenient.

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beautifully, the contractor he recommended to the chimney work was phenomenal.  Both companies were punctual, professional and did very clean work.

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On the good front - we had a pipe burst on a Saturday night and they were able to send somebody that night to repair the pipe.  The plumber (Glen) was courteous and professional and took care of the job (a fairly simple job of cutting and capping the pipe).  After putting the siding back up on the house, I noticed some dripping and asked Glen if it was an issue.  He told me it it was likely just the wet insulation dripping and that it was not a problem.  The fee for the pipe repair was over $300 plus a weekend service fee (which I expected and had been warned about).
On the bad front - the next morning, I noticed a substantial amount of dripping from the same spot in the house.  After opening the access again, I discovered that the pipe 6 inches from the pipe repaired the night before was also leaking.  I called again and Glen came back out, determined that the second pipe also needed to be cut and replaced, and took care of it.  Apparently, however, because the pipe was a second pipe, Blake & Wilcox treated it as a second job and again charged me over $300 plus the weekend service fee.  
I called the next day (Monday) to ask about the second charge and explain that I thought the two problems were related.  After a conversation that became quickly antagonistic, the manager who I spoke with accused me of lying about the problem.  He finally agreed to discuss the issue with the original plumber and call me back.  I have not received a call back after a week, but Blake & Wilcox has charged me for both visits.  
While the work done was fine, the experience was terrible and they have charged me nearly $1,000 for two very simple pipe repairs.

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Wow.  What stand-up, honest, guys Blake and Wilcox are; true professionals!  I will never call another plumber again.  Very, very, satisfied!

The company was very helpful and responsive in scheduling visits.  Usually I talked to Ron on the phone, who was very good and flexible and always called me on visit days to let me know when the crew would arrive.  During the first visit the water heater was replaced and Jim made a preliminary assessment of the drain problem -- a very old galvanized pipe, into the cement basement slab, had split open (old age).  In order to reckon out how to fix this, a second plumber named D*** came and refined Jim's assessment, and developed a parts list.  The repair was made on the third visit.
In each case the work was professionally done and both Jim and D*** were clearly experienced and skillful.  They were on time and cleaned up very nicely when finished.  Very good work!
A word about the rating for the cost:  The net cost for the Jetglas 40 gal water heater replacement job was  $1,500 -- including removal of the old tank, re-doing the pipes to fit, etc.  That seemed just a little high to me -- thus the "B" grade for cost.  But the complicated custom drain repair had a rather happy turn -- it had been estimated at $1,100, considering that two men would work on it for some amount of hours.  In the end, only one man was required and the job took less time than expected.  Blake and Wilcox voluntarily reduced my cost to $825, which impressed me very favorably.  SO THEY REALLY OUGHT TO GET A B-PLUS FOR COST!!

We had used this company eight or nine years ago when adding a new bathroom as part of a remodeling project and were pleased with their work at that time. (This was before becoming a member of Angie's List). We planned to call them again for today's repair but, before doing so, I thought I'd check to see if they were listed with Angie's List and if so, what their overall grade was. I was pleased to see that they were listed, with an overall grade of A. When we called to schedule the appointment we were told that they could have somebody out the following day. That didn't work for us, so we scheduled it for a day later. We were the first customer of the day and the plumber arrived punctually at 7:30 a.m. His name was D***. He was very courteous and professional and handily completed the repair within half an hour.  We would definitely use the services of Blake and Wilcox again.

It didn't go well, but I'm not sure that means we wouldn't use them again in the future.  Still waiting for a call back.

I am writing to give this company high marks and I urge your strong consideration for contacting them.   I had a leaking spigot on my bathtub, so I called them.  They showed up on time, and fixed the problem.  Simple as that, no strum und drang, no nothing.  Done.  Conventional cost.  I have no argument.  With that performance alone, I would call them again.   Then, I had a gas fireplace that was malfunctioning.  I called them for assistance, and since I was in no rush, I said “take you time.”  They said, indeed, it might take some time before we call you back, given whatever schedule they had.   I was totally fine with that.  Occasionally, I would check in with them, and they said that they weren’t quite ready.   Remember, I told them I wasn’t in a rush.  But they never forgot me.   They called me one day and we scheduled an appointment, and they showed up on time, and, while they were unable to repair my fireplace, they were totally upfront about it, with recommendations on next steps on what I should do next.   I’ve had a ton of bad experiences in my 23 years in DC, but you can be certain I’ll be calling these folks in the future.

ed the lines further.I had a plumbing emergency late one afternoon.  I called and they arrived immediately, cleared the line  and identified the issue as being on the  city's sewer company's side of the pipes.  When the city arrived they confirmed the issue and clear

Unlike most of my experiences in DC, this contractor was extremely responsive to my request for services, show up perfectly onetime, repaired my faucet, and left - -and I even got to work on time! This was the very first time I ever used their services (because I just signed up for Angie's list) and I plan to use their services again on another project that I have waiting in the wings.

Their service has gone well. They do good work. I feel they are expensive but I have not compared any other plumber's prices.

I stopped payment on the check. It was terrible. They didn't explain on the phone that this is the way they charged. They charge by the job, not by the hour. I felt really ripped off. I won't ever deal with them again. They could've explained how they charge on the phone. Very unpleasant.