Lucas Stickle Plumbing and Heating

I like the following about Lucas: 1) He charges based on his time and out of pocket costs, rather than "what the traffic will bear". 2) He triages jobs and does his best to respond in an appropriately timely manner. 3) When he arrives on a job, he spends a few minutes looking over the situation and planning the best approach to a cost effective solution, rather than impulsively choosing the expensive, if justifiable, obvious fix. 4) He's not afraid to work in winter cold. 5) He obviously cares about his customers' welfare. During an extended period of 0 F weather during our first winter in the house, we discovered a couple of freeze-susceptible parts of our hot water heating system. The first time, warming the area caused a flood from the ceiling. The second was a frozen baseboard. In both cases, immediate service was critical because large portions of the house were unheated. Another plumber recommended Lucas. The first time I called late in the evening and he shuffled his schedule to arrive by 9 AM. Although I was clearly in a crisis, he efficiently replaced the vulnerable broken copper pipe with an improved placement of flexible PEX for a cost under $200. Two weeks later, a long baseboard heater froze and burst in two places. I called Lucas at 3 AM to leave a message and get on his job list for the day, but he answered his phone, spoke coherently, and again arrived at 9 AM. He brought with him two long baseboard heaters he had just replaced with high capacity units at another site. Within two hours he had removed the old unit, installed the new ones with modified piping connections. Cost $250, including the used heaters at no charge. Update 10/2014: Lucas came to do annual oil burner service, and showed me that my fuel tank was leaking and chimney was degraded. He quoted me very fair prices, did the work quickly and efficiently, and held to his quote even when he discovered that the old tank could not be removed intact from the basement. Final cost was significantly below that of other area firms. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!