1st Home & Commercial Services LLC

Paul Olsen provided my family a professional and quick, but thorough install to restore our hot water after the Texas 21’ ice/snow storm. This company was the only one who took my call and called back to offer immediate relief during this trying time. Paul took care of us like family and restored my faith that companies with integrity and compassion still exist—they care about the person just as much as the business. He provided a quote, but was able to cut our costs by efficient time management during the install. I highly recommend using this company and will remain loyalty customers for all of our future repairs and maintenance.

HORRIBLE - Called to get pricing on 2 different properties for Hydro Jetting. After multiple phone calls of concern after the service was done, I was told they were too busy to help out. WHAT???? I bet if it was a new job it would be TOTALLY different. After over charging of the service you would think they would be happy to help to ensure the job was done correctly. EXTREMELY disappointed

Excellent work. Always on time & always cleans up afterward!

Very friendly crew doing great work. They do not stop working until the job is done right. They were able to cross over water lines, dig trenches and do a very thorough job.

The plumbers did an excellent job, fixing a problem that was created by a previous plumber.

They were called 1st Plumbing Services.  I found them through Next Door, a neighborhood web site.  It's local, close to me.  They had to bring my water heater up off the floor so it would meet code.  They were here about five months ago like November of 2016.  It was in the neighborhood of $20000.  They did really good work.  The work was good.  I was kind of upset because I was in a bind, I have an elderly mother and my hot water went out and so they gave me a quote, this was my own fault though,  I feel that the price of the water heater was a little high.  I could have probably went to Home Depot, bought a cheaper one, just as good and had it installed but the work itself was good and so was their response time and everything.  It looks like it's a really good water heater.  There was one worker who came out to complete the work.  It didn't take that long for the work to be completed.  It was probably a couple of hours.  Everything they did was good, like he had to raise where the water heater sat and plumbing work and he put a little thing to make sure that, it's like an alert system feature that I know the water heater system is working. 

Good they knew what to do. Part of job done by them, then when quoted big amount for hoses, neighbor did hoses but I would definitely use again.

Stephen Harwell is the plumber.

BE CAREFUL OF THIS COMPANY! When we had a leak in the water line near the water meter on Sunday, June 19, we needed a plumber quickly.  Our usual go-to plumber wasn't available, so we found these guys on Google. This is a rental house, and our tenant is without water.  They told me they could get a guy out there to fix it.  In a couple of hours, they called with an estimate, but immediately told me that since the leak was under the sidewalk, they would have to get a special permit on Monday to repair things in the City of Austin right of way easement. They promised action by 8:30 Monday.  Monday at 9:30 I called to see what was going on, and they put me off, saying everyone was in a meeting.  At 10:30, they called and said they did not have the necessary permits to do the work, and referred me to another company.  So my tenant spent a day without water because they weren't honest enough to tell me straight away that they weren't qualified to do the repair.  I don't know if they will still charge me $150 for the service call.  They had better not.

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They arrived two days after our call, on schedule.  Pricing was set per their schedule after needed procedure was identified.  Diagnosis was not easy.  Had to find and examine vent pipes.  Toilet needed to be snaked.

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I was very specific in telling the tech want I wanted changed out. He was there not even 30 minutes and only changed the pea trap instead of all the pipes which I asked for. I needed the A/C drain line lowered and he did not do that. In fact it looks as though it was raised instead of lowered. This cost me over $200.00 which I feel was way too much for time and parts.

Our water heater had to be drained and then lifted in order to place four Isolate It: Sorbothane Large Vibration Isolation Washers under the unit.  All the plumbing was then reconnected to the water heater.

Called 1st Plumbing early on Wednesday with a serious problem:  overnight, the water supply line to my home had begun leaking, flooding the area around the meter box.  The dispatcher gave me a 4:00pm timeframe (same day) and explained that the plumber would give me an accurate estimate prior to any work being done.  He arrive very close to 4 PM, provided a complete breakdown of costs and policies and began work. He located the leak, found and repaired the break, (caused by ground motion due to heavy rain) fixed it and filled the hole.  
I was very impressed with the cheerful professionalism shown by Randy:  he was calm and businesslike while explaining the !st Plumbing pricing structure, rapid and competent while working and scarcely had any mud on his clothes when finished.  The final cost was as estimated prior to his beginning work.
Very please with all aspects of 1st Plumbing services.

Arrived on time, was professional and had uniform on. Plumber was polite and explained everything. Arrived at 9am left at 530pm. Spent most of the day digging around the PRV valve in the front yard. Plumber also had to add some new pipe to PRV valve as he did not like how the original builders plumber had laid the first section of pipe. Once the new PRV valve was installed plumber inspected the water heater as he explained that, according to city code the water heater needed an expansion tank on it to handle pressure fluctuations. Mine, of course, did not have one on it and so he needed to put one on there. Code must have changed from when home was built to today. Anyway this expansion tank is what drove up the cost of this visit. Once this was done plumber then tightened two shower faucets that have been loose for ever.

Pressure is now great, faucets are good and tight! Overall fine job by 1st street plumbing, just not happy over price of the expansion tank part. I would use them again.

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Originally a plumber was supposed to be here this afternoon between 12pm and 2pm.  However, I got a call this morning that someone would be available earlier, which was great.  Water had been collecting under the carpet near the utility closet since Wednesday of last week, and I originally thought it was a clogged drain pipe, which had happened before, except despite multiple towels laid down, the problem kept worsening.  The plumber, Ray, was great.  He was able to identify the problems right away. Unfortunately the unit itself was leaking and had to be completely replaced.  Ray was able to call for backup as it took two people to get the old unit out of my garage, which is full of boxes and junk, and they installed a new Rheem.  The old heater was the original one from when the house was built in the fall of 1988, so I can't complain, and the new one has a pan underneath it with a water detector.  I'm 100% pleased.  I should note that 1st Plumbing was the company recommended by AIM A/C and Heating (who I also had to bring out for an unrelated heater problem) as well as within a 5 mile radius from my house on Angie's List.  Another bonus: I now have more room in my garage.

We put in the heat pump type water heaters, which a pretty pricey, but far more efficient than regular electric ones.  I got several prices from several providers on Angie's List for a valve I had changed out previously, and a couple of them were over $1000. 1st plumbing came, and said that it shouldn't be more than like $150 or something like that. Then they did it, and fixed it. Anytime I need to do any plumbing I always give them a call. They're very honest, and very reasonable. They tell you exactly what's going on and they don't try to sell you extra stuff. They're very honest.

First Plumbing Services performed excellent work and the project manager stayed in contact with me frequently to keep me apprised of the status. The work was begun the week of Thanksgiving. So that I'd be able to use my kitchen sink, dishwasher, and washing machine over the Thanksgiving holiday, First Plumbing Services made provisions to ensure I wouldn't be without any of these over the holiday. They worked quickly and efficiently and did a very good job cleaning up after they were done.

We hired 1st plumbing services to replace the cut-off valves for our washing machine that had become corroded.  We thought that they would have to cut the old ones off the pipe so when they quoted us about $250 for the job, it hurt but we thought there would be significant work involved and agreed. We clearly should have asked for more detail about the job at the time.
We found 1st Plumbing services when another plumber we'd tried to hire didn't show up as scheduled and 1st plumbing said that they could fit us in between 9am and noon the next day.  When noon the next day came and went we called them to see if they were still going to make it and were told that we'd been scheduled for between noon and 2pm.  When 2pm came and went we called again and were told that they would not be able to make it until the next day. 
When they came the next morning, they were right on time at 8:50 and were in the door by 9am to start the work.  The plumber discovered that he did not need to cut the old pipe but could re-use our existing threaded connection to replace the old valves and was able to finish up the job in about 25 minutes and was out the door by 9:35am.  In addition to the cut-off valves, he had to replace one of the hoses to our machine. 
However, we feel that we were taken advantage of on the cost of the service.  The material cost for the valves and the hose is around $15 or so at Home Depot.  Even allowing for a significant dealer markup to $30 worth of materials that means we were charged $220 for approximately a 1/2 hour of work.  That's a rate of over $440 per hour!  I can understand rounding up the service call to the nearest hour, but even doing that puts their charge at $220 per hour; an unreasonably high cost given the going rate for plumbing work here in Austin is generally about $120-150 or so per hour based on other plumbers that we talked to but that couldn't come in time.
We picked 1st Plumbing services in part based on their reviews, because they were able to fit us in for a next-day call and because they have experience with rainwater systems; something that we are hoping to look into in the future.  We wanted to use this small job to see what they were like to work with.  While we have no complaints about the work that they did, we will not be calling them again.   

By the time I called 1st Plumbing Services, I had gotten a run-around from a new appliance store and 2 propane vendors, two local plumbers that answered the phone and had calls in to another two, so I was pretty irritated.
While I had purchased a new range/oven with a LP gas (propane) conversion kit and paid also for delivery and installation from the applicance store, at delivery I was told that they (making the delivery) weren't properly licensed to disconnect the LP gas line from my existing stove, let alone install the new one. After a maddening number of calls, I  hit the web for the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation and confirmed that 1st Plumbing Services had numerous LP Licensed plumbers. Frankly I hadn't considered contacting a plumber for such a thing. Sure, it is a pipe, but I had associated plumbing with water. I was wrong to discount the connection.
At this point it was after 4pm on a Thursday and my new range was sitting uselessly in the middle of my kitchen still wrapped up in the OEM packaging.
I called and was politely greeted by the dispatcher- a real person answering the phone on the first try- whom answered my questions, empathized with my situation (which went a long way after being dismissed and put off for the hours before that!) and was promptly put on schedule for morning the next day-- as annoying as my situation was, it was admittedly not an emergency issue, so that worked best for me.
In the morning, the plumber's assistant, Kevin Oliver, called to give me their estimated arrival time and said he would contact me when they had completed the job before mine to confirm when they were en route. As committed, he called and he and the plumber, Casey Lange, arrived expeditiously afterwards. They were both very professional upon arrival, introducing themselves and confirming my preferences before entereing my house. Casey patiently listened as I ran through my summary and showed him the new appliance and gas main outlet. He was able to give me an immediate quote and confirm I wanted to proceed. 
He was able to drop the gas outlet down to the appropriate level, perform the conversion to LP from natural gas, install the tip guard, as well as seat and test the stove/oven within an hour and a half. (wow- unexpected freedom on a Friday afternoon!)
His assistant cleaned the area of any debris from the new appliance (removing the tape, styrofoam, cardboard, and protective plastic covering from the surfaces), removed all trash, and even wiped it free of fingerprints (which cannot be avoided on stainless steel) and presented me with my new appliance all assembled, installed, and ready to go!
While I had not figured on the additional expense of calling out a plumber when I bought the new stove, I could not be happier with the courtesy and professionalism exhibited by Casey and Kevin and the speed at which they were able to provide the service. I will use them again and highly endorse them-- particularly in regard to addressing odd-ball needs like propane plumbing. Avoid my frustration and call them.
My sincere appreciation goes out to these guys-- well done!

It went excellent with the company. Many companies passed up the job stating it was too big of a job, but they took on the job. The company has very good people and I am very satisfied with the results.