Rowe Plumbing & Drain

~Our new home, which we bought in April 2016, needed a faucet fixed. It had more than a leak; it had a steady stream of water coming from it. (We tried to fix it ourselves, and Delta sent us a new part twice. It was the wrong one, but it was exactly like the one we thought needed to be replaced. it fit perfectly and we didn’t know any differently. Our stream continued.) We finally accepted that this was a job for a professional.
~I chose Rowe Plumbing and Drain because of all the recommendations on a couple of Battle Ground Facebook pages. Those recommendations were spot on! Tim was on time, professional, thorough, and very kind. He even made our dog feel at ease; she’s a very good judge of character!)
~When he was first looking at the faucet, he explained some of the possible reasons for the problem. One of them was that the water pressure could be too high. The week before he came we had ordered a water pressure tester, and the result was 100 psi. (I think that’s the term for pressure.) Then we had the city come and verify our results, and they did. Our amazing son-in-love traveled through the crawl space following water lines, trying to find the pressure regulator. He couldn’t find one. Initially, we had decided to not say anything about this, because we didn’t want it to influence Tim’s findings. I only shared after he brought up this possibility.
~After confirming the high water pressure, Tim dug up some of the area around our water meter and didn’t find a regulator there. He was hoping, as we were, that all we needed was an adjustment to our required-by-city-code water pressure regulator. Then he went under the house and searched for it. It hadn’t been installed, so Tim broke the news that he would have to install one. He was very upfront, as he had been thus far, telling me what the cost would be. I approved the work and signed a consent form. When the new pressure regulator was in place, our pressure was no longer crazy high.
~Then he checked to see if this had fixed the faucet problem. It hadn’t, so he got another one of the same part that had already been replaced. He discovered the part in our faucet was the wrong one. He installed the correct one, and it still leaked. So Tim and his apprentice looked at other parts of the plumbing. He found the problem that was probably caused by the high pressure combined with hard water. Tim even took a picture of it to show me, and there was a hole along one of what I assumed was a valve that controlled the flow of either hot or cold water into the shower. This was another expensive fix because, since there was no access panel, the drywall on the other side of the wall had to be cut in to. Thank goodness the wall was in the laundry room! I will not forget how Tim explained things…”I’m a great plumber, but a terrible drywaller.” I appreciated his candor. Once this work was completed, the faucet didn’t have a leak and the water was at the right pressure. Job well done!
~Throughout this process, Tim answered a multitude of questions about hard water and the housing boom and various other subjects. He was very patient and never once acted like we were a bother. I was so impressed with how well Tim and his apprentice worked together. As a former teacher, I recognized another good teacher. He asked his apprentice questions, allowed him to do things, and was always respectful to him.
~I would recommend Tim to anyone. He is an honest professional who knows his stuff. He cares about people and our community. Five stars do not really do Rowe Plumbing and Drain justice, but since there are no higher options, it will have to do.