QuestionsWe Get Asked

Estimates on planned work — a replacement you are considering, a bathroom you are costing out — are free, and there is nothing to sign at the end of one. Diagnostic work on a fault is different: finding out why something has failed takes time and equipment, and we will tell you what that assessment costs when you book rather than surprising you with it at the door.

It depends on the day and how many crews are already committed. Call rather than emailing if water is running or the heat is off in January — those get moved up the list, and the form is not monitored overnight. When we cannot get to you quickly enough we will say so on the phone instead of booking you in and hoping.

Shut off the cold water supply into the tank, which is the valve on the pipe entering the top. If it is a gas unit, turn the control to off or pilot; if it is electric, switch off the breaker for it. Then call us. Doing those two things first is often the difference between a wet floor and a replaced floor.

That depends on age, what has failed, what it costs to put right, and what the rest of the unit looks like once it is open. A cheap fix on a unit with years left is obviously worth doing. A costly fix on something already near the end of its service life usually is not, and we would rather tell you that than take the repair money twice.

Yes, and it is a large part of what we do here. Seasonal properties fail differently from occupied ones — the damage happens with nobody in the building, so it is discovered late. Shutting one down properly for the winter and opening it back up in spring are both jobs worth doing rather than improvising.

Sylvan Lake, Red Deer, Blackfalds and Lacombe, plus the acreages and county addresses between them. We have kept that list short on purpose. A plumbing company that claims everything within two hours cannot service half of it, and you find that out on the day you need someone quickly.

There is a usual range, but the honest answer is that it depends more on your water than on the label. Central Alberta water is hard, and scale shortens the life of a tank considerably — two identical units installed the same week in different houses can fail years apart. Recurring leaks, water that runs rusty, or a tank you are already having repaired are the signals worth acting on.

Usually it is not the furnace. It is more often ductwork — runs that are too long, too small, badly balanced, crushed somewhere in a renovation, or leaking into a crawlspace. Replacing a furnace that was never the problem is an expensive way to keep the same cold bedroom, so it is worth looking at the distribution before the appliance.

They work better than their reputation and worse than the marketing. Modern cold-climate units keep producing heat far below freezing, but Alberta reaches temperatures where output and efficiency both drop, which is why they are almost always paired with a backup heat source rather than installed alone. Whether one makes sense for your house depends on your insulation, your current system and what you pay for power and gas. We would rather run through that with you than sell you one on principle.

It means water is leaving the system somewhere, and a sealed system should not lose water. Sometimes it is the expansion vessel or the pressure relief valve rather than a leak in the pipework, which is a much smaller job. Either way, topping it up repeatedly is treating the symptom — every refill brings fresh oxygenated water into a system that corrodes from the inside when it gets it.

Yes. The useful time to involve us is while the layout is still a drawing, not after the tile is ordered. Where the drains and vents already run has more influence on what a bathroom costs than almost any fixture choice, and an hour spent on that early has saved people a great deal of money and demolition.

Yes, and the terms are written into the agreement for your job rather than advertised as a slogan here — they differ depending on whether we supplied the equipment or you did, and manufacturers set their own terms on the parts. Ask before the work starts and you will get it in writing, which is the only version worth having.

Some, mostly small commercial in and around Sylvan Lake — shops, offices and similar buildings. Large industrial mechanical work is not what this team is set up for, and we will tell you that rather than taking the job and learning on your building.