Barnett Plumbing & Water Heaters

Neighbor highly recommended Barnett Plumbing & Water Heaters for Bradford White brand, 6 yr warranty parts/LABOR. Offered other reliable brands (American Standard) Friends/family referral $100 bonus for each referral. She already got her check. I also got $100 discount. Barnett included city building permit $365 in estimate/took care of paperwork. I just call for inspector appt. I prefer not to use Home Depot/Lowe's w limited brands/subcontractors for water heater. Excellent customer service, experienced installer Max who offered no pressure options to choose best option/budget. His van did not stock Bradford White so Office called another employee to deliver it from Mountain View to be installed same day by 5:30 pm. Happy to have hot water again!
I support small business. I paid by check to avoid 2% credit card fee. Highly recommend for quality installer, ethical & close customer communications. Texted ETA. Efficient teamwork!

Getting old is expensive. I know plumbers charge big bucks, especially in the SF Bay Area. I know I live in the Dark Ages, or at least back when my husband was young and agile enough to be our Handyman.

However, a $345 charge to change out the toilet fill valve innards of our toilet tank is excessive, imo. On Amazon the Kohler valve kit cost $20. The plumber was here no more than a half hour. You do the math.

Next time we need a handyman, I will send my son an airplane ticket so he can do the job for the cost of the parts and we get the pleasure of his company.

I had Barnett Plumbing install a new water heater for me on 12/28/2017. Part of the job (which included a charge of $435) was to remove and reinstall the recirculation pump. On 4/29/2020 they repaired a pinhole leak in part of the recirculation line that they had installed and charged me $215 since the leak was beyond their 1 year warranty. On 11/8/2021 they repaired yet another pinhole leak and charged me $395 since the leak was beyond their 1 year warranty. After making a fuss and writing a bad review they refunded me the charges for these first 2 leaks. On 3/4/2024 they repaired a 3rd pinhole leak. This time the charge was $625. After they left I found that my recirculation system was no longer delivering hot water throughout the house and called them back since it worked fine before the repair. Their invoice states:

"RECIRCULATION PUMPS NOT DESIGNED TO BE REMOVED AND REINSTALLED. PLUMBER CANNOT GUARANTEE SUCCESSFUL RE-INSTALLATION OF EXISTING RECIRCULATION PUMP."

The house is approximately 19 years old (I've owned it for the last 7+ years) and I'm guessing that the pump is the original so I was not surprised when the technician suggested the pump may be bad. He also said that, as part of the repair, they installed a new check valve that may require a greater force to push through. Their quote to replace the recirculation pump was $1105 with the quote stating that it only included replacing the pump.

At this point I had totally lost confidence in them. I bought a new pump for $333 (the same pump in their quote for $1105) and installed it myself in about 10 minutes. Hot water delivery was somewhat better but still not like it had been so I decided to replace the check valve with the one that came with the pump (this required some plumbing work, not just swapping out the pump). I tore out most of what they had done for their $625 (including their 'improved' check valve) and installed the new pump with its own check valve. I now have almost instant hot water throughout the house. It probably cost me about $75 in parts beyond the cost of the pump and took a couple hours of my time. I probably could have done it faster but I don't do this every day.

When I needed the water heater replaced I called them thinking I was getting more reliable service than I might get with Home Depot. The technicians seem knowledgeable, so I don't know if it's the company or just a total scam. As a homeowner over the last 40+ years I have done a fair amount of soldering and have never had a leak. The recirculation system is in an open area in the garage as opposed to a hard to get to confined space so there is no reason that the job is problematic. I've read about the causes of pinhole leaks in copper pipes but, interestingly, this exposed recirculation line that they keep "fixing" is the only place in my house that has been getting pinhole leaks. 3 leaks in 6 and a half years ought to embarrass any plumber to the degree that they would repair it to recover their good name rather than a continued attempt to charge me again for the same thing.

Given all this, I will never hire them to do anything for me ever again.

Shout out to Shaun c. It was a pleasure to have you install our new heat pump.
Very Professional & polite young man!

Absolutely the most professional plumber we have ever worked with. Went out of their way to accommodate and make sure we were satisfied. Highly professional and very detailed about every step of the job. Costs were better than the competitors which was surprising given the high end service. One of the competitors told I would have to do my own electrical, and after searching, I found an electrician and he literally asked "have you tried Barnett? They recently did my house"

Max B. is absolutely the most professional plumber I have ever encountered. He went out of their way to accommodate and make sure I was satisfied. Highly professional and very detailed about every step of the job. He is very skilled in his interpersonal relationships, displayed highly developed technical expertise, abilities with on the job problem-solving, and product knowledge. He and was also very accommodating, and took the time to explain the benefits and of a heat pump water heater and how it works. As he was working on the installation, he told me what he was doing and why, which I found comforting as well as fascinating. He also confided that Barnett Plumbing is an exceptional company, from an employee standpoint, displaying excellent management policies resulting in high employee job satisfaction.

Yesterday water began dripping from my AC kitchen ceiling vent. Today after determining that it couldn't be caused by the AC unit, since it's located on the ground, Barnett plumbing was recommended.
Matt arrived about an hour later, cut away dampened sheet rock next to the vent & spotted lots of wet wood.
He quickly discovered a bad toilet connector (was loose & had no gasket) behind an upstairs toilet & replaced it. Problem fixed. Matt was extremely good at explaining the problem & the fix....& everything was immaculate when he left!!! The company even had a sheet rock repairman to recommend. It was great service from beginning to end.
B. Sullivan

I have been searching for a plumber to do some basic repairs during a bathroom renovation. Called Barnett. While I didn't hire them, I appreciate that they didn't waste my time. They asked what I needed done & were able to tell me what was in their scope of expertise & what wasn't. I appreciate that they took that time to ask & that they were honest vs trying to score 1/2 the job and leaving me to find someone else to finish the rest.

Barnett Plumbing is top-notch and very dependable. I've used their services various times and have never been disappointed. Their plumbers are on-time, courteous, expert and work is done right. Yesterday, Ron replaced my water heater and it was a tough job due to the location of it. It took 4 hours but at the end, I have hot water again!! If I need a plumber, I will call Barnett every time. Thank you!

Our hot water ran out yesterday morning and we called several places w/o any luck. Most couldn't have a tech here until the next day or the day after. One place told us to call a bigger company so that they have more availability, especially with parts.
I've seen Barnett Plumbing's trucks drive around livermore and I noticed they have amazing reviews on Yelp. I gather they're not the the cheapest, nor the most expensive, so they're somewhere in the middle. We gave them a call this morning and they had a technician here within 45 minutes.

Jesse T was our tech and he was fantastic. He called when he was on his way. He was very honest and upfront. He said he could try to repair the box on our heater, but we would pay the per hour charge and he would have go around and look for the particular unit. In the end, we decided to replace it since our heater is 12 years old and we just moved in to our home 4 months ago.

He gave us 3 package options and we chose the one with a 6 year warranty on the heater and 6 year warranty on labor. Again, they're not the cheapest, but their work is guaranteed and they finished within 3 hours. Jesse did a walkthrough with us when he was done. We felt that this was simple, honest, straightforward.....no gimmicks and we didn't feel like they were upselling.

Overall, I highly recommend and the next time we need anything, we will go to Barnett's again.