Do you get what you pay for? That is a great question and the answer is usually yes.

Let's now ask another question: How often do you get the best quality product, the best service and the friendliest service provider for the cheapest price? That is an easy one to answer as well..."Never!" When I started John Baethke & Son Plumbing over 20 years ago I did a lot of new construction. That is an aspect of work I enjoy very much. I've always loved the satisfaction of building things. We did incredible projects and to me every job we did was a work of art. Our only dilemma was that the general contractors were constantly trying to find a way to "cheapen up" the jobs. Before too long I finally had to say enough is enough. The things the contractors were asking for were having a detrimental effect on the quality of the homes being built, so I had to make a very difficult decision and we stopped working for those contractors. To this day we still do several projects each year for homeowners and contractors that are not looking to sacrifice the quality for the price.

We made the transition into service because we found so many more people that valued a quality job for a fair price. It's funny, but over 50% of our service calls are performed on homes that are 10 years old or newer. All of those cost-cutting general contractors have actually done me a favor by cutting corners - they have given us a constant supply of plumbing problems to fix.

How do we explain or show the difference between John Baethke & Son Plumbing and the lower cost competitors? It isn't always easy, but everyone that I work with knows the quality of our work and the integrity of our service. We have also learned to explain things about the products we install and how we install them. It is not unusual for a homeowner to ask what brand we intend to install. When asked that question we need to find out right away why they would ask that, so we know what is of value to our customers. A lot of people are brainwashed into believing that the best job is only dependent on the equipment installed. That is so far from the truth that it's scary. Think about this: If someone was to install the highest quality fixture available but lacked the training to do a proper or safe installation, is that fixture going to perform like the best quality fixture? No, of course not. It may even fail, cause damage to the home, or even injure or make sick the residents of the home. Far more important than the materials are the installation, service and support of that installation. We explain that when you buy a new water heater, toilet, faucet, etc. from John Baethke & Son Plumbing, you are buying John Baethke & Son Plumbing. We stand behind our installations with the best, most highly trained professionals in the Chicagoland area. We also support that incredible team with a warehouse support staff and a full office staff. One example of our service is the "Can't Write a Check Warranty" that we offer. This warranty means you can't spend a dime on labor or material on that installation service for the life of the warranty. Most other companies may honor the manufacturers' parts warranty, but then charge you their labor to install the parts. We make sure that our installations are done so well that we have no problem honoring both labor and material.

The above is just a glimpse of the world class service that John Baethke & Son provides. The proof of our service is the fact that over 80% of our business is repeat business. Sure we advertise, but the majority of our work is helping people we have helped in the past. That says a lot when the average in our industry is less than 50% repeat business.

Remember: You nearly always pay for what you get.