2013 Truck of the Month
PM has featured so many great plumbing service trucks! See plenty of them here in our Truck Of The Month Archives page. Are you proud of your truck? Go to our Truck of the Month page to find out how your service truck could be chosen!
January: Sieben Plumbing, Hastings, Minn.
Sieben Plumbing has a wide-ranging scope of services it provides to customerswithout geographic limits.
The Hastings, Minn.-based contractor recently finished plumbing work on a log cabin some four hours away in Deer River, Minn., and is in the midst of a dog-boarding facility project. Other recently completed jobs include a Mexican restaurant, a bakery and a fitness gym.
Besides the flashy exterior, Sieben raves about the Sprinter’s performance in the field. “It floats down the road, gets great gas mileage and it seems like there is endless space in the back,” he says. “I’m a little over 6 ft. tall and I can walk in there with plenty of clearance over my head. We once put the components for all the completely finished bathrooms in a house back there with no problem.”
Terry Sieben started the company five years ago after receiving his master plumber’s license. The company, licensed in both Minneapolis and St. Paul, does no advertising beyond the truck wraps and relies on customer referrals.
To read the full article on Sieben Plumbing click here.
February: Kevin Cohen Plumbing, Eugene, Ore.
Eugene, Ore.-based Kevin Cohen Plumbing is closing in on its 15th anniversary and now features seven vans that cover a 150-mile radius performing service, new construction and process pipe work.
The four newest vans in the company’s fleet are Sprinters, including a recently purchased Mercedes Benz model. “The Sprinters drive well,” Cohen, now 38, says. “They are easy to get in, they turn well in smaller subdivisions and are easy to park. It rains a lot up here, so it’s nice to be able to go in and out of the truck and keep everything dry. We have them racked from top to bottom. You can keep quite a bit of stuff in there. And they are great rolling billboards.”
To read the full article for Kevin Cohen Plumbing click here.
March: Little Tommy's Plumbing Shop, Highwood, Ill.
Years ago, Tom Mahoney impressed his young daughter, Sammi, by lifting a fiberglass bathtub over his head in the family garage. “She loved when I did that,” he says. “Of course, the tub weighed nothing.” That memory still lives to this day on the side of Mahoney’s plumbing trucks. The 47-year-old owner of Little Tommy’s Plumbing Shop in the Chicago North Shore suburb of Highwood is shown in caricature form pressing that bathtub over his head.
Little Tommy’s, a member of the Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors — National Association, has grown to a six-truck operation that performs service, repair and replacement work in the Chicago suburbs along the north shore of Lake Michigan. Mahoney’s fleet consists of all Chevy half-ton vans. “We like keeping things light and saving on gas,” says Mahoney, who lauds the work of his wife, Kristin, an instrumental presence in the company’s back-office functions. “Our techs are really good about keeping the vans clean and well-stocked, but never over-stocked and weighted down.”
To read the full article on Little Tommy's Plumbing Shop click here.
April: Guaranteed Plumbing and Heating, Philadelphia
Eric Slifkin’s plumbing career dates back to working with his stepfather, Chip Chopinsky, at a Philadelphia contractor in the mid-1980s. Slifkin then did a stint as a subcontractor for Sears Roebuck. “I always wondered why all these people called Sears,” he says. “After working for them I realized anything Sears did always had the tagline ‘Guaranteed or your money back.’”
Slifkin, a third-generation plumber, kept that in mind when he started Philadelphia-based Guaranteed Plumbing and Heating 15 years ago. A major focus of the company’s branding is its “Guaranteed” logo and “When in need call Guaranteed” slogan.
May: Jason Ravitz Master Plumber, Shrewsbury, Mass.
Ravitz started Jason Ravitz Master Plumber three years ago after a 12-year run working for a local plumbing contractor. This one-man operation performs mainly residential repair, remodel and service work over a 50-mile radius in the Middlesex area of Massachusetts.
The idea for the dog image was hatched while Ravitz was changing toilets in his family’s home.
“I surprised my wife, Marjorie, and changed the three toilets in the house with nice new TOTO ones,” he explains. “There was no water in the toilet yet so I decided to put our maltese puppy, Honey, in the toilet. I took a photo and sent it to my wife. She called me, hysterical, thinking the dog had fallen in. I put the photo on my site and customers thought it was a riot.”
To read the full article on Jason Ravitz Master Plumber click here.
June: The Honest Plumber Heating & Air, Las Vegas
When Troy Winkel relocated his family from Utah to Las Vegas 12 years ago and started his own contractor business, he knew he had to make a big splash. “Las Vegas is a crazy town to do business in,” he says with a laugh. “We have to compete with a lot of attractive women on billboards. Advertising around here is a little different than other places. How do we compete and get noticed?”
Winkel, the owner of The Honest Plumber Heating & Air, solved that quandary in a hurry. He put his mother-in-law, Debbie La Rocca, on the side of his 10 plumbing trucks and in all his advertising. La Rocca is depicted in a frantic state holding a toilet plunger (complete with toilet paper stuck to it) and making a phone call to request emergency plumbing service.
For the full article for The Honest Plumber Heating and Cooling click here.
July: Dan Wood Co., Kalamazoo, Mich.
When Wood left the metro Detroit area to attend Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, he had no intention of continuing the family tradition in the plumbing business. The Wood family has been in the industry for four generations, although the Woods started Dan Wood Co. in 1991, separate from the family business. Wood has two brothers who also run separate plumbing contracting businesses in Michigan.
Dan Wood Co., a member of best practices group Nexstar, now features 40 employees and 22 trucks and serves the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek areas doing mainly service and remodel work.
The wrap debuted several months ago on Wood’s four newest service trucks — three Ford E-350s with 12-ft. beds and one Ford E-450 with a 14 ft. bed. The new trucks are outfitted with customized Supreme boxes and Wood added rear cameras and floodlights, fluorescent lighting in the cargo area and remote locks. The trucks are equipped with GPS units and laptops with Internet access.
To read the full article on Dan Wood Co. click here.
August: AAP-All American Plumbing, Mira Loma, Calif.
Anthony Pouliotis proud of the rapid growth Mira Loma, Calif.-based AAP-All American Plumbing has achieved. The 41-year-old Pouliot started the service and repair company two-plus years ago after a nine-year run as partner in another contracting firm. He’s been in the plumbing business dating back to his early teenage years when he helped out at his father’s plumbing company.
AAP-All American Plumbing grossed $1 million in its first eight months of operation and saw revenues increase to $1.7 million last year. The company, which covers Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange counties in Southern California, has expanded its fleet of service trucks from one to eight in that span.
To read the full article on AAp All-American Plumbing click here.
September: Red Cap Plumbing, Tampa, Fla.
Gennaro is the owner of Tampa, Fla.-based Red Cap Plumbing, a 27-employee, 17-truck contracting firm that does primarily residential service work throughout Hillsborough County. His techs dress in baseball jerseys and red baseball caps that depict the company logo. “I’m actually not a big baseball fan,” he says. “Our guys are dressed a little differently. They have the pinstriped jerseys with their own number on the back. The hats and jerseys make us stand out.”
To read the full article on Red Cap plumbing click here.
October: Beltz Home Service, Findlay, Ohio
Brian Beltzfirst saw a bubble service van at a Nexstar Super Meeting in 2004.Beltz, the owner of Findlay, Ohio-based Beltz Home Service, purchased two Chevy Express vans with Unisell Aerocell bubble bodies. He couldn’t be happier with the decision.
Beltz says the combination of the bubble truck and the wrapping has paid big dividends.
“Our secretary always asks customers how they hear about us,” he says. “Eight of 10 people say they’ve seen our trucks either in their neighborhood or somewhere in town.” Beltz Home Service has three trucks and four employees that cover the 70,000-population city of Findlay. The company mainly focuses on residential plumbing, electrical and heating/air-conditioning service repair and replacement.
Beltz also benefits from table-top restaurant advertising, local radio and Internet ads, and a successful service maintenance program.
To read the full article on Beltz Home Service click here.
November: Daniel Cordova Plumbing, Baldwin Park, CA
One of the best advertising tools for Daniel Cordova Plumbing stands 40 ft. in the air adjacent to the Interstate 10 freeway outside the company’s Baldwin Park, Calif., headquarters. The two-year-old company sank a mid-five-figure capital investment into a two-sided freeway sign, much like the ones seen at truck stops.
The investment has paid major dividends. “That’s probably the busiest freeway in Los Angeles,” 27-year-old company owner Daniel Cordova notes. “The sign helps with our branding. We definitely put a lot of money into it, but it’s paid off. People call all the time because they saw our sign on the freeway.
A sign like that establishes legitimacy. People think we’re a 20-truck company. ” Actually, Daniel Cordova Plumbing has four trucks and six employees specializing in mainly residential service repair and replacement throughout the San Gabriel Valley and northern Orange County areas outside Los Angeles.
To read the full article on Daniel Cordova Plumbing click here.
December: Adams & Cooper Plumbing Co., Jonesboro, AK
Consistency has remained a key staple over the years at Jonesboro, Ark.-based Adams & Cooper Plumbing Co.
Pictured above is lead service tech Stacy Crowe’s 2012 Freightliner Sprinter van. “Stacy loves the space inside,” Harris says. “The height took a little getting used to at first. The back-end is rigged to fit his needs. He has a place for everything back there.”
Harris worked with Jonesboro-based SuperTints on the wrapping, which prominently features a red wrench and a long run of piping that spans the width of the side panels. The water drop logo incorporates an “A” and “C” in the design.
To read the full article on Adams & Cooper Plumbing Co. click here.