This is two reviews in one, as for some weird reason, Homestar never published the first one I submitted. In any event, here we go. About 3 months ago, our hot water pressure mysteriously dropped down to a trickle. It was still hot, but almost no water came out of the taps. The cold water pressure was normal, however. No visible sign of leakage around the tank, or HW pipes. Weird, eh ? Since we had no HW, and had tenants c/o taking cold showers, I called several local plumbing companies, and AZ was the first to answer. Ryan could not have been more helpful. Although his plumbers were all busy on other projects, he re-arranged schedules on the spot to free one up, as it was an emergency, and sent Colin ... within a few hours, there he was at the front door. Colin assessed the situation, and in a fairly short amount of time, was able to get the HW pressure pretty much back to normal. It was an old tank at the end of its life expectancy, but finances being tight at that moment, I decided to hold off on a HW tank replacement, hopefully for another couple months. Side story follows: since he finished faster than expected and happened to be there, I asked Colin to see if he could tighten a nut that was supposed to hold down a beautiful brass kitchen sink faucet. A previous plumber from another company was unable to get any of his sockets or wrenches into a very tight opening, created during a previous full-blown kitchen reno ... a newly installed quartz countertop covered up part of the pre-drilled access hole, to the nut that needed to be tightened, to stop the faucet from flopping around when bumped. Enter Colin. He stuck his head under the sink to assess the situation, said he thought he could come up with a solution, scurried out to his van, and ten minutes later came back with a "tool" he had custom-made in his van out of piece of ABS pipe. Sure enough, the improvised odd-shaped tool slipped through the gap, reached & surrounded the nut, and Colin was able to tighten it all the way. Brilliant maneuver. Colin, a farm-kid from Sask., learned all the DIY / fix-it tricks when growing up on the family farm, where you had to be pragmatic and fix machinery that broke down using whatever you had available at that moment. Colin is the "MacGyver" of the plumbing world. Review # 2 ... fast forward a few months, and the old hot water tank finally gave up for good. This time, there was about a bucket of water on the floor, under the tank. The solution was obvious. That HW tank had to be replaced. I called AZ around 7:30 am, and to my surprise, Ryan picked up the phone right away. He agreed that the HW tank needed replacement right away, and once again, he shuffled around schedules for his plumbers to free-up some time to send Dean out in the early afternoon. Dean arrived a few hours later, and he removed the old tank and installed the new one. We were pleased how smoothly that all went. I'd compare Dean to the Clint Eastwood character in "Dirty Harry" ... a man of few words, takes one look at a worn out HW tank and says, "go ahead, make my day". Colin and Dean are both great guys and total professionals. Ryan, you're amazing the way you were able to juggle schedules around to get a plumber to our house in literally a few hours, since we had urgent plumbing emergencies both times. Moral of the story .... call Ryan if you need a really good plumber ... "MacGyver" or "Dirty Harry" ... you're in good hands with either one !
