Find Nearby Plumbers Companies In 61820, Champaign, Illinois

Whalen Plumbing shows strong technical competence and reasonable pricing across multiple positive reviews, but a severe professionalism incident significantly impacts the overall score. Three older reviews (2019–2020) praise prompt response, fair pricing, and quality work. However, a 2023 review documents serious professionalism failures: failure to honor an estimate, aggressive collection tactics including harassment on a holiday, multiple threatening calls, and lien threats. This recent incident directly contradicts the positive historical pattern and raises concerns about current business practices.

• CRITICAL: One recent review (June 2023) documents severe professionalism violations including harassment, threatening behavior, and failure to honor estimate. This is a material red flag that contradicts earlier positive reviews.
• RECENCY CONCERN: Three of four reviews are from 2019–2020 (3–5 years old). The most recent review is highly negative, suggesting possible deterioration in service quality or business practices.
• SAMPLE SIZE: Only 4 reviews total limits confidence in the overall score. Additional recent reviews would be needed to determine if the 2023 incident is an outlier or reflects current standards.

This score should be treated with caution due to small sample size and significant recency bias. The 2023 harassment and estimate violation incident is recent and severe enough to warrant serious consideration despite older positive reviews; potential customers should investigate whether this represents current business practices before engaging this contractor.

Tim Morse receives strong praise in two detailed reviews for responsiveness, integrity, and technical knowledge — including a notable instance of not charging for a quick fix and honestly advising against unnecessary work. However, a 2-star review from 2013 explicitly criticizes sloppy workmanship, slow pace, poor design choices, and bad recommendations, which meaningfully drags down scores across all dimensions. The fourth review contains no usable text and was excluded from scoring. The overall picture is mixed: positive recent-ish experiences are offset by at least one substantive negative account, and the total review count is too low to draw confident conclusions.

• Very low review count (4 total, 1 unusable) — scores are based on minimal data and should be treated with caution.
• The 1-star review marked 'unknown' contains no review text and was excluded from scoring as it provides no usable evidence.
• Most reviews are older than 5 years (2013–2019); no reviews from the past 12 months are present, so recency weighting is not possible and current service quality is unknown.
• The two positive reviews are detailed and specific, reducing fake review concern for those entries. However, the low total volume means a single negative review carries disproportionate weight.
• The 2013 negative review explicitly mentions 'sloppy,' 'slow,' 'inappropriate design choices,' and 'terrible recommendations' — this is direct evidence of workmanship and project completion issues that cannot be dismissed.

This WW Score has LOW reliability due to only 3 usable reviews, all dated between 2013 and 2019, providing insufficient and outdated data to make a confident assessment of current service quality.

Mike Williams Plumbing, Heating & Air presents a deeply split profile. Recent reviews from 2024–2025 are predominantly positive, praising named technicians such as Ryan, Bruce, Cole, Josiah, and Jake for professionalism, knowledge, punctuality, and clear communication. However, a substantial body of older reviews (2015–2023) documents a consistent and serious pattern of predatory pricing, hidden fees, undisclosed service contracts, misdiagnosis, and failure to complete work correctly — with many customers reporting quotes 2–5x higher than competitors. Pricing is the most severely penalized dimension, with dozens of explicit complaints about extreme markups, a $99 dispatch fee not disclosed upfront, and aggressive upselling of monthly subscription plans that were difficult to cancel. Project completion is also significantly impacted by multiple accounts of unresolved repairs, return visits for the same issues, and at least one case of property damage left unaddressed. The experience dimension is mixed: recent technicians receive strong praise for skill, while older reviews describe misdiagnosis and incompetent assessments. The overall WW Score of 52.1 reflects a company with capable individual technicians but a historically problematic business model that has generated serious and credible consumer harm.

• PRICING CONCERN: Dozens of reviews across multiple years describe quotes 2–10x higher than competitors for identical work. This is a systemic pattern, not isolated incidents.
• HIDDEN FEES: Multiple reviewers explicitly state they were not informed of the $99 dispatch/show-up fee before the technician arrived. This is a recurring and documented complaint.
• PREDATORY SUBSCRIPTION PRACTICES: Numerous reviewers report being enrolled in monthly service contracts without clear consent, difficulty canceling, and continued charges after cancellation — including after selling their home.
• MISDIAGNOSIS PATTERN: Several reviews describe technicians recommending unnecessary replacements (water heaters, furnaces, full AC units) that were later fixed cheaply by other companies, suggesting possible deliberate upselling rather than honest assessment.
• PROJECT COMPLETION FAILURES: At least one review documents five return visits for a newly installed system with unresolved issues. Another describes a furnace left improperly assembled. A third describes a dishwasher installed with one screw instead of two, causing ongoing failure.
• ALLEGED THEFT: One detailed review (2019) alleges approximately $20,000 in jewelry was stolen by employees during a service visit, with the company described as unresponsive and hostile when contacted.
• RECENCY BIAS WARNING: The majority of positive reviews are from 2024–2025 and are heavily concentrated in a short window. The majority of negative reviews span 2015–2023. This temporal split may indicate a genuine improvement in service quality, or it may reflect a change in review solicitation practices. Scores should be interpreted with this in mind.
• POSSIBLE REVIEW SOLICITATION: The high volume of recent 5-star reviews with minimal text (many are blank or contain only one sentence) alongside a company letter asking customers why they did not give a 5-star experience suggests active review solicitation, which may inflate recent positive scores.
• BLANK REVIEWS: Approximately 20+ reviews contain no text and only a 5-star rating. These were excluded from dimension scoring as they provide no usable data, though they are counted in total reviews analyzed.
• ONE REVIEW (2019) alleges a rude and mocking technician who treated the customer dismissively — this is an outlier against the generally positive professionalism scores but is noted as a data point.

This WW Score carries HIGH data confidence due to the large volume of reviews, but consumers should treat the score as a composite of two distinct eras: a historically problematic business with serious pricing and ethics complaints (2015–2023) and a more recently improved service experience (2024–2025) — the true current quality likely falls somewhere between these two periods, and caution around pricing transparency and service contracts remains strongly warranted.

This contractor has a deeply mixed record across the five reviews analyzed. While two older positive reviews praise responsiveness, customer service, and helpful technicians, two serious complaints describe unresolved follow-through failures — including a refund dispute left hanging and a $110 out-of-pocket cost caused by a technician's error that management never addressed. Pricing drew an explicit negative flag, with one reviewer citing charges 40% above competitors. The pattern of management non-responsiveness in multiple reviews is a significant concern for project completion and professionalism scores. The most recent review (2023) is negative, suggesting the contractor's reliability may have declined over time.

• RECENCY CONCERN: The most recent review (January 2023) is negative. The two positive reviews are from 2017 and 2018 — more than 5 years old — and should be weighted less heavily.
• MANAGEMENT NON-RESPONSIVENESS: Two separate reviews (2020 and 2023) explicitly describe management failing to follow up on complaints or promised resolutions, indicating a systemic issue.
• TECHNICIAN ERROR: One review describes a technician causing collateral damage (lost sump pump cover parts) due to unfamiliarity with the system, resulting in unreimbursed costs to the customer.
• PRICING CONCERN: One reviewer explicitly states the company charges approximately 40% more than competitors for R22 refrigerant.
• LOW REVIEW VOLUME: Only 5 reviews total. Scores and the WW Score should be treated as preliminary and low-confidence overall.

This WW Score is based on only 5 reviews spanning 6 years, with the positive reviews being significantly older than the negative ones, making the overall score low in reliability and should not be used as a definitive assessment of current contractor quality.

Insufficient data to calculate a reliable WW Score. Only 3 reviews were analyzed, and critical dimensions lack sufficient mention counts. Professionalism shows mixed signals: one highly positive review praising customer service and employee kindness (Jaimie), contrasted against two negative reviews citing poor communication and unresponsiveness. Pricing feedback is uniformly negative, with complaints about communication fees and online payment surcharges. Project completion and experience dimensions have no explicit mentions in any review. The dataset is too small and imbalanced to produce a trustworthy overall score.

• INSUFFICIENT SAMPLE SIZE: Only 3 reviews analyzed. Minimum 5 reviews recommended for reliable scoring.
• RECENCY CONCERN: Two reviews are from 2014 and 2017 (7-10 years old). Only one review from 2017 is relatively recent. Historical data may not reflect current service quality.
• MIXED PROFESSIONALISM SIGNALS: One 5-star review praising employee professionalism contrasts sharply with two 1-2 star reviews citing poor communication and unresponsiveness. Suggests inconsistent service delivery.
• PRICING COMPLAINTS CONSISTENT: Both negative reviews explicitly mention unfair fees and charges. This is a clear pattern of concern.
• MISSING CRITICAL DIMENSIONS: Project completion and experience/workmanship are not mentioned in any review, making it impossible to assess job quality or timeliness.
• CONTEXT ISSUE: Reviews appear to be for a water utility company (IL Am Water), not a traditional contractor/plumber. This may affect relevance of scoring framework.

This score cannot be calculated reliably due to insufficient review volume (n=3), missing data on two critical dimensions, and heavily outdated reviews. Any score derived would be speculative and should not be trusted for decision-making.