Find Nearby Plumbers In New Bedford, Massachusetts

All four reviews speak positively about Michaud Plumbing and Heating across multiple dimensions, with professionalism being the most consistently mentioned attribute — including punctuality, responsiveness, and pleasant demeanor. Pricing is referenced in three reviews as fair or reasonable, and workmanship quality is noted as good to excellent in three reviews. Project completion is supported by references to jobs being done well and callbacks being honored, though detail is sparse. However, all reviews are significantly dated — the most recent is from 2018 and the oldest from 2011 — which substantially limits the reliability of this score for assessing current performance.

• ALL REVIEWS ARE OUTDATED: The most recent review is from July 2018 (over 6 years ago) and the oldest is from 2011. This score should not be treated as reflective of current service quality.
• LOW REVIEW VOLUME: Only 4 reviews total. This is above the minimum threshold of 3 but still too few to draw strong conclusions.
• POSSIBLE GENERIC PRAISE: Review from 2015 contains vague, enthusiastic language ('best work around,' 'best price,' 'first call') with no specific details about the job performed, which is a mild flag for authenticity.
• RECENCY CONCERN: No reviews from the past 12 months. Confidence in all dimension scores is reduced accordingly.

This WW Score carries LIMITED overall reliability due to very low review volume, the complete absence of recent reviews, and one review exhibiting generic praise patterns — prospective customers should seek more current references before hiring.

Bennett Plumbing and associated contractors receive strong praise for technician-level professionalism, friendliness, and technical competence when work is actually performed. Pricing is generally regarded as fair to reasonable, with multiple reviewers explicitly noting competitive or affordable rates. However, a significant and recurring pattern of complaints — spanning from 2011 through 2025 — involves failure to follow through on quotes, no-shows for scheduled appointments, and unreturned calls, which substantially drags down the project completion score. Experience scores are solid when technicians arrive, with reviewers frequently citing knowledgeable, skilled, and efficient work. The volume and consistency of follow-through failures across many years prevents a higher overall score.

• FAKE REVIEW CONCERN: Five reviews dated 2006-03-23 are written entirely in ALL CAPS, share nearly identical structure and generic praise ('very professional', 'always on time', 'great work'), and lack any specific job details. These appear to be planted or fabricated reviews and have been discounted in scoring.
• BLANK REVIEWS: 28 reviews contained no text whatsoever — only a star rating. These were excluded from dimension scoring as they provide no usable evidence per scoring rules.
• MIXED CONTRACTOR POOL: Reviews appear to cover multiple business entities including Levine & Sons, Bennett Plumbing & Heating, Benton Plumbing, Panton Plumbing, and Best Plumbing. This significantly reduces the reliability of the aggregate score as it may not represent a single contractor.
• ONE REVIEW (2011-05-30) appears to be a complaint about an entirely different company (Best Plumbing, Dearborn MI / Brian Ziga) and was rated 5 stars despite describing a deeply negative experience — this review is internally inconsistent and was excluded from scoring.
• RECENCY NOTE: Reviews span from 2006 to 2025. The failure-to-follow-through complaints are not isolated to older reviews — they appear consistently across 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2023, and 2024, suggesting this is a persistent operational issue rather than a historical one.
• PROJECT COMPLETION CONCERN: At least 12 distinct reviews describe being abandoned after an estimate visit, receiving no quote after multiple follow-up calls, or experiencing no-shows for scheduled appointments. This is a structurally significant failure pattern.
• ONE NEGATIVE REVIEW (2020-02-06) describes a serious allegation: technicians allegedly shut off gas and disconnected a furnace without customer permission, and a second opinion found no carbon monoxide issue. This is a safety-related flag and was weighted heavily in the project completion and professionalism scores.

This WW Score carries HIGH data confidence due to the large volume of text reviews, but its reliability as a single-contractor score is MODERATE at best, given that reviews appear to span multiple distinct business entities and include suspected fake entries from 2006.

Travers Plumbing & Heating demonstrates strong professionalism with consistent punctuality, courteous staff, and responsive communication across 68 reviews. However, the company is severely undermined by pervasive pricing concerns mentioned in 52 reviews, including undisclosed travel time charges, lack of itemized invoices, parts markups, and bills significantly exceeding quoted estimates. Project completion is generally solid (75.5/100) with most jobs finished as promised, though some callbacks and follow-through issues are noted. Technical experience is competent (72.0/100) with skilled technicians, but pricing practices create substantial customer dissatisfaction that overshadows operational strengths.

• CRITICAL PRICING PATTERN: 52 reviews explicitly mention billing concerns. Recurring complaints include: undisclosed travel time charges ($150+ added to bills), refusal to provide itemized invoices, parts marked up significantly above market rates, and final bills 2-3x higher than initial quotes. This is the dominant negative theme.
• BILLING TRANSPARENCY ISSUE: Multiple customers report being charged without advance notice of total cost, charged for service calls with no work performed, and refusal to break down labor vs. parts on invoices. This suggests systemic business practice rather than isolated incidents.
• FAKE REVIEW RISK - MODERATE: Recent reviews (June 2025) show suspiciously generic 5-star praise with minimal detail ('Great service!', 'Very happy with service'). However, older reviews contain specific details and criticisms, suggesting these are not entirely fabricated but may include some inflated recent testimonials.
• RECENCY BIAS NOTED: Most recent reviews (past 6 months) are overwhelmingly 5-star with generic praise, while detailed negative reviews span 2006-2024. This temporal pattern suggests either improved practices recently or selective positive review posting.
• QUALITY INCONSISTENCY: Reviews document instances of incorrect installations (water heater lines reversed, wrong parts replaced, gas leak left unfixed), suggesting variable technician competence despite some highly skilled individuals mentioned by name.
• CUSTOMER SERVICE GAPS: Multiple reviews report unresponsive management, owner refusing to call back, and dismissive office staff attitudes toward billing complaints.

This WW Score of 68.2 is highly reliable (HIGH confidence) due to 125 reviews with substantial data across all dimensions. The score accurately reflects a company with genuine operational strengths in professionalism and responsiveness, but severely compromised by systematic pricing practices that generate widespread customer dissatisfaction. The pricing dimension (42.0/100) is the primary driver of the overall score decline and represents the most critical risk factor for potential customers.

Burke Plumbing and Heating receives broadly positive marks for responsiveness, punctuality, and friendly technician demeanor, with a large volume of reviewers praising same-day or next-day service and courteous staff. However, pricing is the single most damaging dimension across the entire review set: an exceptionally high number of reviewers — spanning every year in the dataset — explicitly describe feeling overcharged, blindsided by undisclosed fees, charged for travel time without prior notice, or billed for parts at multiples of their retail cost. Project completion is mixed: the majority of jobs are finished, but a meaningful minority of reviews describe recurring failures, unresolved issues after payment, abandoned or incomplete work, and cases where a second company had to be called to fix what Burke could not. Experience scores are similarly split — many reviewers praise technician skill and problem-solving, but a notable cluster of serious complaints describes misdiagnosis, unnecessary part replacements, and recommendations for costly full-system replacements that second-opinion contractors contradicted and resolved cheaply. The combination of a strong responsiveness reputation undermined by persistent, high-volume pricing complaints and recurring workmanship failures produces a materially below-average WW Score.

• PRICING PATTERN — CRITICAL: Pricing complaints are the single most frequently mentioned negative theme across the entire review corpus, spanning 2013 through 2024. Complaints include: undisclosed travel charges, labor billed at rates higher than quoted, parts marked up 3x–10x retail cost, charges for work not performed, and service call fees with no resolution. This is a systemic pattern, not isolated incidents.
• MISDIAGNOSIS PATTERN: Multiple independent reviewers across different years describe being told they needed full system replacements costing $4,000–$16,000, only for a second-opinion contractor to resolve the issue for under $300. This pattern appears in at least 8–10 distinct reviews and represents a serious workmanship and ethics concern.
• INCOMPLETE WORK PATTERN: Several reviews describe jobs left unfinished, problems recurring within days of a paid repair, technicians leaving messes or missing components, and the company being unreachable for follow-up. At least one reviewer states they had to hire a second company to complete Burke's unfinished work.
• DUPLICATE REVIEWS DETECTED: Multiple reviews appear to be exact or near-exact duplicates submitted on the same date (e.g., two identical 5-star reviews on 2021-12-12, two identical reviews on 2021-12-04, two identical reviews on 2021-11-19, two identical reviews on 2021-06-30, two identical reviews on 2021-06-24, two identical reviews on 2021-06-23, two identical reviews on 2021-06-08, two identical reviews on 2020-07-21). These duplicates inflate the positive review count and have been treated as single data points for scoring purposes.
• RECENCY NOTE: The most recent reviews (2023–2024) continue to show the same pricing complaint pattern as older reviews, indicating no improvement over time. The single most recent review (2024-08-07) is positive but minimal in detail.
• BLANK AND CONTENT-FREE REVIEWS: A significant number of reviews contain no text, single characters, or filler such as 'N/A', 'n', '.', or 'Great' with no elaboration. These were excluded from dimension scoring as they provide no usable evidence per scoring rules.
• SERIOUS MISCONDUCT ALLEGATIONS: At least two reviews allege the company attempted to charge for work not authorized, one alleges a technician used profane language toward a customer's wife and hung up, one alleges dishonest diagnosis on a disabled person's home, and one alleges the company fixed an AC unit without owner authorization and then charged $1,400. These are flagged as serious conduct concerns that go beyond typical service complaints.
• CONFIDENCE REDUCTION APPLIED TO PRICING: Despite HIGH mention count, the pricing score has been held conservative (32/100) because the volume, specificity, and consistency of overcharging complaints across the full date range is unusually strong and corroborated by multiple independent reviewers describing identical patterns.

This WW Score is based on one of the largest review sets analyzed and carries HIGH statistical confidence; the score of 62.1 should be treated as a reliable signal that while Burke Plumbing and Heating delivers fast response times and generally completes jobs, customers face a materially elevated and well-documented risk of pricing surprises, undisclosed fees, and occasional misdiagnosis or incomplete work.

Williams Plumbing shows strong technical competence and professionalism in individual service calls, with many recent reviews (2025) praising technician expertise, friendliness, and problem-solving ability. However, the company is significantly undermined by persistent pricing complaints spanning multiple years, with customers reporting flat-rate charges perceived as 2-3x market rates, lack of transparent quotes, and poor communication around costs. Project completion issues appear in older reviews (2019-2023) involving no-shows, incomplete work, and follow-up failures, though recent reviews show improvement. The stark contrast between glowing recent reviews and damaging older complaints suggests either genuine operational changes or potential review manipulation.

• SUSPICIOUS REVIEW PATTERN: 40 of 75 reviews are from 2025 (all 5-star, highly positive, similar phrasing patterns like 'professional,' 'thorough,' 'friendly'). This concentration of recent perfect reviews is atypical and may indicate fake or incentivized reviews.
• PRICING CRISIS: 18 reviews explicitly mention pricing concerns. Complaints span 2010-2023 with consistent themes: flat-rate pricing perceived as 100-300% markup, lack of transparent quotes, $200+ diagnostic fees, and charges of $1000-$2000+ for routine work. This is the single largest driver of negative sentiment.
• PROJECT COMPLETION FAILURES: Multiple reviews (2019-2023) document no-shows, incomplete work, misdiagnosis, and failure to return calls or honor callbacks. One customer paid $6000+ across three visits with no resolution.
• COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN: Several reviews cite unresponsive office staff, no returned calls, inability to provide pricing information, and delayed estimates.
• RECENCY BIAS RISK: Reviews from 2024-2025 are overwhelmingly positive (5-star); reviews from 2019-2023 are overwhelmingly negative (1-star). This temporal split suggests either dramatic operational change or review authenticity concerns.
• INCONSISTENT SERVICE QUALITY: Same company receives praise for emergency response and technical skill alongside complaints of incompetence and overcharging, suggesting highly variable technician performance or customer experience.

This WW Score should be treated with CAUTION. While recent reviews show strong professionalism and technical skill, the overwhelming concentration of perfect 5-star reviews in 2025 combined with a stark historical pattern of pricing and project completion failures raises serious questions about review authenticity. The pricing dimension (42.0) is well-supported by consistent, detailed complaints across multiple years and should be weighted heavily in decision-making. Customers should independently verify current pricing practices and request detailed written quotes before engaging this company.

Lambert's Plumbing & Heating shows significant inconsistency across reviews spanning nearly two decades. Professionalism scores are dragged down by serious communication failures (unreturned calls, no-shows, rudeness) despite many positive interactions with individual technicians like Sal, Chris, and Marc. Project completion is hampered by incomplete work, follow-up failures, and callbacks not honored—particularly evident in ceiling repair, pipe installation, and boiler installation reviews. Pricing feedback is mixed; while many customers praise fair pricing, several report overcharges ($750 for a shower valve, $500 for clogging) and hidden warranty limitations. Technical skill varies widely by technician, with strong positive feedback on HVAC work but concerning quality issues on plumbing installations (improper pipe strapping, incomplete work, mess left behind). The company appears to struggle with consistency and accountability at the management level.

• RECENCY CONCERN: Most reviews are 5+ years old (2004-2016). Only 5 reviews from 2017 onward. Recent data is limited and may not reflect current operations.
• MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTABILITY: Multiple reviews cite owner/manager non-responsiveness to complaints and damage claims. This is a systemic red flag.
• QUALITY CONTROL ISSUES: Significant variation in workmanship quality between technicians. Some jobs left incomplete or requiring rework by competitors.
• PRICING INCONSISTENCY: Evidence of overcharging on some jobs ($750 shower valve, $400+ clogging repairs) while other customers report fair pricing. Lack of transparency on warranty terms (30-day guarantee not disclosed).
• COMMUNICATION FAILURES: Recurring pattern of unreturned calls, missed appointments, and miscommunications across multiple reviews spanning years.
• POTENTIAL DISCRIMINATION ALLEGATION: One 2022 review contains explicit allegation of racial discrimination by owner Steve. This is a serious flag requiring investigation.
• PROPERTY DAMAGE: Multiple reviews report damage to customer property (stove top, ceiling, driveway, bathroom) with poor follow-up or refusal to address claims.

This WW Score should be treated with CAUTION. While based on 37 reviews with reasonable mention counts, the data is heavily skewed toward reviews older than 5 years, making current reliability questionable. More critically, the company exhibits a troubling pattern of management non-responsiveness, inconsistent quality control, and unresolved customer damage claims that suggest systemic operational issues beyond normal service variation. The recent discrimination allegation (2022) is particularly concerning and unresolved. Recommend seeking recent references and clarifying warranty/damage claim policies before engaging.