We have an old house to fix up and need some recommendations on contractors.
Main and most critical are roofing, new furnace systen, wiring, plumbing, and
kitchen.

We wanted to do the wiring and plumbing ourselves, but have been told we can't
until the title is actually transfered to our name as only owners can do that
type of work without having a license.

5 responses total.

We had David Conrad add some circuits to our house.  His telephone number
is 734-913-4708.

I'm looking for a plumber.  Any recommendations?

So I asked elsewhere, too.  The three names I was given:

        Doug James,     Great Lakes Plumbing, Dexter    734 426 4003
                        Gras Plumbing,  Chelsea         734 475 0602
        Dan Kofahl                      Ann Arbor(?)    734 665 0088


Apparently, we didn't adequately describe our desires, so Dan sent out an
assistant, who looked around, listened, and said we really need the master
plumber, i.e., Dan, to come out and talk to us.  So Dan is supposed to be
by tomorrow.

I talked to Doug today, who said that one of the jobs, fixing the laundry
tray pump, wasn't worth estimating:  the pump would run around $200, plus
an hour, at $70/hr, to install.  Call it three hundred.  If it could be
fixed instead of replaced, he could do that for less.  (Stadium Hardware
carries the pump for $159.  I'm not going to quibble over his markup,
especially since I can't get the current one off.)

The other jobs will probably require additional skills; we'll see tomorrrow
what both Dan and Doug think.  (I hope they don't arrive at the same time.
It's enough like dating two people at the same time as it is. :/ )

Dan Kofahl was also recommended to us, to do some simple fixes around the
house.  We got an assistant (Blaine).  He did OK, replacing the main valve.
He left before the city came back to turn on the water, saying if there was
a leak we could probably just tighten it down a bit more, or we could call
him on the cell phone and he'd come back.  They don't want to stay around
waiting for the city, because they'd have to charge us for the time.

The city guy turned on the water, and we saw a small leak.  The city guy asked
who the plumber was, we said "Dan Kofahl" and he went, fetched a wrench and
tightened down the connection for us, fixing the leak.  He said he'd never
had job done by Kofahl leak.  We said it was actually some other guy from
the Dan Kofahl agency.

So Dan himself seems to come highly recommended, but the folks that work for
him aren't necessarily as great, though not bad either.  He did a good job
all around.

Hard to find a leak if you can't turn on the water.  Sometimes the packing
nut on new valves is not tight enough and they will leak there.  More of an
issue with the valve than the plumber.

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