Our Plumbing Warranty and Guarantee

Leaks don’t stand a chance.

Rather text? Send a photo of the problem to 352-377-9447 and we’ll tell you what it sounds like.

Licensed Florida Plumbing Contractor CFC1430748

Two years, parts and labor. Find it or free on leak detection. License and insurance

Parts and labor on our work

2 yr

Trip charge on a covered warranty call

$ 0

Leak detection, find it or free

$ 375

First Choice Plumbing backs every job in Gainesville and Alachua County with a 2 year parts and labor warranty, plus the manufacturer’s warranty on the equipment we install. Leak detection is $375 and carries a find it or free guarantee. We patch every hole we cut. Licensed Florida plumbing contractor CFC1430748. Call or text 352-377-9447.

Why is it so hard to get a plumbing warranty in writing?

Ask most plumbers what their warranty is and you will hear some version of “we stand behind our work.” It sounds good in the driveway. It means nothing at nine o’clock on a Tuesday night when the same fitting is dripping again and the phone rings twelve times.

Across the trade, a one year workmanship warranty is the common floor on repair work, and plenty of companies never put even that on paper. So the homeowner ends up finding out what is covered at the worst possible moment, from whoever picks up the phone, with no invoice language to point at.

Then there is the part almost nobody explains. Manufacturer warranties on water heaters and equipment cover the part. They usually stop covering the labor after one year. That is how a homeowner ends up with a “warrantied” water heater in year two and a bill for several hundred dollars to have the free part installed. Nothing about that is a scam. It is just written where nobody reads it.

You should not have to gamble on whether a promise is real. You paid for a repair, not a coin flip. So here is ours, spelled out, before you ever call us.

Still comparing plumbers? Read our answers to the questions we get asked most.

What does our 2 year parts and labor warranty cover?

Two years, parts and labor, on the work we perform and the materials we supply. If it failed because of how we installed it or what we installed, it is ours to fix. There is no deductible, no trip charge and no $69 service fee on a covered warranty call.

That covers:

A drain is different from a fitting: what goes down it after we leave is not something we control. We will always tell you straight whether a repeat clog is on us or on the line’s condition, and if the line needs cleaning rather than clearing, we will explain the difference instead of selling you a clearing twice. Drain clearing

How does this compare to a typical plumbing warranty?

We are not going to name anybody. Here is the honest category comparison, so you can ask the same questions of whoever else you are getting a quote from.

What you are comparing	First Choice Plumbing	Typical Plumbing Company
Workmanship warranty length	2 years, parts and labor	1 year is the common floor, often verbal only
Labor on a manufacturer covered part	Covered by us for the full 2 years	Manufacturer labor coverage commonly ends at 1 year, then you pay
Fee for a covered warranty visit	None. No trip charge, no service fee	Trip or diagnostic fee often still applies
Drywall we cut to reach the pipe	A professional drywall contractor patches every hole we cut	Often left open for the homeowner to handle
Diagnostic pricing published	$69 service fee, $375 leak detection, posted publicly	Rarely published anywhere on the site
Exclusions published	Listed on this page before you call	Found out during the claim
Who handles a claim	Kim in the office, and the owner who holds the license	A call center or whoever is on shift
Equipment registered with the manufacturer	We register it for you at install	Left to the homeowner, and often skipped

Licensed Florida plumbing contractor CFC1430748. The owner still runs the estimates.

What is the difference between your warranty and the manufacturer's warranty?

They cover two different things, and knowing which is which will save you money.

The manufacturer covers the equipment. Tank water heaters commonly carry six to twelve years on the tank depending on the model tier. Tankless units commonly carry twelve to fifteen years on the heat exchanger and around five years on component parts. Those are good numbers, and they are one of the reasons we install the brands we install.

Here is the catch, and it is in every one of those documents. Manufacturer labor coverage usually runs one year. After that, the manufacturer will send you the part and you pay someone to put it in. On a water heater, the labor is often the bigger half of the bill.

Our two years, parts and labor, sits on top of that. Inside those two years, if a unit we installed needs a covered part, you are not paying the manufacturer’s part price and you are not paying our labor either. We handle the claim paperwork with the manufacturer so you are not on hold with a warranty department reading a serial number off the side of a tank.

We also register the equipment with the manufacturer at install. Skipping registration is one of the most common ways homeowners lose coverage they already paid for, and it is not a thing you should have to remember.

See what we install and why: Water heaters | Tankless water heaters

What is the find it or free leak detection guarantee?

Leak detection is $375 flat to come out and find it. If we cannot find your leak, you do not pay the $375.

We put that in writing because a hidden leak is the one job where a homeowner is most likely to pay somebody and get nothing. Florida is slab on grade country. The supply lines run through concrete, there is no basement to walk, and the only evidence is a warm spot on the floor, a pressure drop, or a water bill that jumped for no reason. Guessing is expensive. Finding it is the whole job.

If the leak is an insurance claim, we write it up for the claim while we are there, with the documentation the adjuster is going to ask for. We have been doing that long enough that we know what they need.

The $375 is the finding. The repair is quoted separately, and we will show you the options, including the cheaper one when the cheaper one is right. If a spot repair does the job, we are not going to sell you a repipe.

How leak detection actually works. | Insurance claim leaks.

Do you fix the drywall you cut open?

Yes. We patch every hole we cut.

On a repipe or a slab leak we have to open walls and ceilings to get to the pipe. A lot of companies stop when the plumbing is done and leave you standing in a room full of holes, calling around for a drywall guy who does not want a job that small. We bring in a professional drywall contractor and the patch is part of the job, not a separate bill you find out about later.

The honest limit: we patch, we do not paint. Texture and paint matching is its own trade and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Your painter, or you on a Saturday, finishes it from there.

What is not covered by the warranty?

A warranty that covers everything is a warranty nobody honors. Here is where ours stops, so there are no surprises on the phone.

Pipe and fixtures we did not touch. If we replaced a section of line and a different section fails two rooms over, that is a new repair, and we will price it honestly.
Parts you supplied. If you bought the faucet, we will install it and warranty our labor, but the part itself is between you and wherever you bought it.
Damage caused after we left: a freeze, ground movement, a remodel, a tree root, or anything someone else worked on afterward.
Normal wear on moving parts that see daily use, and anything that failed because required maintenance was skipped. A tankless unit needs an annual flush, especially on hard or well water. Tankless flush
Water quality damage on untreated well water where filtration was recommended and declined. North central Florida groundwater carries iron and sulfur, and it is hard on equipment. Well water filtration
Clogs caused by what goes down the drain after a clearing: wipes, grease, roots and the rest.
Anything modified or repaired by someone else after we finished. That one is not us being difficult. It is that we can no longer tell what failed and why.

What voids a plumbing warranty, and how do you protect yours?

These rules are close to universal across the trade, so they are worth knowing even if you never call us.

Do not let an unlicensed person work on it. Unpermitted or unlicensed work will usually void both the manufacturer’s coverage and the installer’s. In Florida a plumbing contractor’s license number has to appear in advertising, so you can check it before anybody touches a pipe. Ours is CFC1430748. Licensing and insurance
Register the equipment. Manufacturers can and do deny claims on unregistered units. We handle registration at install, but if a previous installer did not, do it yourself today.
Pull the permit. In Alachua County a permit is required to alter, repair, replace or convert a plumbing system, and that includes water heater changeouts. Unincorporated areas permit through the county building division, and the City of Gainesville and the other municipalities permit through their own offices. We pull the permit as part of the job.
Do the maintenance the equipment asks for. Flush the tankless once a year. Check the anode rod on a tank heater. On well water, service the filtration on schedule.
Keep the invoice. It has the date, the scope and the license number on it, which is everything a warranty claim needs.
Call us before you take it apart. A ten minute phone call has saved plenty of people a repair they did not need to pay for.

How do I make a warranty claim?

Call or text.

One number, 352-377-9447. Tell Kim the address and roughly when we were out. You do not need a claim number or a portal login, because we do not have either.

We pull your file and come look.

We find the invoice, confirm what we did and get you on the schedule. If it is covered, there is no service fee and no trip charge for that visit.

We fix it and write it down.

The repair gets made and logged against your job, so if anything related comes up later there is a record of it instead of an argument.

What protection do you have beyond our warranty?

Our warranty is a promise we make on top of the law, not instead of it.

In Florida, a claim over a construction or improvement defect generally has to be filed within four years of when the defect was discovered or should have been discovered. There is also an outside deadline, called the statute of repose, which the legislature shortened to seven years in 2023. After that window closes, the claim closes with it, whatever anyone promised.

Florida also requires a certified plumbing contractor to publish the license number in advertising, which is why you see CFC1430748 in our footer on every page. If a company will not show you theirs, that tells you something.

We are plumbers, not lawyers, so take the legal part to an attorney if you ever need to. We are telling you because you should know it, not because we expect you to need it.

Where does the warranty apply?

Everywhere we work. Gainesville, Hawthorne, Alachua, Newberry, High Springs, Micanopy, Waldo, Melrose, Keystone Heights, Starke and the rest of north central Florida, out into Marion, Putnam, Bradford, Clay, Union and Levy counties. See the full service area

The coverage is the same whether you are in a 1968 house off NW 16th Avenue in Gainesville or on ten acres and a well outside Hawthorne. Same license, same two years, same phone number.

2 Year Parts and Labor Warranty

On the work we perform and the materials we supply. No deductible, no trip charge on a covered call.

Find It or Free Leak Detection

$375 flat to come out and find it. If we cannot find your leak, you do not pay the $375.

We Patch Every Hole We Cut

A professional drywall contractor patches every hole we cut. We patch, we do not paint.

Licensed FL Contractor CFC1430748

The license number is on every page and every invoice, which is everything a warranty claim needs.

Warranty questions we get asked

How long does a plumber's warranty usually last?

One year is the common floor across the trade on repair work, and a lot of companies never put it in writing. Ours is two years on parts and labor for the work we perform and the materials we supply, and it is published here so you can read it before you call.

Does the warranty cost extra?

No. It comes with the job. There is no warranty package to buy, no membership required and no registration fee. If you want scheduled maintenance we offer that separately, but it is not a condition of coverage.

Do I pay a service fee for a warranty visit?

Not on covered work. Our normal $69 service fee is for a regular diagnostic call, and it gets waived on larger jobs anyway. If we come out on something covered by the two year warranty, there is no fee and no trip charge.

The manufacturer covers the part but not the labor. Who pays?

We do, inside the two years. Most manufacturer labor coverage stops at one year while the part stays covered for much longer, and that gap is where homeowners get a surprise bill. Our two years of labor sits on top of the manufacturer's part coverage.

Do I need to register my new water heater?

Yes, and we take care of it when we install it. An unregistered unit is one of the most common reasons a manufacturer denies a claim. If a previous installer left yours unregistered, go do it now, it takes a few minutes and it costs nothing.

Is the warranty transferable if I sell the house?

Call us before you close and we will tell you exactly where coverage stands on your specific job. We keep job files by address, so we can look up what was done and when without you digging for paperwork.

What happens if someone else works on it after you?

Coverage on that specific repair ends there. It is not us being difficult. Once another set of hands has been in it, we cannot tell what failed or why, and no honest company can warranty a repair it can no longer verify.

If you find my leak, is the repair free too?

No. The $375 covers finding the leak, and the find it or free guarantee means you do not pay that $375 if we cannot locate it. The repair is quoted separately, with the options laid out, including the smaller repair when the smaller repair is the right call.

Get it fixed once, and know who to call if it is not.

Two years, parts and labor. Find it or free on leak detection. Every hole we cut gets patched. One local number, answered by the same family that does the work. Book Online

Licensed Florida plumbing contractor CFC1430748. Financing available on larger jobs.

Leaks don’t stand a chance.

Tell us what's going on and we'll take it from there

You get a real person, a $69 visit, a flat price before we start, and a company that patches what it cuts and answers the phone when you call back. If a smaller fix is the right call, we’ll tell you that too.

First Choice Plumbing is a locally owned, owner led plumbing company working Gainesville, Hawthorne and Greater Alachua County. Leak detection, repipes, water heaters, drains, trenchless lining, well water filtration and septic. We find it, we fix it, we guarantee it.

Florida Certified Plumbing Contractor CFC1430748

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