A Laurens County business has expanded into Union County.
Since Clinton native Jared Wainright, 34, was a young child, he studied the plumbing trade by watching his father — longtime plumber Jim Wainright. When Jared turned 18, he began working with his father at Wainright Plumbing.
“He taught me everything,” Jared said. “I went through extra school for licenses, but I was able to pick up on little things from watching him and I was very familiar with everything when I got out of high school.”
Wainright said the family business was primarily focused on commercial jobs until 2009.
“Ever since 2009, new work stopped,” he said. “That’s what it did. It didn’t slow down, it stopped. We had to re-assess everything, and we went completely into service work.”
Around 18 months ago, Wainright and his wife moved to Buffalo, and he commuted — and often still does — back and forth to Laurens County to work. He and his wife, however, are tiring of the commute, especially since learning that they are expecting a child. This led Wainright to the decision of expanding the service area of his plumbing business into Union County.
Wainright feels that he can offer experience and honesty to those in need of plumbing repairs. He said he believes it is too easy for some plumbing businesses — particularly large franchises — to take advantage of customers, crossing lines of business ethics.
“One man called me to get a second opinion on an estimate,” Wainright said. “A guy had come in from a franchise and told the customer he needed a new sink line, and that it would cost $2,000. The customer called me, and I looked at it the next day and told him, ‘The entire job is going to cost you 250 bucks. About $400 would’ve been reasonable, but I did it without any help in about an hour. That was a $1,700 difference — all because the people just didn’t know.”
Wainright offered another example of how his expertise can come in handy for those with plumbing needs.
“Last week, a lady had a leak upstairs in a very nice, older house,” he said. “It was leaking into the first floor, and I cut a small hole under the sink and ran a camera into the wall and saw what was behind the wall to see what was actually leaking. A lot of people would have just started cutting wall. We were able to go in through the attic and kept from going through any walls, so that saved a lot of money on that end. Having the right equipment for it saved that lady a fortune, and the job only took two hours.”
Wainright also pointed out that he does not agree with charging people just to come assess the problem.
“If I can’t help you, you don’t get charged, but there are few instances where we can’t help,” he said. “If someone thought it was a plumbing-related problem and it wasn’t, then we would refer them to someone else.”
For more information or to contact Wainright Plumbing, call (864) 547-0488.
Post a Comment
