Paul Volga of Volga Plumbing is a dependable, honest, and thorough plumber with 39 years in the…read moretrade serving the Bay Area. He recently installed a water heater for me. I highly recommend him and will provide a more detailed explanation after I clear up a business identity inconsistency on this Yelp page.
This Yelp Page Belongs to Volga Plumbing.
For some reason this Yelp page lists Volga Plumbing as "Absolute Best Plumbing Repairs," a company that states it is located in Torrance, CA. This information is not consistent with the content of this Yelp page. The Yelp page and comments you are reading are in reference to Paul Volga of Volga Plumbing: (1) All the Yelp comments reference Paul and/or Volga Plumbing; (2) All the Yelp commenters are based in the East Bay area of the SF Bay Area, not Torrance, CA, which is 381 miles away in Southern California.
Rather, Paul is based in Lafayette, CA. His business contact information is (925) 719-1851.
I have contacted Yelp already about this page misidentification, and am waiting to see the changes reflected on the this page. In the meantime, I wanted to clear up any confusion by folks who have landed on this Yelp listing and noticed the inconsistency between comment contents and page business name. Again, this Yelp page should be identified with Volga Plumbing.
Paul Volga is a Professional, Experienced Plumber with Fair Prices.
As I mentioned before, I highly recommend Paul Volga for your plumbing and water heater needs. As an earlier Yelp poster stated, I also got Paul's name from Kevin of Diablo Rooter (https://www.yelp.com/biz/diablo-rooter-concord). Kevin is also a great plumber and I trusted him enough to call on him again when this water heater issue sprung him. Kevin just happened to be super busy with other work (the man is in demand) and my wife was unhappy with the immediate prospect of no hot water, so he referred me to Paul.
I called Paul up on Kevin's recommendation and described my issue to him: a 12 year old, 40 gal GE water heater producing inconsistent water temperatures that had a malfunctioning T&P valve (based on my Google research), which was leading to hot water flowing into my backyard out of an external relief pipe at a pretty generous clip. (I'm not sure how long this had been going on for before I turned off the cold water inlet to the water heater, but I am not looking forward to my next water bill.) I talked to Paul and he confirmed the basic research I had already done. Paul walked me through my options. I decided that the water heater was likely near the end of its life and would simply replace the water heater as I would have to likely do it anyhow in the near to mid future.
Paul said he had a busy schedule and told me he could come on Friday (we were talking on a Tuesday). I asked if he could do any sooner as my wife was not happy. He said he definitely understood my situation and told me he could come Thursday morning at 0800. I booked him.
Paul came on Thursday at 0800 sharp. We shook hands in greeting and walked him to my water heater in the garage. He explained what he was going to do, told me it was going to take about two hours, and then went about removing my old water heater and installing a new 50 gal Bradford White water heater (manufactured in the USA). We even got into a discussion about the impact different types of water have on a water heaters (I get water from the Contra Costa Water District, which is apparently harder water than East Bay MUD water).
Two hours later, Paul was done. He explained how he re-vented the flue vent pipe through the roof because the other installation was falling apart. In addition, because I was upgrading from a 40 gal to a 50 gal, he reworked some of the copper pipes to make room for larger tank. He put in a drain pan (seemingly ordinary, but my old tank didn't have one), as well as replaced the flexible steel connectors and cold water inlet valve. He even swept up my garage to leave it clean and neat, explaining that sometimes screws and other pieces of metal slip through the cracks while taking out/installing and he didn't want me to get any flat tires. Mid way through the installation, he even let me know that he had just seen the mail man drop a package off on my porch so that I could retrieve it knowing that the holidays is prime time for package theft.
Thirty minutes after Paul left, I had hot water running through my faucets! Overall, Paul performed as promised and I am happy with his work. I would not hesitate to call him up again or recommend him to others.
As Paul left, I showed him what was on the Yelp page (this page) associated with his business. He said that the listing information was not correct. I told him that I'd reach out to Yelp to help him correct the misinformation - hence, my disclaimer at the start of this posting.
Sorry for the long post, but I find that details and context can be important in assessing who to call for home repairs.