Smith's Plumbing
2026-10-12T20:08:10.251Z
My wife and I, retired school teachers, were unhappy with our old tub+shower, but did not want to spend the money to convert it to a nice walk-in shower + a pair of beautiful frameless sliding glass doors! The estimates ran from $25k to $11k (the 11k from Home Depot). None would do for us only the portions of the project we could not do ourselves. Until came James who listened to and heard into what we needed and wanted. We needed a reliable, no leak, valve replacement and a new drain line which would connect a very hard to reach 1.5” drain to a new 2” and its connection to the new shower base. The old drain being located in between two ceilings with an indirect access through a tiny hole from somewhere above… “I take 400 for the drain and 350 for the valve”, said James! “Text me when you are ready.” But, on his way out, James generously shared with me the critical technical pieces of knowledge I wouldn’t even think of asking. Later, he came and masterfully completed his portions of the job, while simultaneously making sure he would equip me with all the knowledge I needed for the rest of our project. Honest, straightforward, dependable. Now, our project felt already almost all done happily under the supervision of an expert experienced entrepreneur/worker/engineer! In his way out, I confessed I would need a way of finding were to make the holes needed to install the very heavy stainless steel bar that would hold the two sliding glass doors, each door heavier than a good adult. If those holes are off by one millimeter, the doors would not slide properly, nor safely. So, in addition to spontaneous useful advices, James let me borrow his precious plomb line tool that he took right out of his truck. But the sturdy bar still needed to be cut on its both ends to the right size. This is an out of reach job for any DIY! At that point, even after he was paid for the job he had contracted with me, James took at least half an hour, using his diamond circular saw, to cut the thick heavy stainless steel bar, right there at the edge of his truck, before he and his lovely, gracious son left us. I still need to invite our new friends to stop by to pick up their plomb line, and I am planning to trick them to come in to take a look at our finished project, and, hopefully, keep them for dinner.