The fixtures you touch every day, repaired properly and replaced cleanly.

Fixture work is the most-used plumbing in the house and the least respected. A toilet that runs for thirty seconds after every flush wastes more water in a month than most people would believe, and a faucet that drips is not waiting patiently - it is grinding a seat that used to be smooth. These are the calls we schedule around the bigger jobs, and they are worth making.

Hard water is why so many of them come in. Del-Co runs roughly seven to eight grains per gallon through Powell and Lewis Center, the Columbus supply serving Dublin, Worthington and Hilliard runs around seven to nine and swings with the season, and even Westerville's softened water is about seven. That mineral load is why a cartridge that should last a decade starts weeping at five years, why one shower has noticeably less flow than the others, and why the aerator you unscrewed was full of white grit. It is a fact of living here, not a defect in your faucet.

What we care about on this work is the finish. A toilet set on a fresh seal and shimmed level so it never rocks. A vanity trap that lines up instead of being coaxed into place. A disposal that drains rather than gurgling into the other bowl. Silicone where silicone belongs, the old fixture carried out, and the cabinet left dry. Our reviews mention cleanup more often than anything else, which tells you what people actually notice.