Henry Raymond

Fairfax News => Current News & Events => Topic started by: Henry on November 20, 2008, 07:51:45 AM

Title: Local Plumber Ed Roupe Snaps Photos Of Ralph Scott's Notes
Post by: Henry on November 20, 2008, 07:51:45 AM

A while back, I mentioned that many of our Old Timers took great pride in their work and one of those people in this area was Ralph Scott.  Ed Roupe, who does my plumbing work for me was doing some work under my sink and found Ralph's initials on a junction box he had installed for my garbage disposal, so I took a picture of it and had it on the forum.

Last night I got the following from Ed:

Hi Henry,
This is just one of many notes left behind by him the more I come across I will take more pics of them

(http://www.vtgrandpa.com/photos/albums/forum_photos/rscott_081119.jpg)

Below is an other photo and the item I posted on Ralph Scott a while back:

http://www.vtgrandpa.com/forum/index.php?topic=237.0 (http://www.vtgrandpa.com/forum/index.php?topic=237.0)

Title: Re: Local Plumber Ed Roupe Snaps Photos Of Ralph Scott's Notes
Post by: fletchtb on November 20, 2008, 01:43:10 PM

Seeing Ed's name posted on the forum made me want to take a few minutes to write my thoughts about Roupe's Plumbing and Heating.

Three winters ago on one one of those 20 below zero night, my wife and I woke up to no heat in our bedroom and an out of commission boiler. We had been living in our house in Fletcher for several years and never had a need for a plumber. We had always had our boiler serviced by our propane company. That winter we had switched propane companies and I called them up and they explained that they didn't have their own technicians, but they gave me the name of the company they recommend for all of their installation and service requests. I call up this company and they send someone over pretty quickly. The guy comes in declares that I have frozen pipes under my bedroom and my boiler is not worth repairing. He tells me what I need is a whole new system, and that it will be about $6000. I tell him I will think about it and he goes away. I will also say this was not the owner of this particular plumbing and heating company and my neighbors do use this company and they really like the service they have gotten from them. To me, the guy that came to my house that day just wanted to sell me a new system.

Something didn't really seem right to me and I definitely wanted a second opinion before I bought a whole new boiler. I open up the Fletcher Phone Book and I see the number for Roupe's Plumbing and Heating. I give them a call and Ed is over at my house within the hour. I open the door to my house and Ed comes barreling into my house in a panic; like fixing my heating problem before more pipes freeze is the most urgent problem imaginable. In reality, he probably just wanted to resolve my problem quickly so he could get to the 2 or 3 other "no heat" calls that he already had lined up by 9am that morning. While Ed is beginning to diagnose the system, I am explaining to him that he is the second guy out to the house that morning and the last guy told me to buy a new system. This gets Ed into a small rage as he tells me there is no need to replace my boiler. He tells me that even though the boiler is a little over 10 years old, I still have many more years of service from it. So we go about solving problem #1, the frozen pipes. We find the two frozen spots and get the ice melted, but still no heat. He then determines that the circulator pump is dead, so he replaces that. Every time he fixes a problem, a new one emerges. Everytime Ed thinks he's getting out of there, there is something else to be fixed. He closed and open valves that have not been touched in years and they start leaking, so he is replacing valves, etc... He ended up being there for 3 hours or more when he was only expecting it to be a few minutes dealing with the frozen pipe.

It was immediately apparent to me that day, that Ed is not someone looking to rip anyone off. He is only looking to resolve your problems in simplest most economical way he can. As long as Ed Roupe is in business in our area, he is getting all of my plumbing and heating business. I highly recommend him.

A couple of days after this incident, I was telling a friend of mine over in Cambridge the story. I only got through the first half of the story with the first company, when he tells me I should give his friend Ed Roupe a call... I told him that is exactly what I did.

Title: Re: Local Plumber Ed Roupe Snaps Photos Of Ralph Scott's Notes
Post by: dearon on November 21, 2008, 06:54:31 AM

Nice to hear a happy ending to the heating problem.  I think Vermont has more honest people than most states.  After coming back from Florida, I realize that more than ever.  We had a HVAC problem on the house we purchased in Florida,  called 4 HVAC contractors out of the yellow pages. Long story short, I'm glad my son is a licensed HVAC contractor in Vermont and was around for me to consult with.  As it turned out only one gave me the right advice.  The bids where from $199 to 1050, to fix the problem.  The person who gave a bid of $925 was the only one in the bunch with a license and who was to do the work correctly.  One of the contractors, whom we had called two days later had their phone disconnected??

Different world altogether down there!