Kook & Son

I called because I had an emergency leak. The hose in the yard wouldn’t turn off, and was leaking pretty badly.
Pros: very friendly, polite, efficient guys. They said it wouldn’t take long at all, and it didn’t. They were very clean, and again, fast.
Cons: $ 328 for about 15 minutes of work. This is after he just told me he only charges $ 40 an hour labor, compared to a normal plumber rate of $ 165 an hour. He was even surprised at the rate when he hung up with the main office.
So, if you’re in a pinch, these guys know what they’re doing. A bargain, they are not.

A pipe was leaking above my toilet. My building uses Kook and Son so they were the ones that got the call.
The response was fast and professional, nothing to complain about there.
They were able to get to the problem within a day or two and had opened my ceiling/​wall and replaced the pipe.
Unfortunately they also left quite a mess on my walls, tiles, and fixtures. I did the best I could cleaning up afterwards and asked if they had someone to patch everything up, figuring this person would get everything back to normal.
They sent two separate guys, who both complained about what a mess the plumbers did with the work (they were both sent by Kook and Son), and couldn’t even identify some of the stuff staining my tub (a big purple splotch in partucular).
So I scheduled the patch up and called back Kook and Son and asked what they could do. Again, prompt response as they had someone over immediately. They essentially tried everything I did, which was to use everything I had under my sink. When that didn’t work (surprise!), they tried to blame it on the tub itself, telling me it hadn’t been glazed right to begin with.
I’ve lived here for 2 years now, and I actually redid the bathroom before I moved in and I know those stains were not there before the work. The fact that they couldn’t even tell me what the stain was of was really disappointing.
In summary: great response time, but the results will likely leave you with new problems that now have to be fixed. If there’s anyone who knows a competitively priced and trustworthy plumber in the Jersey City area, please let me know.

We’ve been relying on Kook & Son for more than 20 yrs. Howard has never let us down, and always treated us fairly, including installing and servicing a combination furnace/​water heater. Kook might be more expensive than others (I don’t know, haven’t checked) but the reliability factor is worth it. I’ve never been charged for travel time, surprised to read that in other reviews. The service guys are knowledgable and also very reliable.

BE VERY WARY OF THESE GUYS !!! They will take your money !! They turned up to fix an In wall heater, after 30 min told me that it was Kaput, and would cost nearly $ 4000 to replace (the unit costs $ 900 from GE). When I said NO, they billed me for 2 hours (minimum) work which came to $ 280. THEY WILL TAKE YOUR MONEY !!! No stars here, very unhappy. :(

Some people don’t mind paying 3x for slightly better service. I call those people suckers. They charged me an hour in travel time each way from Jersey City and also charged an additional hour for sitting in the van to put the invoice together. Ridiculous.

My husband and I called them to have a repairman come out and see what was wrong with our tenant’s a/​c unit. They told me they could take preventative measures on it and basically put a band aid on it. It would cost us $ 135. We had no problem with that.
When they saw the unit they told us taking preventative measures on it wouldn’t do much good because we’d need to replace the whole thing. They gave us a quote for $ 5,450 for a new unit but a low end one. We told Howard that we’d be getting a 2^nd quote and he lowered the price to $ 4,995. We told him we were still going to get a 2^nd quote. Later that afternoon we got a call that they fixed the unit and it was going to cost us $ 950. We didn’t tell him to go ahead and fix it nor at any point did he call and confirm with us if they could go ahead and fix it. So now I’m out $ 950 and it’s our word against his.
Bottom line I will not be using Kook and Son ever again and will not recommend them to anyone.

Needed a water boiler to be replaced in my apartment in Union City, NJ. Mine was 12 years old which meant it needed to go.
I called three different plumbing companies, and Kook and Son seemed the most reliable (Mind you I based my assessment on a single phone conversation but well …). I asked for a price range for my 40L Gaz water boiler to be replaced. Note that there is a premium for weekend service and for non-​elevator building. I talked to Howard, the great child of the founder of the company (it’s over 100 years old)
I took half a day off and met the guys (2 of them) at the apartment — They waited for about 15 minutes downstairs in their running truck before coming up (Not sure what that says but I figure I’d mention it …).
They looked at the old boiler, emptied it, brought the new one up, adequately protected my wood floor, were nice and explaining what they were doing. They were pretty knowledgeable and handy.
They came in at around 8:30am and left at 10:30. The final bill came to $ 1004.
You know that feeling that you are going to get ripped off no matter who you hire?
Give Kook&Son a try, they’ll make you feel good