How to Choose a Plumber in Spokane, WA

The five checks

1. Washington license. Ask for the plumbing contractor license number and look it up in L&I's Verify tool. The record should be current and under the same business name as the quote. L&I also says only L&I-certified plumbers can legally do plumbing work on someone else's property, so ask who will be doing the work. Step by step.
2. Bond and insurance. To hold the license, L&I requires a plumbing contractor to keep a $6,000 surety bond and liability insurance ($250,000 combined single limit, or the split equivalent), and it suspends the license when either lapses. Those are the State's minimums. For a bigger job, ask for the certificate of insurance and call the agent named on it.
3. How the price is built. Hourly plus a trip fee, or a flat rate? Is a diagnostic fee credited if you approve the repair? What is the after-hours charge? National guides put after-hours rates at $125–$170 an hour against $45–$150 in regular hours.
4. Scope in writing. What is being replaced, with what, and what happens if the job grows once a wall or floor is open.
5. The permit. Inside Spokane city limits the City requires a separate permit for plumbing work. Spokane Valley requires one for new, altered or replaced plumbing fixtures and appliances. Ask whether your job needs one, who obtains it and who books the inspection, and have it as a line on the quote. Who to ask.

Red flags

• Reluctance to give a plumbing contractor license number, or a number that does not come up in L&I's tool.
• A general contractor or handyman offering plumbing work without a plumbing contractor license of their own.
• A price that only exists verbally, or a large cash deposit before anything is written down.
• Pressure to replace a whole line or a whole system without showing you camera footage or the failed part.
• A name on the invoice that does not match the name on the license record.
• "You don't need a permit for that" with no willingness to let you check with the permit office.

Match the plumber to the job

• Drain and sewer work wants a company with its own cable machine, jetter and camera. Drain cleaning and sewer line costs.
• Water heaters want someone who looks at the gas or electrical supply, the venting and the relief valve before quoting, and who tells you which permit the job needs. Water heaters.
• Hidden leaks want detection equipment before any cutting. Leak detection.
• Emergencies want a clear after-hours rate before the truck rolls. Emergency plumbing.

Spokane or Spokane Valley?

The license check is the same anywhere in Washington. The permit office is not: a Spokane mailing address can sit in the City of Spokane, in Spokane Valley, in another city or in unincorporated Spokane County. The service area page explains how to find out which one you are in.

Why no company list

Spokane Elite Plumber is a referral service, not a plumbing company, and this page is not a ranking. We name companies only when we can describe each one from its own published information, and we have not done that work for Spokane yet. Until we have, a list here would be guesswork, so there is none.