Bartlett & Steadman is a long-established plumbing, heating and AC contractor based in Marblehead, MA, with 464 reviews on file and a 4.9-star Google rating from 619 ratings. Customers who hired them for day-to-day plumbing and heating work describe a large team (recurring names like Jason, Dennis, Chris, Nick, Mike B., and owner Mike Steadman himself) that responds quickly to emergencies: same-day fixes for burst pipes during cold snaps, lost heat and hot water, and boiler failures, including one case where a boiler the company had installed years earlier was repaired at no charge. Reviews describe whole-house water filtration installs, a same-day water heater replacement with the manufacturer's warranty honored, drain clearing, toilet replacements, and boiler and AC installs handled by the same crew, along with a case where the company was called in after a previous vendor failed to diagnose a boiler problem.
In January 2025, however, the company and its owner, Michael Steadman, were named in a wrongful-death lawsuit alleging gross negligence, unsafe practices and corporate indifference, after three people died of carbon monoxide poisoning in Nahant. The suit, reported by Marblehead Current, is corroborated by several independent Reddit and Nextdoor posts from 2024-2025 that specifically reference the Nahant deaths and warn people away from the company; one Reddit commenter separately says other plumbers they have hired have repeatedly had to fix downstream problems traced back to a Bartlett & Steadman job.
A smaller number of Google reviews raise pricing and sales-pressure concerns. In a February 2025 review, one customer was quoted $1,470 for a single faucet installation after nearly an hour of estimating. In a November 2024 review, another said a technician pushed an unneeded $6,000 HVAC system replacement on a unit that "works fine." A December 2025 review also describes a missed appointment window with no notice, which the reviewer attributed to a recent ownership change.
Anyone considering Bartlett & Steadman should weigh the strength of the day-to-day service record, which is genuinely deep and largely positive, against the seriousness of the wrongful-death allegation, which the company's near-perfect Google rating does not reflect on its own. For routine plumbing and heating repairs, reviewers consistently describe prompt, competent work from an experienced crew, but the carbon monoxide case is a real, unresolved legal matter worth researching directly before hiring for any gas or combustion equipment work.