Kaufman Plumbing & Heating

Kaufman Plumbing and Heating is a Framingham shop Joe Kaufman has run since 1993 — long enough that a 2008 local newspaper story about the "Joe the Plumber" presidential-debate moment tracked down his wife, who told the reporter, "My Joe is a great plumber." The reviews back that up with specifics rather than nostalgia. A 2026 review described a wall pipe bursting and the office manager, Heather, getting someone out that same morning; another 2026 review said a new water heater tank went in the same day it was called in, at what the customer called a very fair price. In a 2025 review, Joe arrived within two hours on a Saturday with a replacement hot water tank already in hand, and another 2025 review described his crew swapping out a hard-to-reach outside water line in a single day for less than the homeowner expected. In a 2023 review, a sump-pump check valve failed and flooded a basement — Kaufman was there within the hour. Across 32 Google ratings the average sits at 4.6, and the written record runs from 2022 through this year. On its own site, the company lists boiler installation, wall-hung boiler systems, and oil-to-gas conversions alongside its plumbing work, and says it has covered Framingham, Ashland, Wayland, Sudbury, Natick and the wider Metro West area since 1993. Its Better Business Bureau file lists an A+ rating and a plumbing license number with the state board, though the business hasn't sought BBB accreditation. Not everything on file is glowing — a 2025 review rated the business one star and said only "Would not recommend." And in a 2022 review, a customer described Joe calling back the next day to say he couldn't take on a specific job, then pointing them to another company he trusted — turning work away rather than a complaint, but worth knowing this isn't an outfit that says yes to everything. The clearest use case here is a plumbing emergency — a burst pipe, a dead water heater, a flooding basement — where reviewers keep describing same-day or next-morning response. It's worth asking directly about scheduling for planned heating work like a boiler swap, since the reviews on file lean almost entirely toward plumbing calls rather than HVAC installs.