Ladd Plumbing

A hundred-year-old cast iron drain system pulled out of a basement and replaced with PVC inside one day — that January 2026 job is the kind of work David Ladd's crew gets called for, alongside the clogged kitchen sink nobody else could reach. Ladd Plumbing is family-owned and works out of 218 Wren Street in West Roxbury; Angi and HomeAdvisor put the company at 23 years in the trade, Thumbtack at 25. The recent writing about them is on Thumbtack, where they hold 4.5 stars across 130 ratings, a Top Pro badge and 232 recorded hires. In August 2026 a customer wrote that Luis, on David's team, showed up on time, dealt with a sink leak, then checked the other sinks in the house and answered plumbing questions while he was there. Another August 2026 reviewer needed help ASAP, got the clog cleared quickly, and said they weren't charged an arm and a leg for the emergency call. In October 2025 a homeowner who had already tried Drano and a plunger had the Ladd team out the same day; they snaked it, troubleshot, and traced the blockage to a hard-to-reach length of pipe they had to open up from the basement. A hot water tank went in within 24 hours for a September 2025 customer, with updates along the way. On Angi and HomeAdvisor — one 57-review set showing 4.7, carried on both — the written accounts reach back to 2017, and that is where the pricing reputation comes from. In a February 2019 review, David came out on a Saturday for a hot water heater and adjusted its setting instead of replacing it, which the customer said saved a fortune. In November 2017, another had a gas leak in a wall fixed on a Saturday morning, explained step by step. One complaint stands against that. A July 2019 Angi reviewer gave half a star: the diagnosis was roughly right, they wrote, but the problem was not actually fixed, the toilet stopped working entirely a week later, and they reached out many times. The platform numbers carry an echo — 9% of the 130 Thumbtack ratings are one star, against 84% at five. For a drain, a leak or a water heater, and especially for someone who will tell you when the cheaper fix is the right one, this is a sensible call. Ask who is actually coming — the 2025 and 2026 accounts describe David with a crew, one naming Luis — and settle up front how a callback is handled if a repair doesn't hold.