Monkey Wrench Plumbing and Heating

Monkey Wrench Plumbing and Heating is a Salem, Massachusetts operation built around one plumber — Eric — whose state license is verified active and who holds a 5-star average across 70 Google ratings and an A+ BBB grade. Recommendations for him surface organically too: separate Reddit threads on r/SalemMA and r/northshore each name him as the one to call. What comes through across dozens of reviews going back to 2023 is range: a same-day faucet and disposal swap sits next to a full gut-and-replumb of the drain stack in a 1900s three-family, done to code with the local plumbing inspectors. A 2024 review describes him doing the plumbing for a two-bathroom renovation, including a special valve that let the homeowner install antique fixtures while staying code-compliant, and flagging aging basement pipes with a realistic timeline for when they'd need replacing rather than pushing an immediate job. Another, from 2024, describes a corroded shower valve that had left a household taking scalding showers for months — Eric replaced the fixtures, found and fixed a leak inside the wall, and reset the temperature, supplying the materials himself. Emergency calls are a recurring theme: a burst pipe fixed the morning after a Friday-night call, a Navian-certified technician tracking down a part in Woburn to get a family's hot water back before they hosted guests, a circulator pump diagnosed and swapped the same day a water heater went cold. Several reviewers specifically credit his honesty — taking time to explain what's actually needed rather than just running up the job. Nearly every account describes working directly with Eric himself rather than a rotating crew, and the record shows him consistently reaching people within a day or two even on short notice. For anything from a routine fixture swap to a full system replumb, reviewers describe the same level of explanation and follow-through either way.