Paul the Plumber

Two hundred and seventy-three permitted projects, and not one customer review anywhere. That is the shape of Paul the Plumber, a one-man plumbing business run out of Hanson on the South Shore by its owner, Paul Schow. The Better Business Bureau dates it to 1 January 2002 — twenty-four years — and lists exactly one employee. The paper trail is where this business speaks. BuildZoom ties 273 permitted projects to it, at least 55 of them in the past three years: 17 in 2025, 14 in 2024 and 24 in 2023, which its own breakdown splits into 48 plumbing jobs and 9 new constructions. The money is small and steady rather than showy — 27 of the sampled permits came in under $5,000, and only three between $5,000 and $20,000. The work itself is bread-and-butter residential mechanical. Permits filed in 2025 cover water heaters, boiler replacements, gas fireplaces, a gas generator and general plumbing renovations in Cohasset, Pembroke, East Bridgewater and Hingham, with older filings reaching Hanson, West Newton, Malden and Lowell. Alongside that, the business lists sewer laterals, gas and piping, septic systems and fire sprinkler systems. On licensing, the state registry is clear: Paul Schow holds an active Massachusetts Plumbing Master licence, number 13257-PL-M, filed in Hanson — the individual credential that qualifies this business. Separately, BuildZoom prints a Massachusetts Sheet Metal licence numbered 1697 for the company and says it holds further state licences; that is the directory's own listing, and a sheet-metal registration is a different credential from the plumbing one. What is entirely absent is customers. The BBB file has been open since November 2018 and holds no reviews and no complaints, and the bureau declines to rate the business at all for want of information; BuildZoom's profile carries none either. Nobody has written publicly about hiring them, for good or ill, which is why no rating is offered here rather than one guessed at. If you want a long-established South Shore plumber with a deep permit history for water heaters, boilers and gas work, this fits, and the master licence behind it checks out. Ask for proof of general liability and workers' compensation cover, ask how a one-person shop would schedule your job, and get two or three recent local addresses so you can go and look at the work — with nothing written anywhere, your own eyes are the only reference on offer.