R P Holmes Corporation

R P Holmes has been doing plumbing and heating work in West Newton since 1931, and the company is now in its third generation — current president Susanne M. Holmes is a licensed plumber and construction supervisor with 32 years at the firm. Its Massachusetts plumbing license is active, and the Better Business Bureau rates it A+, though the business is not BBB accredited. That kind of tenure shows up in the reviews: one customer has used the company for 25 years, another for over 40, both describing a team that has handled everything from routine fixture repairs to furnace and hot water tank replacements over the decades. On a recent furnace replacement in a Victorian with a tight basement, the crew — four to six men working early mornings into late evenings across two days — finished the job at the original one-day quote with no extra charges despite the difficult access. A 2023 review specifically notes the company standing behind its work when a problem came up. A recent Reddit thread names R P Holmes as a serious contender for mini-split work, with the poster noting they'd also used the company for other plumbing and heating jobs and liked them. Not every job has gone as smoothly. In a 2022 review, a customer described a trap primer that started leaking after a water heater installation, which they attributed to the repositioning of the piping during the job; the company returned to fix it but charged an additional $641, arguing the connected piping fell outside the water heater installation itself. It's a genuine billing dispute worth asking about before signing off on scope. For anyone in West Newton or the greater Newton area, this is a family firm with nearly a century of history and long-tenured customers, alongside one clear dispute over where a job's scope ends.