FAQ

Ravinia Plumbing, Sewer, Heating & Electric has been in business since 1928.  Click here to see more of our history.

Whenever a high-end water filter cartridge is changed, it is normal for the water produced by the new filter to look cloudy, almost like a glass of skim milk. The cloudy appearance is due to very tiny air bubbles in the water. If you fill a clear glass with the cloudy water you can see the tiny air bubbles slowly rise to the top of the glass over several minutes leaving a clear, clean glass of water. The water is perfectly fine to drink. The air in the water is the same air that you are breathing. This “cloudiness” happens because when the new water filter cartridge is manufactured, the filter is full of air, not water. Also, high end cartridges will filter water to 5 microns. By means of comparison, a human hair is 25 microns in diameter so the filter is full of holes 1/5th the diameter of a human hair. When water first starts to flow through the filter it is pushing the air out creating very tiny (5 micron) air bubbles. Once the filter has become completely saturated and all the air in the filter is gone, the filter will not produce any more cloudy water. Cheap, low grade filters do not create this condition. Depending on how often the filter us used, it is normal for the filter to produce cloudy water for 1 to 4 weeks. Please remember that this will happen every time the filter cartridge is changed. Unfortunately there is nothing that we or anyone else can do to make it go away or to speed up the saturation process.

As the old saying goes, “You can’t soar with the eagles when you are flying with turkeys”. Ravinia Plumbing & Heating is a company of professionals and as such we have a responsibility to our customers to ensure each employee that enters your home or business can be trusted completely. Unfortunately the construction industry has the largest percentage of drug and alcohol abusers of any worker classification in the country. Every Ravinia employee receives an annual criminal background check and participates in our mandatory drug program that includes testing for pre-hire, post-accident, reasonable suspicion, and random selection. This ensures you receive a clean, honest professional working in your home.

Our normal service hours are Monday through Friday from 7:00 am to 4:30 pm and Saturdays from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm but we can make emergency repairs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

We frequently make special arrangements to perform work outside of normal hours at our normal service rates for our commercial customers (for example a restaurant or commercial customer may require us to work while the business is closed)

While you do not absolutely have to be home when we come over for service, it is in your best interest to be home while we are working. Everything goes smoother and easier if you are home to talk to about what we need to do, review pricing, and get your input if a decision has to be made regarding a repair or a recommendation.

 

Yes and no.  We do not subcontract any work for any of the services we provide.  If you hire us to perform plumbingsewerheatingcooling, or electrical work, all of that work is performed by our employees.  We only hire subcontractors for things like concrete, masonry, carpentry, painting, etc.  Why does this matter?  A contractor that uses subcontractors has less control over the people he is placing into your home.  Less control over their licensing, training, not to mention that subcontracted employees are rarely background checked or drug tested.

Ravinia Plumbing Sewer, Heating & Electric is licensed with the State of Illinois.  Our owner, plumbing estimator and all of our plumbers hold plumbing licenses.  All of our heating & cooling technicians have EPA refrigerant licenses and most are NATE (North American Training Excellence) certified.  NATE is the nation’s largest non-profit certification organization for heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration technicians. Additionally, we are a licensed electrical contractor and while it is not necessary for every electrician to hold an individual electrical license, many of our electricians are licensed.

As a customer, you are paying for professionalism.  It is our responsibility to ensure we are placing technicians in your home who have the qualifications and on-going training to identify and repair any related problem you have in your home or business.  Many of our “competitors” have only a few of their employees properly licensed.  Aside from being illegal, you jeopardize your insurance if you allow unlicensed workers in your home.

Ravinia Plumbing, Sewer, Heating & Electric serves the greater North Shore area.  Click here to see a map of our service area.

Aptikisic, Arlington Heights – 60004 (not 60005), Bannockburn, Barrington, Buffalo Grove, Deer Park, Deerfield, Evanston, Fort Sheridan, Gages Lake, Glencoe, Glenview, Green Oaks, Gurnee, Half Day, Hawthorne Woods, Highland Park, Highwood, Indian Creek, Inverness, Ivanhoe, Kenilworth, Kildeer, Knollwood, Lake Bluff , Lake Forest, Lake Zurich, Libertyville, Lincolnshire, Lincolnwood, Long Grove, Mettawa, Mundelein, North Barrington, Northbrook, Northfield, Palatine, Park Ridge, Prairie View, Prospect Heights, Riverwoods, Rondout, Skokie, Vernon Hills, Wheeling, Wilmette, Winnetka.

Ravinia Plumbing, Sewer, Heating & Electric has been in business since 1928.  Click here to see more of our history.

VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds) are carbon based chemicals that easily evaporate at room temperature such as acetone, benzene, and formaldehyde, all of which are found in building materials and personal care products. VOC’s can be removed with certain types of “Indoor Air Quality” products that work in conjunction with your heating and cooling system.

Yes but there are many families involved due to our numerous mergers. Ravinia Plumbing & Heating is the parent company, founded in 1928 by Arnold Peterson and Joe Ariano. Joe passed the business on to his son Don who passed it on to his son David in 1994. Since then we have added several other family-owned companies into the Ravinia Family of Companies. In fact, you could say we are one big happy family of happy families working together.

  • Jim Picchietti, our current plumbing estimator, brought Murphy & Picchietti Plumbing into the fold in 1999
  • Our plumber Kevin Moran who brought in Moran Plumbing in 2005.  
  • We purchased DiPietro Plumbing from Jim DiPietro by way of the now defunct Keystone Mechanical in 2008.  
  • Ron Romitti founded Romitti Electric in 1985 and merged with us in 2012. Ron stayed with us for a year until his retirement.
  • Dan Mahoney and Mahoney Plumbing joined us in 2012.  The Ariano and Mahoney families go way back.  Dan’s father Bart and Don Ariano were childhood friends. The families used to vacation together and Bart’s sisters used to babysit Don’s children. Fortunately the two companies’ like-minded business approach made Dan’s retirement in 2015 less stressful for his employees.
  • Bill Clark brought in Bishop Heating in 2015.  Bill ran Ravinia Plumbing & Heating’s heating and cooling division until his retirement in 2022. The Clark and Ariano families go way back as both Bill’s father and mother worked for Ravinia Plumbing & Heating.

We try but it depends on Mother Nature.  If someone calls us for service before 11:00 am, we can almost always get out to you the same day.  Additionally, because of the nature of plumbing, sewer, heating, cooling, and electrical emergencies, we always tend to those in need the same day.  Unfortunately when the weather turns nasty, heavy rains, heat waves, cold snaps, etc., it can fill up a day or two of scheduling in as little as an hour.  Finally, our Home Care Club customers always receive priority service over non-club members.

We provide after hours service for emergencies. That being said, different people have different definitions as to what constitutes an emergency. Unlike a fire department, we do not have plumbers, sewer, and HVAC technicians sleeping at our offices. For this reason, we have to be selective on what kind of calls we will dispatch after hours.  Our industry defines emergencies as a condition that poses risk to human life, health or potential damage to the home or business. Examples are a sewer back-up affecting the whole house, a failed sump pump that can result in a flood (having a battery back-up pump prevents an emergency), a burst pipe that cannot be turned off with an isolation valve, and loss of heat in a house. However if the home or business has more than one furnace or boiler, it is not an emergency as the structure will not freeze.  We realize that there are many other problems that arise which may seem like an emergency but really are a temporary inconvenience. For example, a stopped up kitchen sink is not an emergency as it does not pose a health risk or potential damage to the house. Folks can scrape plates into the garbage and stack up dishes or rinse them in a laundry tub one evening allowing us to get out during normal business hours.

Yes. There are two or three components to any service call: a service charge to get the trained professional to your location, a diagnostic fee (only if the problem is not readily apparent and requires the technician to start working to determine the root cause of the problem.  In that event we will tell you that we need to perform diagnostic work before we begin), and finally the cost of the repair itself.  The diagnostic work (if necessary) and the repair costs always remain the same.  Only the service charge to arrive is increased after hours.  This additional cost covers the fact that we have to (by Department of Labor law) pay our technicians an increased rate of pay from the time they leave their house to the time the get back to their house.

Almost. We have the training to service every faucet, fixture, sewer, drain, and piece of heating and cooling equipment on the market.  The only thing that prevents us from providing service is the availability of repair parts. There are several inexpensive brands found in home centers whose manufacturers do not make parts available. Once the inexpensive item has a problem, you are forced to replace the item.  Additionally, once any item gets to a certain age, a manufacturer may decide to stop making parts, making the item obsolete. For this reason, you are always better off purchasing items from a bona fide contractor who has experience knowing which manufacturers make quality products and are going to be around in the future.

Yes. We track which parts are required in 80% of our repairs and those parts are stocked on our trucks.  Additionally, any parts that we use at least five times a year are stocked in our warehouse ready for immediate delivery to your job.  Unfortunately, there are literally hundreds of thousands of parts in the plumbing, HVAC, and electrical industries and it is impossible to stock them all.  There is no supplier on the planet that stocks them all.  If a supplier has the parts locally, we can have them on the same or next day.  If the manufacturer is in the USA, we can usually obtain parts in one to three days if the customer wants to pay for next day shipment, or within a week if they don’t.  If the manufacturer is overseas, it can sometimes take weeks or months for parts to be placed onto a shipping container, trucked to a port, loaded onto an ocean-going ship, sailed halfway across the globe, unloaded at a seaport, waiting to clear customs, trucked to a distribution center, shipped to a supplier, then delivered to us… all of which is completely outside of our control… which is why we specify and recommend products that are made in the USA.

We charge by the job, not by the hour for several reasons. 1. Most customers want to know what it will cost before we start.  You can’t do that when you are working on a time and materials basis.  2. Options are almost always available to the customer. We can only quote options and the prices of those options if we are quoting by the job.  3. When you charge by the job, every customer pays the same price for the same job. It isn’t fair that the customer should pay more money for a job because of the differences between one technician and another (no two people are the same).  4. What does an hourly rate really mean anyway?  If your technician doesn’t have all the tools or training and it takes him twice as long to perform a repair as it does for a professional then you can end up paying more.

Yes.  Once the technician arrives, he will perform a visual inspection.  Many problems can be diagnosed visually, then the technician will quote a repair cost.  In some instances, the technician will have to perform diagnostic work to be able to determine the problem.  In this instance the technician will quote a price for diagnostics then a price to repair once the root cause of the problem is determined.

Every contractor should have four different components of insurance to make sure you are covered should there by an accident caused by your contractor.

  1. Auto insurance of $1 million because they have to drive to your job.
  2. Workman’s Compensation insurance of $500,000.  This is very important because if the technician working in your home or business becomes injured and does not have workman’s compensation insurance, YOU will be responsible for paying his medical costs and lost wages.  Your homeowners insurance may not cover you because it is your job to make sure the person you have working in your home is properly insured.
  3. Liability insurance of $1 million to cover damage to your home or business and its contents.
  4. Umbrella insurance that adds to the above coverages.  Make sure the total coverage is more than the value of your home/business plus the contents that can be accidentally damaged.

PHCC-NA: This is the national association of Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling Contractors.  This organization provides educational services and monitors federal bills that affect our industry.  PHCC-IL: This is the same organization but operates at the state level.  PCA: This is the Plumbing Contractors Association of Northern Illinois.  The PCA represents about 450 contractors employing approximately 6000 people, all signatory to the Plumbers Local 130 Union.

Yes.  Most people don’t understand the difference between a single employer union (think teachers, police, municipal workers, factories workers etc.) and multi-employer unions (plumbers, pipe fitters, sheet metal, carpenters, electricians, and other skilled craft trades).  A multi-employer union is really like the human resources department of a large company.  Our unions manage healthcare and retirement benefits, but more importantly, they run the apprenticeship programs that train our workforce. The only way to learn a skilled craft is via on the job training supported with classroom training.  Our technicians receive more than 1,200 hours of classroom training and have to spend four to five years in the field to log enough training hours to qualify to take the state plumbing license exam.  The end result?  Over the last five years, on average 55% of non-union apprentices pass the plumbing license exam compared to 97% of union apprentices that pass the test.  What does all this mean to you?  A higher quality, better trained technician working in your house or business.

Our plumbers hold state plumbing licenses.  Our HVAC technicians hold EPA refrigerant certification and NATE certification, and also have rigging and crane signal training (for hoisting rooftop HVAC units onto commercial buildings).  We are also a licensed electrical contractor.  Additionally our technicians hold OSHA 10-hour and 30-hour safety certificates, and confined space entry certification.  Sewer techs have competent man excavation certifications. Finally we are certified for lead poisoning reduction as it relates to remodeling.

No.  No two companies are alike, just as no two people are alike.  We provide well-trained, drug-free, criminal background-checked professional technicians supported by an office staff that ensures that phones are answered 24-hours a day, service calls are taken, scheduled, and dispatched accurately and quickly, we carry inventory to complete most repairs the same day, our employees, and vendors are paid promptly, etc. We are going to cost more than companies that choose not to do these things or do not do them well.  We would much rather have to apologize for services provided at a slightly higher cost than have to apologize over and over for poor quality work, long turn-around times, and inferior customer service.

Yes, call and ask.  We can provide customer references related to the type of work you require.  Also check out our ratings with Google the Better Business BureauAngie’s List, and other online sites.

All plumbers must take 4 hours of state approved training annually to maintain their licenses. HVAC technicians must take 16 hours of approved training every two years to maintain their NATE certifications. Additionally our company provides about 60 hours of training annually on customer service, product training, and technical training.

All customers receive the stated warranty from the manufacturer of each individual product.  Standard customers receive a 30-day labor warranty on repairs and one year on installed products (installing a faucet, toilet, sump pump, water heater, furnace, air conditioner, etc.).  Home Care Club customers  have increased labor warranties, including 90 days on repairs and two years on installed products.

Condensing furnaces, boilers and water heaters. Lighting controls and generator maintenance. Furnaces and AC units with ECM motors, set back thermostats, properly sized ductwork, properly maintained equipment (HVAC equipment must be serviced annually).

Click here to view our web page (blog article) on water conservation

We carry a number of products and processes to improve the air quality in the home or business. The most important first step is to identify the problems that you have so we can determine the best way to solve those problems. See this article on Indoor Air Quality and the OXY4 Air Purifier

Yes.  We carry products that provide superior filtration, that can eliminate odors and VOC’s, and that can kill mold spores, bacteria and viruses.  See this article on Indoor Air Quality and the OXY4 Air Purifier

  1. Make sure furniture is not covering radiators or air vents.
  2. Make sure filters are clean. 
  3. Close vents in rooms that are over-conditioned to force air to those rooms that are under-conditioned… but do this sparingly as you don’t want to starve the furnace for air.
  4. Reduce solar gain and heat loss through windows in over-conditioned rooms by keeping shades closed and insulated by a heavier curtain.
  5. Nothing can help undersized or incorrectly sized ductwork other than to tear it out and replace it with correctly sized ductwork.  Depending on the construction in the home or business, this may not be possible or if possible, may be considered prohibitively expensive.