Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Bergen County
Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Ep. # 113 Trust, Honesty, and Hot Water: Inside Finley Plumbing and Heating
Meet Steve Finley, the man behind Finley Plumbing and Heating, whose unexpected career journey proves that genuine expertise and old-fashioned values still power the most trusted local businesses in Bergen County.
Steve's story begins behind bars – not the legal kind, but the Manhattan watering holes where he spent his early career as a bartender. Through a serendipitous connection with an irrigation specialist working on Manhattan's iconic rooftop gardens, Steve discovered a natural aptitude for piping, water systems, and problem-solving that would eventually change his professional trajectory completely.
The conversation weaves through his transition from seasonal irrigation work to full-time plumbing, ultimately establishing his own business in 2012. What makes Steve's approach distinctive in today's marketplace is his unwavering commitment to honesty and fairness – values that have generated enough word-of-mouth referrals to sustain his business without advertising or social media gymnastics. "I treat everybody's house like it's my house," he explains, a philosophy that builds the trust essential in an industry where homeowners often feel vulnerable.
Beyond his personal journey, Steve offers practical insights about water heater sizing, the limitations of tankless systems in Bergen County homes, and how regulatory changes in water conservation affect everyday plumbing solutions. His straightforward assessment of industry trends reveals the gap between marketing hype and practical reality that only an experienced professional can articulate.
Whether you're a homeowner seeking reliable service or an entrepreneur looking to build a sustainable local business, Steve's story demonstrates that treating people right never goes out of style. Ready to solve your plumbing problems with someone who values your home as much as you do? Steve services all of Bergen County and can be reached directly at 201-566-5308.
Finley Plumbing and Heating
Steve Finley
New Milford, NJ, United States, New Jersey
(201) 566-5308
finleyplumbingnj@gmail.com
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Doug Drohan.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast brought to you by the Bergen Neighbors Media Group. Today we are joined by Steve Finley from New Milford of Finley Plumbing and Heating. Steve, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thanks, doug. Thanks for having me, thanks for the invite.
Speaker 2:How'd you come up with the name?
Speaker 3:It took a long time to come up with that one actually.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah I noticed you used kind of a Gaelic F in the Finley Plumbing and Heating, so I guess you're playing off your Irish roots. Yeah, well, a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My wife is irish. Uh, my, you know, my grandparents were irish. Nice, so yeah, yeah, absolutely the friendly gallic uh stigma yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So aside, I mean, the name of your company is finley plumbing and heating, but do you do other work aside from plumbing and heating?
Speaker 3:No, I pretty much stick to what I'm good at. Okay, yeah, I mean I used to dabble in a little air conditioning, but with the refrigerants changing and a lot of new regulations, it just got too much and way too expensive regulations. It just got too much and way too expensive. And the, the equipment and everything just changed so drastically over the years that I just kind of you know, got away from it right.
Speaker 2:So the renovation and new construction, you'll work.
Speaker 3:You'll work with somebody who's doing renovations and absolutely, yeah, I have, you know, a bunch of contractors that I work with, but I don't, you know, yeah, I don't get into like gutting and you know, sheet rocking and tile and all that um, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it in my own house, I wouldn't do it in somebody else. Yeah, yeah, so what?
Speaker 2:are the main types of uh services you you get called for to do mostly uh, mostly.
Speaker 3:Uh, you know just basic residential stuff. You know faucets, toilets, leaks pipes. You know rotted pipes, boilers. I you know it varies every day is an adventure really, you know yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Every day is a winding road, in the words of cheryl crow yes, yes, yes, and I love it. How long have you been in business?
Speaker 3:I started. I opened up my business in 2012, september of 2012. I worked for a company in Hackensack and I got my license with them guys and they were excellent to me throughout my process. So I I what was I saying, Sorry I started my company.
Speaker 2:You were a plumber working for somebody else. Yeah Well, yeah, before that Doug. To be honest, if you want to start from the beginning, let's cue the music. Yeah, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
Speaker 3:Uh, okay, okay, go ahead okay, so start way back when, um, I started in, uh, new york city bartending, and um, when, in my early 20s, and I uh bartended in many different establishments in Manhattan for many years and through the years I was getting, you know, I met a guy who had an irrigation company, believe it or not, and we used to do all the rooftop gardens in Manhattan Rockefeller Center. You know all sorts of different. You know rooftops, and it was great, and so I needed to get out of the bar business. I was getting too old. You know rooftops, and it was great, and so I needed to get out of the bar business. I was getting too old, you know, and too, it was beginning to become too much.
Speaker 3:So, to make a long story longer, I uh, I, I hooked up with this guy and I started working with him and I and I and I really got into this irrigation business and we started to, you know, we were dabbling in, obviously, a lot of plumbing and water and piping and soldering. That was the beginning. I was actually late to this game. I didn't have a relative or a father or anybody who was a plumber in my family.
Speaker 2:That's where it started. What bars did you work in? What neighborhoods?
Speaker 3:Basically right outside the garden. I I was in the garden tavern, which was on 30th and 8th, and I was in kennedy's on 57th between 8th and 9th.
Speaker 3:I was I worked in flannery's on 14th street between 6th and 7th and 8th okay so, yeah, I was kind, of you know, all over um, I knew the owner of uh, mustang sally's and mustang harry's oh, yeah, uh, simon, simon, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he was good friends with, um well, he was from tipperary, I believe, and he was, he knew, the guy that owned, uh, the garden tavern where I worked okay and yeah so. And yeah, so they, yeah, they opened up. They opened up about a year or two after the garden time. The garden tavern opened up in 92.
Speaker 2:I think Mustang Sally's opened up in 93, 94, maybe he was a bartender at a bar called McGee's next to the Ed Sullivan theater.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, I know.
Speaker 2:I worked in a restaurant and after we got off our shift we used to go up there until the sun came up. Basically, he would take care of us and he made so much money from us that he ended up investing in buying a couple of restaurants and funds.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and unfortunately I wasn't as smart as he was.
Speaker 2:right, yeah yeah, I think he ended up opening something in Florida. It's a small world because the owner of Hearth and Tap in Montvale she was on my show and they're from Ireland and they know Simon and the whole story. Yeah, he's in Florida now. Wow, so, yeah. So from bartending to plumbing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, to irrigation and then to plumbing and so, anyway, doug, to continue that story, I, you know I worked with him for a good number of years. I I kind of learned the business. Uh, I started my own business then and I met my you know future wife at the time. Um, we were dating, we, we lived in Queens. I moved from Manhattan, I moved in with her out to Queens, then we went from there, we got married. She got pregnant with my son. We had my son.
Speaker 3:My wife, like I said, is from Ireland. She had aunts and uncles out in Long Island. I had my family out in New Jersey here. Her mom and dad at the time lived in Ireland and her sister, which they still do and so we bought a house out in New Ilford this is what we knew, this is what I knew, bergen County, and so there it didn't work. When I and in the winter, of being seasonal business, of the irrigation business it was, I had to. I had to work in the winter. So I had a friend of mine who was had a contracting business and I I called him up I said, listen, I need work for the winter. You know, I bought a house doing work to it, I need to make money. And so he said yeah sure, you could drive my van, pick up material, this and that. And with that I met up, met the plumber that I ended up working for, and he needed somebody.
Speaker 2:So you know, and it was just a small chain of events, that really you know catapulted me into this business and you know I'm really grateful to be in it. You know, serendipitous way that things happen in our lives, right? It's a serendipitous way that things happen in our lives, right? I met my wife, who's from New Milford, in a bar on St Paddy's Day on Houston Street and McDougal. It just happened the week before I used to work in the music industry and I knew a guy that managed a band and he said, hey, my artist is playing down at Three Lions in the music industry. And I knew a guy that managed a band and he said, hey, my artist is playing down at, uh, three lions um in in the village. So I went down there one night to go see her and she got stuck in traffic in staten island so the show never happened.
Speaker 2:So I ended up going to this bar called crossroads on houston street for you know it's kind of a loungy place and had a couple of drinks there the following week at at St Paddy's Day, and I'm at Minetta Tavern with a couple of friends of mine. And Minetta Tavern, before Keith McNally bought it over, was like this old school Italian place and the bar was getting really crowded. So I said, hey, let's go to this place on Houston. I was just there last week and I walked in and and there was this cute girl standing at the bar by herself waiting for her sister and I went over and said hello, and that's how I was introduced to New Milford.
Speaker 3:I'm a.
Speaker 2:Long Island guy and I lived in Astoria, queens and Manhattan and then my way to New Jersey Wow, Small world, small world, all those good bars in New York City, yeah, great women right. Yeah, yeah, great women right, yeah, exactly. My wife's Italian, greek and German, so there's no Irish in her.
Speaker 3:That's a good combo.
Speaker 2:So anyway. So now it's been 15, some odd years or so, almost 15 years since you started Finley Plumbing and Heating. What's changed in the industry, or has anything really changed, in the last, you know, couple of decade and a half?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean there's been a lot of changes in, you know, equipment and you know energy efficiency and you know there's been a lot of restrictions and water conservation and you know so, a lot of restrictions and water conservation and you know. So, yeah, things have changed um, some for the good, some for the frustrating and better. I guess you know, you know it's, it's I the the new water restrictions are very hard and you know, as far as like, even toilets, like they're really they're trying to push like one gallon toilets.
Speaker 2:Okay, and you?
Speaker 3:know around, I mean Fergan County, one gallon doesn't push much, you know, out of a house of cast iron piping and that's been in 50 years in the ground, you know. So you know there's been a lot of changes like that. But you know you kind of, you know, do what you got to do and overcome them, you know.
Speaker 2:So what do you think has been like? You know, your success. You don't have to advertise, you don't have to. You know, have an Instagram account and publish videos of yourself. You know, dancing in somebody's bathroom. So what do you think is attributed to your success over all these years?
Speaker 3:um, to be honest, honesty, honesty and fairness, you know, I mean that's kind of where I I base my business on is is is giving people, you know, straight answers with a fair price. Sometimes, you know, sometimes almost too fair, but you know.
Speaker 3:But you know, I I kind of. You know I I treat everybody that everybody's house, like it's my house. You know what would I do? They ask me, what would you do if it was your house? I tell them you know this is what I would do. But you know I, the other side of it is an economic side. So right, you know you have to work with people and I, you know I give people options of of you know alternatives. You know you have to work with people and I, you know I give people options of of you know alternatives. You know that may be better, that may work better for them, you know.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And I think it goes a long way.
Speaker 2:With plumbers is that sometimes you hear oh my God, it was so expensive. They came over to fix my toilet. It was 500 bucks, and you know when you're, when you're a homeowner and there's a lot of things you don't know like a roofer, you know, if you take their word for it. I had I had two roofers come to my house. We had a leak in our ceiling and one guy said oh, I'm going to have to replace the whole side of your house it.
Speaker 2:It's a little spot there where the nails came out. I could patch that up and it was like $500. Right, right, had I not had I took the first guy's word for it maybe I would have spent a lot more, obviously unnecessarily. And the same thing comes with plumbing you don't know. It's like oh man, you've got to replace your water heaters, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think, yeah, trust is a major factor when it comes to homeowners bringing somebody into their house, and that's why I'm always surprised to hear that. You know, younger people tend to shop purely on price and you know it's the cheapest. You know they go for those big coupons and I'm like, really, yeah, can I have somebody you don't know, just because they're cheap, come into your house? Maybe they're not even licensed or insured, right, so that's interesting. So the so, yeah, I, I can see why. And you know, you, you do a good job. And then somebody else asks you know who is your plumber, and and then that's the way it goes, I guess and yeah, and you know I've been in my family, I've, you know, I've kind of.
Speaker 3:You know I have a lot of. I have four older brothers, you know all pretty much grew up all around. You know we grew up in Hackensack and we know a lot of people and that you know, that goes a long way too. You know that's what got me, got me. My start really was just, you know, friends and family referring me and then, you know, then I learned how to stand on my own two feet, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and one thing I heard, though, this winter was that things got kind of slow in the plumbing business and and I don't know, like I don't, you know, listen, if something breaks in your house you've got to hire somebody. Now I know that there's a big kind of movement with private equity buying out, you know, HVAC and plumbing companies and going that route, and but I mean, you didn't see a slowdown this winter or you didn't see anything on the sidelines.
Speaker 3:No, knock wood, doug. No, I didn't. You know, even through the pandemic I'd really never slowed down. But I'm also a one man show. You know I, you know I, you call me, I show up at your house. It's not, you know, you know. But you know you have some companies who do have, you know, four or five trucks, seven or eight guys. Yeah, the things you know. You know that phone stops ringing, especially this time of year as well, to Passover Easter, you know, weddings for communions. You know this is the time of year that, well, to Passover Easter, you know weddings for communions. You know this is the time of year that it kind of it gets a little dodgy too, you know.
Speaker 2:So you know it's, it was it was tougher for some larger companies, I'm sure, but it was a very cold winter. You know it was a cold winter, still lingering, but I I skied in warmer days than we had lately.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So I mean it definitely slowed down in the fact of people were a little gun shy if their boilers had leaks or it was kind of at the last leg, they would go lean towards repairing it versus replacing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, because of the cost, I mean, you know. So things have really skyrocketed, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's interesting. I think you know you're in a very crowded market and there's a lot of you know if I Google plumbing and heating near me so I get you know what what you had said and just to kind of reiterate that is, if you treat people the right way and you're fair, you know kind of karma takes care of the rest. You know there's a saying about you can't. You know word of mouth is not a strategy. But at the same time, if you've been doing this for, you know, since 2012 and business never slows down, then obviously you're doing something right and you know you're. I think it's a testament to you know who you are and it helps to have you know the family connections. But that's another thing about a lot of local businesses is that you know they. They thrive because they, they have a reputation and and it's all about trust People buy from people that they know like and trust.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:So is there anything you know for the listeners of the show. Like anything, any tips you want to? Here's a question for you. So I have three people in a household 3,000 square foot house. What size water heater would you recommend? Three full baths or three showers?
Speaker 3:Three showers, any jacuzzis.
Speaker 2:No three showers. And of course, you have your dishwasher, your washing machine. What size water heater would you recommend for somebody, and is it somewhat of a personal decision in terms of how hot you want your water or how quickly you want the water to be hot?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, all those are factors, um, like, for instance, my house is probably half that size, right, and I have four at the, you know, at the time my son's in college, now my daughter's leaving next year for college. But, um, I have a 50 gallon water heater, you know, and we never had a problem. But you know there's some kids that take 20 minutes hours, you know, you know it. It kind of changed. You know it varies household to household, um, but you know you could buy bigger water heaters. You can get a high recovery water heater, you know you can. There's options. You can put recirculation lines. But I mean, for a standard family, three bathrooms, no jacuzzis, I think you can get away with 50 gallons, and then you're doing a lot of baths with young kids. Yeah, we were.
Speaker 2:We had 70, and then our plumber told us that's too much, you're wasting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're wasting energy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we got a 50, and then my wife is kicking herself because her shower. We each have our own shower. Basically, she's like, oh, it takes too long to get out. She's like, oh my God, she grew up in a house in New Milford with three kids her sister and her brother. They always had issues with the hot water, Is it?
Speaker 3:the furthest? Is her bathroom the furthest away from the water heater? Yes, there water Right, and is it the furthest? Is her bathroom the furthest away from the water heater? Yeah, yes, there's things you can do. You can put a recirculation line in and it kind of always recirculates the water, so it's always there. There's some drawback to that. When you turn on the cold, there's usually sometimes a little bit warm water as opposed to cold, got it?
Speaker 2:What are tankless water heaters? What are those? Do you see people getting a lot of those?
Speaker 3:What's the benefit of a tankless? Nobody's going to want me to say this, probably, but I don't. I'm not a fan of them. I don't like them. I think they're good. Doug, if you have like a summer house, you know a shore house. It's being used four months a year. You turn it off. You know a shore house. It's being used four months a year, um, you turn it off. You drain it, you know. But the, the, the, the water and around here is very, um, corrosive. You know, in some areas, um, the heat exchangers need to be cleaned every year.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And you know that's a four or 500, you know it could be four or $500 every year to have somebody, a plumber, come in and, you know, flush the lines. So you know they don't necessarily last any longer than a regular water heater, which is 10 to 15 years in Bergen County, 10, 12 years. I'll say actually Okay, and um, you know so, I'm not a big fan of them. The water's a lot colder coming in the house in the winter. You know you can get 47-degree water coming into your house. You have to flat heat that to 120 degrees. Wow, it struggles sometimes, you know so. You know going from a regular uh, you know it's, it's a big expense. You have to move piping, you have to vent it outside, you have to, you know so there's a big expense. I'm not a big fan of them. Um, you lose power, you lose hot water.
Speaker 2:Okay. You know, so you know yeah, I mean I don't know anything about them, you just hear about it and I just wondered if you know what the benefits are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm not a big fan. There's some guys that love them. I'm I'm old school, you know I get it. I get it, but I have to learn about, I have to know about them, you know because, it serves them.
Speaker 3:But yeah, yeah. So, steve, for people to find you, your phone number is 201-566-5308. Is that correct? Yeah, that's it. Call, leave a message. I do text, but texting is, you know. Sometimes I'm in group chats with my buddies and I can have 30, 40 texts a day and I don't look at them, all you know. So it's always better to call, leave a message and I will get back to you.
Speaker 2:Very good.
Speaker 3:And then what?
Speaker 2:are the areas that you typically service.
Speaker 3:All of Bergen County. All of Bergen County. You go from tip to tip.
Speaker 2:You go from Mahwah to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, down to North Arlington, kind of touching Rutherford, that area, you know.
Speaker 2:Okay, so yeah, All right, Steve. Well, thanks very much for being on the show. It was a great talk. A little bit of everything you know, a little bit of New York.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was good to visit that.
Speaker 2:So hang on for a minute. We're just going to have Chuck take us out, and then you and I'll be right back all right, great thanks.
Speaker 3:Thanks, everybody enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:Thank you thank you for listening to the good neighbor podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpbergen. com. That's gnpbergen. com, or call 201-298-8325.