When it comes to brand recognition, Pete the Plumber has the market cornered. For the past 25 years, the iconic blue, muscled Hulk gripping a pipe wrench on the side of its service vans and trucks has become a symbol of the plumbing superhero that Calgarians can rely on to save the day. But if things had worked out as the man behind the muscles, Pete Archdekin, had expected, the logo and his legacy would have looked very different.
Pete cut his teeth in the trades at his father’s elbow, learning everything he could from the renovator and cabinet maker. From the time he was 10 years old, Pete hauled supplies, helped build decks and renovated basements with his dad. After a few major heart attacks in 1981, the senior Archdekin was advised to take some time off to recover, and that left 19-year-old Pete scrambling to figure out what to do next.
“My cousin was a plumber and called me up and said: ‘I need a strong back and a weak mind,’ and at $6 an hour, I was in,” says Pete Archdekin, owner of Pete the Plumber. “But I didn’t think it would really get me anywhere. I wasn’t going to be a plumber.”
“They knew they couldn’t trademark the colour but they also knew they could cause us a lot of aggravation if we refused to change. I did not want to take on Marvel’s lawyers, so we tried a black Hulk, a white Hulk, a purple Hulk but in the end we went with blue for the colour of water,” he says.
All subsequent superhero characters on the growing fleet were original creations made just for Pete the Plumber. Whether it was a jacked-up monkey, a buff shark or the blue behemoth that started it all, everyone in town recognized the brand as it drove by and remembered it when they found themselves in need of a great plumber. The phone never stopped ringing, and the outfit experienced incredible growth during those first 10 years in business. The company moved into its own space in the mid-2000s to accommodate the workload and then a few years later moved into its current headquarters on 112 Avenue Southeast.
Since then, the company has established a foothold in the industry by offering a full-service approach to plumbing that focuses on accountability and customer satisfaction. The team tackles everything from the more conventional plumbing services like installations, repairs, and 24/7 emergency response to more niche services like drain cleaning, renovations, sewer digs, water softeners, and more recently polybutylene pipe replacements.
“Poly-b is massive. We do two or three a week, and we offer a great price,” Pete says. “It is a bit of an art and I have three crews that are really good at it.”
Pete the Plumber is really good at a lot of things. Besides the stable of expert plumbing professionals, there are now five electricians available for residential electrical service, installing solar panel systems, and installing or servicing air conditioners in the spring, furnaces in the winter, and hot water tanks all year long. The company does more hot water tanks than anyone else in the city, installing about 230 every month, and its buying power keeps prices lower and warranties high; Pete got a 12-year parts warranty on atmospheric hot water tanks and furnaces built into the manufacturers’ prices to ensure his customers are protected and that they get the best possible deals.
The same is true of all products Pete uses. He sticks with proven brands like American Standard, Toto, Moen, and Delta that are made to last and easy to service, and he’s always looking to bring in high-quality water-saving products that are effective and affordable. His 2,500-square-foot showroom features displays that demonstrate how each of these vetted components work and what the possibilities are for a client’s own space. Then the team can duplicate it at the customer’s home. Customers enjoy a two-year, no-questions-asked warranty on products Pete the Plumber installs along with service and support that lasts even longer. This is rare in the industry but it is very much on brand with Pete Archdekin’s business style; it’s his name on the door and his reputation on the line, so he fights for his clients and is only happy when his clients are happy.
“If I can’t believe in the product for at least two years, I’m not going to use it,” he says. “After all, I’m the end of the road. I have to look Mrs. Smith in the eye and tell her this is a good product, and if it’s not I’ll fix it, I’ll replace it or repair it for free.”
This philosophy has taken Pete far and he doesn’t compromise his principles for anything. The team around him has adopted the same way of doing business which has the company well positioned for the future. Over the past five years, Pete bought out his long-time partner Andrew Prince, diversified and expanded the business significantly, grew to 60 trucks and 75 employees, and has been busy mapping out a succession plan to ensure Pete the Plumber will be around for a long time to come. Now Pete has invited the next crop of young entrepreneurs to the table, and five long-time employees have bought into the company to become junior partners in Pete the Plumber. This new executive team is learning the business inside and out, with Pete’s son, Jake Archdekin, Dan Tiessen, and Jason Walker covering the field side, and Jennifer Mass and Lindsay Wilson handling the administrative side, and as always Jackie Mills, his long-time financial manager and partner, keeps Pete and the money on track.
“I’m just getting the kid savvy enough to replace me. Jake will be the one in this chair one day, but until then he’s training,” Pete says. “They are all smart, and they are going to be fantastic.”
Having a plan for the future is critical, but Pete isn’t ready to call it quits just yet. He loves his job and the people he meets through it and he’s having a blast out in the community. His calendar is packed full, and when he’s not at work he can be found supporting animal rescues like AARCs, Pawsitive Match, and the Calgary Humane Society in memory of his beloved Dino the Toilet Dog, honoring his father by sponsoring the Shriners’ golf tournaments, helping kids with PACE Kids, and supporting sporting events like the Calgary Police Rodeo and the various KidSport fundraisers to help kids play sports. As a sponsor of the Flames, Stampeders, Roughnecks, Cavalry, and Okotoks Dawgs, the lifelong sports fan gets to cheer on his hometown teams from the best seat in the house: a chair welded to the back of a quad from which he throws hats out to spectators and fires his t-shirt cannon into the crowd.
“I’m having too much fun,” he says. “Every day is an adventure, and the best day of the week is Monday because I get to see the people. When my feet hit the ground for work, I’m happy.”
With a diverse and growing services list, a dedicated, long-tenured team, and 25 years’ worth of loyal repeat customers, Pete Archdekin certainly has much to be happy about.
#14, 4550 112 Ave SE
(403) 257-1766
www.petetheplumber.com
