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Three generations, one name on the van.
Sixty-four years, about 31,000 homes, and the same rule Walt started with: treat every basement like it belongs to family.
Timeline
From one pickup to six green vans.
Tap a year, or use the arrows.
One truck, one phone
Walt Hartley leaves a downtown contractor, buys a used pickup for $400 and paints his name on the door. His wife June takes calls at the kitchen table in Norwood.
The shop on Montgomery Road
Three plumbers and two trucks need a real home. Walt buys a storefront on Montgomery Road. The workbench he built that year is still in the back room.
Ray earns his master license
Walt's son Ray passes the Ohio master plumber exam on his first try and starts teaching apprentices the way his father taught him: copper first, by hand.
Home number 10,000
A frozen pipe in Hyde Park becomes the 10,000th home on the shop's job board. Walt frames the work order. It hangs by the front counter today.
Kate picks up a wrench
Ray's daughter Kate finishes her apprenticeship and becomes the first Hartley woman in the trade. She also moves the schedule from a paper book to a computer, over Walt's objections.
The third generation takes the keys
Kate becomes president. Her cousin Danny takes over the field crew. Ray keeps one day a week for the jobs he likes best, old houses with older pipes.
14 plumbers, 6 vans, same phone number
We serve both sides of the river from the same shop. Walt is retired but stops by most Fridays to check on the apprentices and the coffee.
The family
Meet the Hartleys.
Three Hartleys on the vans, eleven plumbers we trained ourselves, and one founder who never quite retired.
Walt Hartley
FounderStarted the shop in 1962. Retired now, but still reads every review out loud on Fridays.
Ray Hartley
Master plumberSecond generation. Thirty-eight years in the trade, and he trains every apprentice.
Kate Hartley
PresidentThird generation. Licensed since 2009, and she still answers the phone most mornings.
Danny Hartley
Field leadThird generation. Runs the six vans. Ask him about sump pumps, then make some coffee.
What Walt taught us
Three rules from the back room.
Say the price first
Nobody likes a surprise bill. You hear the price before a single fitting comes off the van.
Fix it, don't sell it
If a $30 part will do, that is the job. A new water heater is for when the old one is done.
Leave it cleaner
Shoe covers on, tarps down, sweep up after. Your basement should look better than we found it.
Become one of the 31,000.
Schedule a visit and meet the family in person.