Plumbing & Drainage
Every plumber knows the maths: the emergency that rings at 2am is worth multiples of the tap washer that rings at 2pm — and it's the one you're most likely to miss. Amy answers both, tells them apart, and only wakes you for the one that's worth waking for.
The demo line answers as Halden Plumbing & Gas — a plumbing business we invented so you can be the customer. Ring it, say you’ve got water coming through the ceiling, and watch what lands on your phone afterwards.
01 — What a missed call costs a plumber
In Queensland an after-hours call-out typically bills $150–350 before the first hour is counted. Those calls come at midnight, at Sunday lunch, while you're elbow-deep under a sink. Whoever answers first gets the job.
Someone with sewage backing up doesn't leave a voicemail and wait. They ring the next plumber on Google — and the next. The window is minutes, not hours.
The hours you're most bookable are the hours you're least reachable. Your busiest weeks are exactly when the most enquiries bounce off to whoever answers next.
02 — What we found on your competitors’ websites
Before we built this, we read fifteen Brisbane and South-East Queensland plumbing websites end to end — every service page, contact form and FAQ. Three things were true almost everywhere, and none of them are a criticism. They are just what happens when the person who answers the phone is also the person under the house.
Nine of the fifteen advertise round-the-clock answering. Seven route every call in the business through a single mobile number. One says it in the first person: “I answer the phone the same way on a Sunday as on a Tuesday.” That is a real promise made by a real tradesman — and it is true right up until he is on a roof.
Name, phone, email, suburb, message. That was the whole intake on almost every site. Not one form asked whether it was an emergency, whether water was still running, whether the caller owned the place or rented it, or whether anyone would be home. Those questions get asked on the phone — or they don’t get asked at all.
Exactly one of the fifteen put a number on it. Everyone else wrote “as soon as possible”. Meanwhile the person with sewage in the laundry is already dialling the next plumber on Google. The window is minutes.
Our own reading of fifteen public plumbing websites in Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast, August 2026. We are not naming them — the pattern is the point, and it is the same pattern in every trade where the owner still answers.
03 — How it works
No hardware, no new number. We build her on your business — your services, your call-out fee, your definition of an emergency — you test her, we point the calls.
One call. What you charge, what you cover, which suburbs, and the exact situations that justify waking you at 2am versus waiting until 7.
Ring her with your hardest calls — the vague ones, the angry ones, the "how much for a bathroom reno" ones. Anything that sounds wrong, we fix before a customer hears it.
Divert your existing number — all calls, or just the ones you miss. Your number stays yours. Turn it off any time.
04 — What she gets out of the caller
A voicemail gives you a name and a number — if they leave one. Amy asks what you'd ask, so you're ringing back to confirm, not to start.
05 — How it sounds
Caller
There's water pouring out from the ceiling under the upstairs bathroom.Amy
Okay — first thing: do you know where your water main tap is? Usually out the front near the meter.Caller
Yeah I think so — hang on... okay it's off. It's slowing down.Amy
Good — that's the damage stopped. What's the address? This one can't wait, so I'm putting you through to the on-call plumber now, and texting him the details either way.Not a script we wrote for this page — this is the shape of a real call on the demo line. Ring it and it will go much the same way.
06 — Price
All-in, GST included, no setup fee for the founding ten. First two weeks are a no-questions trial — leave inside fourteen days and you pay nothing. The maths is yours to check, not ours to claim: an after-hours call-out plus a repair usually clears the monthly fee on its own.
07 — Questions
You define it during setup, in your words — burst pipe, water coming in, no hot water with young kids in the house, sewage backing up. She matches against your list, not her own judgement, and anything on it rings your on-call mobile with the caller still on the line.
She stops taking details and gives one instruction: get everyone out of the house, don’t touch a light switch, and call triple zero from outside. Then she takes the address and pages you. She will not talk anyone to the gas meter, will not tell them to turn anything off, and will not offer an opinion on whether it’s really a leak. Most plumbing websites we read tell a caller to shut the gas off and ring the plumber; we think that instruction belongs to a licensed human standing there, not to a receptionist on a phone.
No — and she never pretends to. She captures what you need to price it: what's happening, where, how urgent, photos by SMS if useful. You quote; she makes sure the enquiry is still yours when you do.
She falls back to capture: tells the caller exactly when to expect your call, takes the address and the details, and texts you everything. Nothing is dropped because you were asleep or on another job.
Ask your current service two questions: can the operator book into your calendar, and what does after-hours cost you per call? Amy books directly, texts the customer a confirmation, and after-hours costs nothing extra — nights are just minutes.
No. She gives a window and a callback, never a clock time and never a plumber by name — because the arrival time is yours to promise once you know what you’re walking away from. Every site we read that advertises “within the hour” hedges it with an asterisk; she does the honest version of that out loud.
No. It's a divert on the number on your ute and your Google listing. Divert everything, or only the calls you miss. Turn it off any time.
Today she books into Google Calendar and texts you every job's details. ServiceM8 and Tradify integrations are on our roadmap — we'll say "roadmap" rather than pretend they're live, and founding clients get first access when they ship.
This number answers as Halden Plumbing & Gas — a plumbing business that doesn’t exist, built so you can hear the front desk from the customer’s side. Ring it, describe a job the way one of your callers would, and see what lands on your phone afterwards. Ask her whether she’s a real person and she’ll tell you straight.