How to Choose a Plumber in Singapore

Plumbing is one of the few home trades in Singapore where the law has something specific to say about who may do the work — and one where almost nobody publishes what it costs. Both facts are worth understanding before you call anyone.

PUB states that regulated water service and sanitary plumbing works must be carried out by a Licensed Plumber, and that since 1 April 2018 it has been an offence to engage a plumber who is not licensed to do that work. Water service works cover the laying, installation, alteration, repair or replacement of water pipes, tanks, taps and fittings in the drinking water supply. Sanitary plumbing works cover sanitary discharge pipes and appliances — installing, changing or relocating a toilet bowl, for example.

PUB also publishes a list of simple plumbing works that a handyman may carry out without a licence. It includes replacing or removing a tap or mixer, replacing accessories connected to a tap such as shower and washing-machine hoses, replacing the pipe between a stop valve and an instantaneous water heater, replacing parts of a flushing cistern, installing or replacing a washbasin, bathtub, urinal or floor outlet, replacing a trap cover, and clearing blockages.

Of the ten companies we researched, two published any figure at all, and both were a bare "from" price with nothing attached to say what it covered. One company’s page titled as a plumbing price list contained no prices.

There is a reasonable explanation. A choke that clears in ten minutes and one that turns out to be a collapsed pipe are the same enquiry and very different jobs, and a plumber quoting the first over the phone will lose money on the second. That is why several companies say plainly that they quote after looking. The consequence for you is that the number you are given on the phone, if you are given one, is rarely the number on the invoice.

Among the companies we researched, published terms ranged from 180 days on every job, to 60 days limited to replacement work, to 30–90 days on "selected" repairs the company did not identify, to a warranty asserted with no duration at all and an instruction to call and ask. Two published nothing. "Warranty provided" on its own tells you almost nothing — the length and the covered work are the parts that matter.

Most plumbing websites in Singapore do not publish a company registration number. It matters more than it sounds: if something goes wrong and a mobile number stops being answered, the entity number is how you work out who the business actually is. Where a company does not publish one, a government register entry can sometimes establish it — that is how we identified several of the companies in our comparison.

BCA also registers contractors for plumbing and sanitary works under a workhead called ME12. It is worth knowing what that does and does not tell you: it establishes that a firm is registered, at a grade, until a date. It says nothing about household work, pricing or how a job will be handled — and most of the companies a household would call are not on it, which is why we treat it as one piece of evidence rather than a qualification to look for.