Milne Plumbing & Heating

Milne Plumbing & Heating works out of Manchester-by-the-Sea, and its Google page is stacked: 4.9 stars across 137 ratings. Its Massachusetts plumbing license (2872-PL-C) checks out as active, and its BBB file — an A+ — separately lists Scott V. Milne as holder of a Massachusetts Master Plumber's License. What keeps showing up in the last six months of reviews is speed under pressure. A hot water heater that died during a cold snap was diagnosed and running again within about three hours of the 8:30 a.m. call; a seized sump pump and four-plus inches of overnight flooding in a basement got handled before 8:30 the next morning. The same names keep recurring across jobs — Andrew, Ben, DJ, Nick — which points to a stable crew rather than rotating subcontractors, and several reviewers describe being customers for a decade or more. The complaints in that same window are narrow but worth knowing. One reviewer wanted better communication after a visit. Another was told a technician would arrive between 9 and 11 a.m. and didn't see anyone until after 1 p.m., even though the work itself got a good rating. A third said two problems went unresolved and they had to track down replacement faucets on their own, calling the outcome disappointing. That combination — a crew that regularly turns emergency plumbing and heating calls around same-day, with an occasional miss on scheduling or a harder repair — is the pattern to weigh. It's a reasonable call for routine plumbing work and for genuine emergencies; for a job with a tight window or an unusual fix, it's worth confirming the arrival time up front and asking what happens if the first visit doesn't solve it.