Most plumbing profiles do not show as open 24 hours. Fix yours before the first freeze
Burst pipes do not wait for business hours, but most plumbing profiles do not say they take night calls. What to change this week if you answer after dark.
The first hard freeze is a few weeks away in much of the country. When it hits, pipes split at two in the morning, and homeowners standing in an inch of water search for a plumber who is open right now. Google answers that search with the companies that say they are.
In our data on 77,218 plumbing companies, only 25.6% show as open 24 hours on their Google profile. 39.4% list no hours at all. If you take emergency calls at night and your profile does not say so, you are hiding from the most urgent customers you will get all year.
Why the hours field matters so much
When someone searches "emergency plumber" or "plumber open now," Google weighs whether a business is open at that moment. A profile that shows closed, or shows nothing, is easy to skip. And the person searching will not dig. They will call the first company that looks like it is open.
Hours also shape what Google's AI answers and assistants say about you. A clear "Open 24 hours" is a fact they can repeat. A blank field gives them nothing.
What to do this week
Decide what you actually offer
Be honest before you change anything. There are three common setups:
- True 24/7. Someone answers and a tech can roll any hour.
- On-call after hours. The office closes, but an on-call tech answers emergency calls.
- Business hours only. No night service.
If you are option one or two, the profile should reflect it. If you are option three, do not claim 24 hours. Customers who call at night and get voicemail leave angry reviews, and those cost more than the missed call.
Set the hours correctly
For true 24/7 service, set every day to "Open 24 hours" in your Business Profile.
For on-call service, you have two honest choices. Either set 24 hours and make sure every night call is answered by a person, or keep your normal hours and say "Emergency service available after hours" in your description and in a service listing called "Emergency plumbing." The Google Business Profile guide shows where each field lives.
Set holiday hours now
Google prompts you to confirm hours around holidays, and profiles that skip it can show a warning that hours may differ. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's all land in freeze season. Set them in advance so no one sees "hours might differ" on the night their water heater fails.
Make sure the phone actually gets answered
Hours on a profile are a promise. Before you change them, walk through what happens when someone calls at 1 a.m.:
- Does the call forward to the on-call tech, or ring in an empty office?
- If it goes to an answering service, do they have your pricing and dispatch rules?
- If nobody picks up, does the caller get an immediate text back?
A text-back that says "We got your call. A plumber will call you back within ten minutes" saves a lot of night calls that would otherwise go to the next company. The speed to lead guide covers the setup.
Add freeze-specific services
Add services like "Frozen pipe repair," "Burst pipe repair," and "Emergency water shutoff" to your profile and site. Searches spike during cold snaps, and specific services match specific searches.
Post a short update before the cold arrives
A Google post a week before the first forecasted freeze: "Freezing weather is coming. If a pipe bursts, shut off the main valve and call us. We answer 24 hours." It is useful to the homeowner and tells Google you are active.
What the numbers say about the rest of your profile
Hours are the fastest fix, but they are not the only gap. The median plumbing company has 21 reviews and the top 10% have 358 or more. Emergency callers often choose between two open companies by review count. After every night job, ask for a review while the customer is still grateful:
Thanks for coming out in the middle of the night. If you have a minute, a Google review helps other people find us when they need help fast: [link]
The reviews guide has more scripts.
What an emergency call is worth
A simple hypothetical. If a cold snap brings you five extra night calls in a week at an average of $450 each, that is $2,250 from changing a few settings and answering the phone. Put your own average ticket into the calculator to see what missed emergency calls cost you over a winter.
The benchmark report shows how your hours, reviews, and website compare to other plumbing companies.
If you want help getting your profile and after-hours call handling ready before the freeze, there is a free 14-day trial of any service, no card, text or call (346) 436-6274.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, plumbing companies among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor