She works with a smile and leaves with a hug.
It’s not exactly what you’d expect from a plumber, but that’s the way Heather Palbicki rolls.
The word is out about the island’s friendly faucet fixer who owns Heather’s Home Repair.
Having just completed her 6,000 journeyman hours required to become a master plumber, Palbicki, known during her apprentice hours to her fellow male counterparts as “the plumber chick,” can claim her place next to the big boys.
“They didn’t think
I would last,” Palbicki said of those “doubting Thomas” men who judged her apprenticeship from afar.
“That’s why working with George Churchill helped me get through it. He’s a strong person and a firm believer in someone’s dreams.”
Churchill, who owns Churchill and Associates, a rental property company in Oak Harbor, had employed Palbicki for years as a cleaner, then a painter and a maintenance person.
After coming to know Palbicki and seeing her willingness to learn new mechanical skills, Churchill set her on the path to a new career.
“I fell in love with the plumbing aspect of what I was learning,” she said.
Churchill asked two of his contractor friends, Jim Earl and Steve Ellis, to let Palbicki shadow them as a silent partner while she learned the trade. She followed them while they did plumbing repairs and new construction installations.
It took six years while she worked and balanced her life as a mom raising her three children.
“The kids weren’t to keen on Mom being a plumber at first,” Palbicki said of her daughter and two sons who are now 19, 17 and 7.
But the children saw their mother accomplish a goal she set for herself and now, Palbicki said, they seem proud that she will be getting her master plumber license, even though it’s still fairly uncommon to see a woman in the field.
Palbicki can thank Lillian Baumbach of Arlington, Va. who set the stage for mechanically minded women like herself back in 1951 when she became the first woman master plumber in America.
Baumbach had knocked down barriers for women at the time, so much so that she became the darling of the media for a while and the pen pal of more than 250 servicemen in the United States and overseas.
She landed on television in the game show “What’s My Line?” and was even interviewed by one of the most famous news anchors of all time, Walter Cronkite.
Although Palbicki was dubbed “the plumber chick” by some less-than-enlightened men in her field, she will not, like Baumbach, be required to write a guide entitled “Helpful Plumbing Hints for Housewives.”
Growing up in California, Palbicki was always a tomboy.
As a child, she could often be found in her grandfather’s garage discovering a new tool or tackling large home projects with her handy mom.
“I’ve learned to think differently when doing something mechanical,” Palbicki said.
“I’ve had to train myself to see the end product first and then to see what pattern I need to set up to get there.”
Beyond thinking mechanically, Palbicki said she thinks her gender is an advantage when dealing with customers. She takes pleasure in a job that lets her help get people’s households back to normal.
“I love it that people are comfortable with me and strike up a conversation while I work,” Palbicki said.
Sometimes her customers are surprised when they see a woman plumber at the door, but her relaxed motherly nature and big smile may be a clue to why they all want to hug her when she’s finished the job.
It could also be because she feels obligated to leave no footprints anywhere, wipes off countertops and toilets and leaves a workspace cleaner than when she arrived.
Palbicki, who has lived on the island for 15 years, said she is happy to work seven days per week and doesn’t believe in charging extra for weekend hours.
“I think people get taken advantage of and I don’t like it; I don’t want to be like that,” Palbicki said.
Plumbing is interesting work, she said, and she is not intimidated by certain tasks such as going into dirty crawl spaces, fixing funky toilets or the challenge of getting a new water heater up a stairway.
She is excited by new devices and enjoys introducing her clients to fun plumbing accessories, such as a waterfall shower head she installed recently in a new bathroom.
Ultimately, Palbicki has landed exactly in the place she dreamed of being when Churchill encouraged her to go for it.
She likes to please people, she said, and fixing somebody’s plumbing for them is a quick way to their hearts.
“The smile on people’s faces when I’m done; that’s the best part of the job,” she said.
Heather’s Home Repair is available by calling 360-914-1669.
