~The Grand Lake Plumbing Story~

1906. In that year, Rolls Royce registered as a manufacturer. Mount Vesuvius erupted. Jack London’s White Fang was serialized in “The Outing Magazine.” The first Victor Victrola—a phonographic record player—was produced. Devil’s Tower in Wyoming became our first national monument. Theodore Roosevelt won the Nobel Prize for Peace. Gus Spitzmiller homesteaded in the Grand Lake area, and began to fulfill the plumbing needs of Grand County. You may be asking yourself, did Grand County even have plumbing needs in 1906? Of course. Remember, the hierarchy of human needs reads as follows: 1. water  2. food  3. shelter  4. plumbing/heating  5. love.

We remained under Spitzmiller guidance until Gus’s son Gordon Spitzmiller passed in 1990, yet the business did not remain static. As plumbing technology and materials developed, so did we, though we remained a small town company owned and operated by Grand County residents. That’s why you can call us in the middle of the night; we know what it’s like to have frozen pipes or squirrels nesting in the toilet bowl or bears hibernating in the outhouse.

The company is currently spearheaded by Frank Appelhans, who came to Grand Lake Plumbing in 1973 and is a licensed Colorado Master plumber, which means he can plumb your shack or your high-rise or your high-rise shack. Shortly after his arrival, he bought into the company, and Grand Lake Plumbing has been merrily under his management since. Before that, Frank worked for five years in mechanical engineering at Swanson-Rink and Associates, working on projects like the United Airlines main reservation center in the Denver Tech Center, and the American Express main computer center. Frank can bake a plumbing cake that pipes frosting (hot and cold) right to your mouth.

Forget all of those small town plumber stereotypes. When you visit us, you won’t meet a ‘be right back’ sign on our door. We don’t like plumber’s crack any more than you do. If we see one, we caulk it up.
 

As a once sleepy county now booms with new construction and is more or less keeping up with the rest of the world, so are we. Though we can still provide service for any of that weird old-time Grand County plumbing—woven pipes, brick toilets, etc.—we also do all sorts of intricate stuff with the latest materials. We can design, service, and install hydronic radiant in-floor heating systems, for instance. We can even plumb your pants, if you want.

Being brought up in a small town means customer service is a priority. Poor service will quickly lead to a scarcity of customers. We remember those eternal winters when the county was still young, and it would snow five feet at a time, and pretty much everybody, save a handful of deer, went someplace warmer. When the temperature dropped so low, and the snow piled so high that even the deer had to seek shelter—a shelter in need of plumbing—we gave them excellent customer service and a job well done, and charged only a single buck.

Yes is our favorite word. Here are just a few of our assets and abilities, which allow us to say yes to any plumbing and heating need. Full-time office support staff. Project managers. Warehouse employees. Plumbing specialists. Heating specialists. High quality vendors. Business partners. Factory trained representatives. It doesn’t matter what you want to build, we can plumb it to, and beyond, your satisfaction.

Give us a call to see why we’ve been around as long as the Victrola record player, Rolls Royce, and national monuments.