In 2021, longtime plumber and drain cleaner Colin Luttrell was just about to move with his family from New York to North Carolina, where he planned to eventually become a firefighter and do plumbing jobs on the side.
But instead, the accidental entrepreneur — who was doing small side jobs at the time, working out of his wife’s Mazda SUV until it came time to move — decided to stay in Rochester and capitalize on growing demand for his services by establishing Colin the Plumber, a drain cleaning and service plumbing company.
“I never planned on starting a company,” Luttrell says. “But as we were getting ready to move, I agreed to do a water service installation, which required me to buy liability insurance. Then another customer called with a long laundry list of things he needed fixed. Things sort of kept snowballing from there. I suddenly realized we had to stay in New York to capitalize on all the business potential.”
Today, the 31-year-old contractor runs four service vehicles, owns a large inventory of drain cleaning equipment, employs three technicians and provides a wide range of services, primarily residential service and repair plumbing, drain cleaning and trenchless pipeline rehabilitation.
By the end of 2023, the company’s sales had increased by 200%. And in 2023, Luttrell started renting a 2,000-square-foot shop that includes an office, a tool room and enough space to park two trucks inside.
“It’s wild how things turned out,” Luttrell says. “It’s funny how life works sometimes.”
COMPILING EXPERIENCE
While Luttrell didn’t know it at the time, the four different plumbing jobs he held after graduating from high school in 2011 helped prepare him to run his own company. In particular, he credits the mentoring he received from a master plumber at his first job, John DiTulio, who taught him the basics of plumbing.
Furthermore, his fourth job as an estimator and project manager at a commercial plumbing company inadvertently ignited his entrepreneurial spirit.
“I noticed how much residential service work the company was turning away and referring to other plumbing companies,” Luttrell recalls. “So I proposed creating a service plumbing division, which they agreed to do. And I was named the division’s manager.”
After two years at that job, he and his wife, Saige, decided to move to North Carolina where houses were much more affordable. Luttrell had already accepted a job he intended to stick with while working toward certification as an emergency medical technician and he and Saige were ready to make an offer on a house. That’s when he decided to make the abrupt career U-turn.
“I’ve been rocking the company ever since,” he says.
FAST START
Luttrell decided to simply name the company after himself after noticing another company online that did the same. While it could pose somewhat of a problem in the long run by making it hard for potential customers to recognize the company does more than plumbing, the catchy name has served the initial purpose of differentiating Luttrell’s business from competitors.
“I never thought the company would be a long-term thing, so I just picked that as the name, and here we are with Colin the Plumber,” he notes.
With the help of word-of-mouth referrals, Saige’s social media expertise (via posts on Instagram and Facebook) and a logo designed by his stepsister, Casey Brett, the business has grown quickly.
Luttrell says he prides himself on being a do-it-all, hands-on business owner. He also loves answering phone calls and communicating with customers.
“When a frantic customer calls with a problem, I love talking them down and troubleshooting plumbing issues over the phone, which is something I did often at my previous job,” he says.
GROWING PAINS
But like many other small-business owners, Luttrell has also discovered that wearing so many hats has a downside, too — especially amid such rapid growth. He hired his first employee about a year and a half ago and two more hires soon followed.
“We started experiencing growing pains after the first year,” Luttrell says. “Transitioning from a one-man-band to an actual company is really tough. I slowly realized that I’d taken on way too much for a small mom-and-pop shop. I’m still learning about what works and what doesn’t. There always seem to be a million things to learn. I’m trying to figure out how to work on the company, not in it.”
Luttrell also points out that his wife has been instrumental to the company’s success.
“Saige has been my No. 1 supporter from the start,” he says. “We’re really a team and we took the leap of faith together when I started the company. She quit her career to become a stay-at-home mom to accommodate the 24/7 demands I face as a service plumber. She set up the company website and did all of the marketing early on and still helps to take as much off my plate as possible.”
EQUIPMENT INVESTMENTS
As the company grew, so did its roster of equipment. Luttrell currently runs four service vehicles: two Sprinter 2500 service vans from Mercedes-Benz, a Ram ProMaster van and a Ram ProMaster City, a smaller version of the ProMaster. For jetting nozzles, he relies on Reapers from Hydra-Flex and Warthogs from StoneAge Tools.
Luttrell also invested in a Brute water jetter (4,000 psi at up to 9 gpm) from Jetters Northwest; it features an 80-gallon water tank, a UDOR triplex plunger water pump and 300 feet of 3/8-inch-diameter hose.
The business also owns two drum cable machines from RIDGID — a K-7500 and a K-400; four RIDGID sectional drain machines — two K-1500s and two K-50s; three RIDGID K9-204 and two K9-102 FlexShaft drain machines; one Mini-Miller drain machine from Picote Solutions; two Milwaukee Tool handheld snake machines; a Milwaukee Tool M18 high-speed, battery-powered drain machine; and a Model 300 drum cable machine from Spartan Tool.
For pipeline inspection cameras, Luttrell opted for three RIDGID SeeSnakes — standard, Mini and microDrain models; and a Milwaukee M18 Mid-Stiff push camera with a 200-foot cable.
“If you’re going to have any kind of drain cleaning company, you’ve got to have a good camera,” Luttrell says. “I won’t clean a line without first putting a camera into it to thoroughly diagnose the problem. We don’t want to just poke a hole in a ball of roots and look like a hero — until the line clogs again. We want to eliminate the entire problem while we’re there.”
He also invested in a RIDGID NaviTrack Scout pipe locator and a Milwaukee M12 pipeline locator.
For trenchless pipe rehab, the company relies on PipePatch technology from Source One Environmental and a pipe lining system from Source One with an Armor Lining inversion drum.
CUSTOMER CARE
Providing top-notch customer service has been critical to the company’s growth. And investing in productive and reliable equipment that allows Luttrell to complete jobs quickly and efficiently plays a big role in customer service.
“I like to have good equipment — things that last,” he says. “I’m reinvesting profits into the business all the time. We’re big on quality service and I buy equipment that helps us provide that quality work.”
Offering multiple services also strengthens customer service and retention by ensuring that Luttrell can meet as many client needs as possible. That explains why he’s been putting more and more emphasis on trenchless pipe rehab, he says. In 2023, the company began offering point repairs as well as full pipe lining service.
“That’s where I want to take this company,” Luttrell says. “Cities are getting older and technology is getting better. To get ahead of the game, trenchless pipe rehab is where it’s at.”
CHANGES IN THE MAKING
Looking back, Luttrell says he is still trying to wrap his head around the company’s growth.
“If someone told me two years ago that I’d be where I am now, I would’ve laughed,” he says. “It’s a little surreal. I never thought I’d own my own company. Everything happened so quickly. This wasn’t planned out the way a normal company is planned.”
As a result, Luttrell says he now needs to make time to concentrate on establishing processes and protocols that he hasn’t yet had time to fully implement. Furthermore, he also continues to grapple with how to relinquish some responsibilities.
“You can’t keep taking it all on yourself — you can only wear so many hats,” Luttrell says. “I’m learning that you have to give up some things to remain successful. My goal is to have this company running in a completely different way in 2025 than it is now.”
SHARPER FOCUS ON DRAIN CLEANING AND PIPE REHAB
Eventually, Luttrell says he wants to create a separate company that will focus on drain cleaning and trenchless rehab services, leaving his initial company to concentrate solely on residential service plumbing. He plans to keep the same Colin the Plumber company name for the plumbing operation to avoid losing the brand recognition he’s built up and come up with a different name for the new business that will reflect its drain cleaning and pipe rehab focus.
“A lot of customers don’t associate Colin the Plumber with drain cleaning,” he says, explaining why creating a second company makes sense. “When people have a drain problem, I want them to be able to search for and find us online under drain cleaning.”
As for further growth, Luttrell says adding two more technicians would be ideal.
“I don’t want to grow more than that,” he says “We’ve already done the rapid growth thing, even though we weren’t trying to do it.
“But despite all the headaches that come with such fast growth, it’s still fun and exciting. Even though I never planned it, starting this business has been a real blessing.”
