Plumbing company moves to Auburn

A plumbing company previously based in Nevada County recently opened the doors of its new office in Auburn. ABT Plumbing and Drain Service, in business since 2000, is now headquartered on Highway 49, near Dry Creek Road.Owner Andrew Twidwell has been involved in the industry since an early age."My father was a general contractor and I began working in plumbing straight out of high school," he said recently.He decided to move the business to Auburn to be more centrally located."Our company covers Nevada City, Grass Valley, Penn Valley down to Lincoln and Rocklin and up to Colfax," he said.When he started the business five and half years ago, Twidwell was the sole employee. Today he has 12 people on the payroll with six plumbing trucks and one electrical truck.He credits his success to maintaining good customer relations as well as job quality. "We take care of the details - the little things," he said. And there's also response time and the company's estimate policy."We get out within a few hours typically," he said. "We take a look at a job and (give a) quote using menu pricing," he said. "Clients will know what it is - to the penny - before we get started."ABT - which stands for Andrew B. Twidwell - specializes in plumbing service and repair, as well as water treatment, and recently added electrical service and repair.Customer Jon Adams of Auburn called ABT for electrical work on a home he had just acquired."I moved into the house about a month ago and it needed extensive work," he said.Part of the job included adding four circuits, he said. "They've been here on time. They've done good work. They've been nice and the price was fair," he said.The company handles numerous water-treatment calls. Foothills well water can contain problems with iron content, acidity, calcium-magnesium - and even arsenic."There's a large arsenic problem in Lake of the Pines," Twidwell said. "It is a naturally occurring mineral in the soil that can leach out into the water."The most common service calls are for drain cleaning. But there can be exceptions, particularly when Mother Nature comes calling."During the last freeze, we fixed a lot of broken water pipes," he said. Born and raised in San Francisco, Twidwell worked for a plumbing company in the city's Mission District for 10 years prior to launching his own business.He studied visual arts at the Academy of Art in San Francisco and, in his spare time, does oil paintings - mainly of landscapes - and sculpts wood and stone. He discovered the foothills during vacation trips."We did a lot of camping in the area when I was a kid," he said.In Auburn, Twidwell has joined the LeTip business leads group and the Chamber of Commerce.He and his wife, Betty Sanguinetti, have a son 10, and a daughter, 7."My family likes to ski, mountain bike and camp," he said. "That's why we moved up here."The Journal's Gloria Young can be reached at gloriay @goldcountrymedia. com.ABT Plumbing and Drain ServiceWhere: 4026 Grass Valley HIghway, North AuburnPhone: (530) 886-8700Open: Work schedule runs from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily; 24 hours for emergency callsWeb site: www.abtplumbing.com