November 29, 2003

On Thanksgiving, Americans feast. The day after, they call the plumber. ``The day after Thanksgiving is 60 percent busier than a normal day,'' said Stu Stein, dispatch supervisor at Rapid Rooter in Miami.

On a day when most employers closed shop and let answering services greet potential clients, those South Florida plumbers who worked posted some of their best numbers of the year.

Thanks to overwhelming amounts of stuff - some food, some not - put through garbage disposals, toilet bowls and kitchen sinks during Thursday's Thanksgiving dinners, the demand for plumbing services skyrocketed Friday.

Stein said he sent his entire 23-person roster of technicians to attend to problems ranging from dripping faucets to broken garbage disposals to clogged pipes.

``The holidays are always busy,'' he said. ``The day after brings a lot of broken kitchen sinks and toilets and mainlines backing up.''

Dorothy Barnes, office manager at Rapid Rooter, said many more orders the firm got Friday came from residential customers. Typically, she said, half of a day's calls come from companies and half are residential.

``Most of the orders we got involved septic tanks' backing up,'' she said. ``When you have a lot of people going to the bathroom, your tank gets full faster, and when your tank is filled up, things start going back in the house.''

One of the worst cases she'd heard of involved an overflowing front-yard septic tank. ``Everyone who called said they needed their tank pumped right away,'' Barnes said, adding that Rapid Rooters holiday rates were the same as always: $150 to $300 per job, depending on the size of the tank.

You don't think it's going to be this crazy the day after Thanksgiving.'' The good news? During the phone frenzy, Rapid Rooter heard something new in customers' voices. They ``sounded so grateful,'' ``They didn't expect us to be open.''