I got the most thrilling thing in the mail today. It was the best mail in many months, and it was about plumbing.

I know what you probably think – this woman needs to get a life.

But if you have overpaid as much as I have for plumbers that don’t actually fix the problem, you might also be thrilled to see a list of local plumbers that have been rated by price, efficiency, and several other important things.

The list is in “Plumbers: Don’t throw your money down the drain”, an article in Chicago Consumer’s Checkbook, a new-ish publication of the Center for the Study of Services. The organization has been publishing local consumer guides in other cities as far back as 1974, and has offered a Chicago area publication for the past six years.

Unlike some other consumer publications, Chicago Consumer’s Checkbook does not rely on consumer evaluations of the company’s price-worthiness.

“We have found that consumers are not very good judges of price,” said president Robert Krughoff. “Many only get one price quote, and aren’t very good at apples to apples comparisons. Probably half or more of our person power goes into undercover price shopping. It’s a very big part of what we do. And nobody else has that.”

The article rates 170 local plumbing companies based on interviews with local area consumers. I found my former plumbing company listed also. They had no Better Business Bureau complaints, maybe because I never bothered to call. They were one of the most expensive ones on the list – no surprise. Probably like most of the consumers Krughoff was referring to, I had thought that maybe that was what all plumbers charge.

The list tells you where the plumbing company operates, too, so you won’t bother trying to reach someone who works only in Lake County if you live in Homewood.

In the course of their research, the editors heard many complaints about plumbers, including:

• “They have never shown up on time. They have repeatedly had to re-do or repair their own work. They are complete slobs when they work and don’t always clean up after themselves…”

• “I called them to fix a bathroom leak through to my kitchen ceiling…. [He] said it wasn’t a plumbing issue and … would not charge for the service call. This seemed fair and generous but then I got a very large bill…. The problem turned out to be a pipe leak.”

• “Plumber arrived much later than promised. Told me it wasn’t my drain that was clogged but that my septic tank was full. I paid him for a service call, then [had] my tank emptied; guess what? My tank was fine and my drain was still clogged.”

Since Consumer’s Checkbook never called me, here’s my own, most recent plumber story:

Recently two seemingly minor problems needed attention before the boomerang kids returned: The water pressure in the hall bath/shower was pathetically weak. And a toilet seemed to run sporadically on its own as if haunted by the ghost of plumbing.

We called The Plumbing Company That Shall Not Be Named and they arrived on time with two plumbers. Why two? I cannot guess, but the final bill was so high it seemed as though we were paying scale for both of them. But even two plumbers could not restore the water pressure in the shower, even though they fiddled for quite awhile. Eventually they told us that their invisible improvement was the best they could do because it probably needed an additional repair. That would cost another $500, if we were lucky.

They replaced some of the inner workings of the toilet, charged me several hundred dollars and left. Within an hour, the toilet began running again. I called and they sent different plumbers out fairly quickly. They replaced the entire inner workings and charged me another $90. Supposedly I got a break on the labor costs. Since there was no discernable improvement in the shower pressure, we paid well over $300 to get a toilet fixed.

If I have to pay for a plumbing service call that will be unsuccessful, it would be nice to pay less per hour, and maybe have them send only one plumber. So I’m already highlighting plumbers that work in DuPage County. Whomever I call, it will be a firm that gets two checkmarks from Consumers’ Checkbook.

“Fortunately, you can select a lower-priced firm and get top-quality service,” the article says. “There is no relationship between price and quality.”

Like Consumer Reports, Consumers’ Checkbook carries no advertising, and does not let local businesses pay to place coupons in the publication. It does not seek out random comments, but uses a local consumer list provided by Consumers Reports. It scrupulously avoids business influence so that it can provide unbiased consumer reports. It’s an interesting alternative to the online “write a review of this” sites where anyone can anonymously recommend his own business, or trash-talk a competitor. Find this and other reviews of local businesses at www.checkbook.org.