FAQs

Starcher Enterprises has agreed to merge its Heating, Cooling, and Electrical service department with Bell Heating and Electric effective 1/1/20.

Because I said so. Stop asking so many questions.

Fine. As many of you know, the labor market for specialty tradespeople has become EXTREMETLY tight. It is nearly impossible to find qualified employees these days, particularly in our business. Just about every single small shop that we know of is experiencing problems keeping their staffing levels, and Starcher Enterprises is no exception, unfortunately. Lately we have seen several nearby plumbing and hvac shops either close their doors or get bought by larger firms as a response to the labor shortage. We have chosen to combine our Service Department with another local and reputable small firm. Rest assured this decision was not made in haste and was not taken lightly. By combining our manpower, we can effectively create one very powerful and well-equipped service firm out of two.

J.V. Fletcher will move to Bell and continue his role as Service Manager. Dan Rinaldo will also transition over to Bell and continue his role as a Service Technician. If you had a Planned Maintenance Program (PMP) agreement with us, the chances that you have met Dan are pretty good. He’s a nice guy, and you’ll still see his smiling face when your equipment gets its annual maintenance.

ALL PMP agreements will remain in place, and Bell will service them with the same professionalism that Starcher Enterprises did. Literally NOTHING will change with your PMP service.

Easy there, big fella. We don’t need to get the suits involved. As part of our merger agreement, Bell will be honoring all outstanding labor warranties for any equipment we installed. The standard labor warranty is one-year from the date of installation. Depending on your equipment, you may have as much as twelve years parts warranty. Bell has access to the same equipment supply chain that Starcher Enterprises did, and will have no trouble obtaining any needed parts warranty coverage.

We’re still here! Starcher Enterprises will still offer home “seasonization” service along with Backflow Preventer testing, and our VERY popular Watchtower home monitoring service. We are placing a higher emphasis on our retail arm, the Village PRO Hardware Company and eventually that will become the primary entity name.

Call Bell for all your heating, cooling, and electrical service needs (419.798.4241)

Call Starcher Enterprises/Village PRO Hardware for your cottage & home winterization/summerization, your backflow testing, and your Watchtower service, and your retail hardware needs (419.798.4456). You can email us using the same address you always have, or contact us through our website as well. www.starcher.biz or www.villageprohardware.com.

Starcher Enterprises/Village PRO Hardware will be able to address minor plumbing repair issues that arise during your seasonization process. Any issues that are more substantial will be referred to you for service with another contracting firm. We recommend you call Scott Uhinck of Uhinck Services for any plumbing needs. He is a former co-worker and has an established plumbing service. You can reach him at 419.798.9147.

He’s not going anywhere. Carl will continue to be our main seasonizing guy. We love Carl, too.

Chris has decided to take this opportunity to form his own service company, and we wish him the absolute best in his new endeavor. Adequate words do not exist to describe our gratitude for all his work over the years.

Listen pal, I’m not getting any younger, ok? I’m not quitting; I’m making a strategic move to preserve the service company that you’ve grown to know and love, and to ensure that my coworkers remain employed. It’s been a nearly twenty-eight-year whirlwind of a ride, and I loved every minute of it (well, ALMOST every minute. Some of the minutes were a real pain in the butt but they were minimal), but it’s time to face the reality of just how difficult it is for smaller contracting firms to survive. This is truly a win-win-win situation – I get to hand off the service firm that I lovingly nurtured for almost twenty-eight years and watch (albeit from a distance now) it continue to thrive, Bell gets some much needed manpower along with a steady base of PMP clients, and all of you, my friends, will see a seamless transition with literally zero interruption in the highly professional service you have been receiving. It really does not get any better than this for everyone involved.

You bet, but they aren’t my FINAL words. Like I said, we’re still here! I would like to thank each and every one of you for your loyal patronage over the past twenty-eight years. I look forward to continuing to serve your seasonizing, backflow, and Watchtower needs. I hope you all will come visit us at the Village PRO Hardware Company as well – we’re working really hard to make it a great place to shop! I’d also like to thank my tremendous and amazing coworkers for all your hard work and effort over the years. It was a hell of a ride.