HOWELL – Growing up in Farmingdale, Keith Salkowitz was a sports-minded kid and successful amateur boxer. But once he combined his interest in plumbing with his strong work ethic, it came as no surprise that the Howell-based company he launched in 2018, K.O. Plumbing & Heating, would be a knockout success.
“Though my father was a plumber and very mechanical, I was into sports,” recalled Salkowitz, 47, a Howell resident who grew up playing baseball and other team sports. “I got into boxing during my freshman year in high school and when I was 15, I had my first amateur bout, which I won after I stopped my opponent in the third round.”
At 17, he won the New Jersey Golden Gloves, the most prestigious tournament for amateurs, and was aiming to compete in the 1996 Olympics. “All through high school, I felt that boxing was what I was going to do for a living,” he said, “but by my senior year I got burnt out and fell out of the sport by the mid-1990s.”
In need of a job and a new direction after high school, “I began working for a neighbor of mine who’d started a landscaping business and I did that for the next five years,” Salkowitz said.
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“I’d always had a strong work ethic, and though I wasn’t as mechanical as my father, I had the grunt factor and did what needed to be done,” he said. “When I was 25, my father, who was in the plumbers’ union, told me that the union hall was taking applications and he suggested that I join.”
Salkowitz applied, got in, completed a five-year apprenticeship, and began his career as a journeyman plumber working on jobs at office buildings, schools, hospitals and other commercial facilities in the fall of 2007.
To make extra cash when he was in between large commercial jobs, “I started doing side residential work — someone’s faucet or water heater — in the evenings and on weekends, and that took off,” he said, adding that he enjoyed the interactions he was able to have with homeowners as opposed to the more impersonal nature of commercial work.
After marrying wife Lisa in 2013 and welcoming their son, Noah, who was later diagnosed with autism, in 2017, “I realized that I needed to be close to home and have more control over my schedule, which led me to start my own company.”
Salkowitz launched Knock Out (K.O.) Plumbing & Heating in 2018, and named the venture as such because “I always identified with boxing and people knew me as a former boxer,” he said.
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Keeping his promises
Today, “we address hydronic heating systems (boilers tied into baseboard heat), water heater replacements, drain cleaning, sump pumps, toilet, faucet and other fixture replacements, new gas line installations for generators, grills, etc., water and sewer line repairs and winterization services for snowbirds (including blowing out all lines, applying antifreeze to drains, and more),” Salkowitz said.
Serving a client base primarily located in Monmouth and Ocean counties, “I like to give customers good-better-best options to fit their budgets,” he said. “Plumbers can sometimes get a bad rap for being grumpy, but I think it’s good to be human and try to understand the customer’s issue, empathize with them, and assure them that you’ll do the right thing and never move forward without getting their approval.
“We want them to feel comfortable and confident that we’ll address their issue with our expertise and quality products that we source from a plumbing supply house, which is often higher-grade material than what’s available to homeowners in big-box DIY stores,” Salkowitz said. “We have access to all product brands, but Moen and Kohler are two of our favorites based on their outstanding quality and warranties.”
Among trends, “tankless water heaters and boilers are popular because they save space, operate more efficiently than tank versions, and provide as much hot water as you want; people like not running out of hot water and tankless systems are worry-free in that regard,” Salkowitz said.
“We’re also seeing more and more WiFi-operated fixtures,” he said. “One of my favorites is a house shut-off valve by Moen that you can control with your phone. If you’re on vacation, for instance, and the system detects water passing through your home’s main shutoff valve, it will alert you and you can turn off the main remotely right through your phone.”
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In terms of challenges, Salkowitz said that winter in the Northeast can put all plumbers on call.
“Heating issues are time-sensitive in the winter. Crawl spaces without insulated pipes have to be thawed out and houses with frozen pipes can burst and cause leaks,” Salkowitz said. But while he noted that customers will text him with urgent issues requiring his immediate attention, “most are understanding and don’t call me at 3 a.m.,” he said.
Surprisingly, winter isn’t his most hectic season anyway. “We actually see a big rush in the spring, when customers want to run gas lines to their grill, install a sink under their gazebo or set up other outdoor living facilities,” he said, “as well as right after kids go back to school in September.”
According to Salkowitz, scheduling can be a huge challenge. “Sometimes jobs that you think will take an hour take three hours, or emergency repairs come up that change the schedule,” he said.
“Our customers have been pretty understanding about situations like that and I’m often harder on myself than they are, but we like to take care of our customers when we promise to,” he continued. “I care about all of the customer touchpoints and good communication is such a huge part of it for us.”
Competition in the area also remains high. “Some smaller plumbers may be cheaper because they don’t have insurance, while some larger plumbers may be more expensive because they have greater overhead, but in the end there’s a customer for each plumbing company out there,” Salkowitz said. “Our work speaks for itself, and I just do my best to educate customers and be as fair and real as I possibly can.”
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Making human connections
With two trucks on the road and two part-time plumbers supporting him, “I do estimates, invoicing, research on new products and customer call-backs in addition to physical plumbing jobs,” Salkowitz said of his current responsibilities. “But I plan to add one or more full-time service plumbers so that we can get to more jobs each day, and I look forward to my wife Lisa joining our team because she was previously a retail business manager and will bring outstanding customer service skills to our operation.”
“I’d like to see K.O. Plumbing & Heating grow to an eight- to 10-truck residential plumbing service one day,” he added, “but only as long as we can retain the quality and personality that make our company unique.”
While Salkowitz confirmed that he loves tackling the challenges of the plumbing world, “the people I meet during the day and all of the human connections I get to make are my favorite part of the business,” he said. “I enjoy all of the different customers I see and the opportunity to help people in the community I live in, so it’s a win-win.”
K.O. Plumbing & Heating
Location: Howell
Phone: 732-703-7444
Owner: Keith Salkowitz
Founded: 2018
Websites: koplumbingnj.com and facebook.com/KOHeatingandPlumbing
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