A family-owned Brooklyn contractor that has kept the five boroughs' pipes, boilers and air conditioners running for nearly a hundred years.
In a trade defined by surprise bills and no-shows, Vigilante Plumbing has done something quietly radical: it stayed. Founded in 1927 by brothers Mike and Frank Vigilante, the company has passed through four generations of the same family and still answers the phone from 195 Douglass Street in Brooklyn.
What began as a general-contracting outfit became a plumbing and heating business in the 1950s, then added air conditioning in the early 1990s. Today the company serves homeowners, landlords, co-ops and commercial buildings across Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island — handling everything from a dripping faucet to a fire-sprinkler inspection. The name sounds intimidating; the brand mascot is a rubber duck. That contradiction is the point.
Vigilante is a full-service home-and-building contractor. If it moves water, heat or air through a New York property, they work on it — plus the fire-protection and testing work that keeps buildings up to code.
Pipe and fixture repair, water heaters and tankless units, water mains, gas lines, kitchen and bath plumbing, emergency leak repair, and water filtration.
Sewer and drain cleaning, high-pressure jetting, and main sewer service for clogs, backups and root intrusion.
Boilers, furnaces, steam piping, boiler inspections, and heating repair and replacement for brownstones and commercial buildings.
Central, ductless and hi-velocity AC, air handlers and condensers — installed, repaired and tuned as an authorized Carrier dealer.
Fire-sprinkler system installation and repair, sprinkler and fire-pump testing under a Fire Suppression Contractor B license.
RPZ / backflow prevention testing, CO testing and combustion adjustment, and code inspections that keep buildings compliant.
"Tough name, tender company."
The customer base is the fabric of the borough itself:
Home emergencies rarely wait for business hours:
The recurring worry in the trades isn't whether a plumber can fix the problem — it's whether the bill will be fair and the person at the door can be trusted. Vigilante's answer is structural: upfront flat-rate pricing quoted before any wrench turns, plus uniformed, background-checked technicians. You learn the number first, then decide.
In a market of tens of thousands of contractors, longevity and licensing separate the signal from the noise. A few indicators of standing:
The BuildZoom score of 99 ranks Vigilante in the top 15% of nearly 78,000 licensed New York contractors. Add a Fire Suppression Contractor B license, a Carrier dealership, BBB accreditation since 2004, and a master plumber at the helm, and the differentiation is less about marketing than about paperwork that took decades to accumulate.
Mike and Frank Vigilante found the business in Brooklyn, working primarily as general contractors.
Tony Vigilante, brother-in-law Mike Mazzeo and Mike Vigilante buy a plumbing company and shift focus to plumbing and heating.
The company expands into air conditioning, completing its plumbing-heating-cooling trio.
Vigilante becomes a BBB Accredited business on March 23, 2004.
The company modernizes online booking and marketing under the Best Brooklyn Plumber brand while keeping the Vigilante name.
The fourth-generation, family-owned firm nears its 100th anniversary under Anthony and Salvatore Vigilante.
Vigilante is a fee-for-service home-services contractor. Revenue comes from service calls, repairs, maintenance and installations, priced on a transparent flat-rate model rather than an open-ended hourly meter.
The NYC home-services market is crowded and fragmented — national chains like Roto-Rooter, regional specialists like Petri Plumbing and Balkan Sewer & Water Main, and countless independent plumbers all compete for the same call. Vigilante's position is the trusted local generalist: broad enough to cover plumbing, HVAC and fire protection under one roof, small enough to remain a family name customers recognize. Its moat isn't technology; it's reputation, licensing depth, and a service territory measured in neighborhoods rather than markets.
In 1927, by brothers Mike and Frank Vigilante in Brooklyn, New York. It has remained family-owned ever since.
All five NYC boroughs — Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island — with a strong presence in Brooklyn neighborhoods like Park Slope, Gowanus, Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill.
Plumbing repair and installation, drain and sewer cleaning, heating and boilers, air conditioning / HVAC as a Carrier dealer, fire-protection systems, and testing such as RPZ/backflow and CO combustion checks.
Yes. It is led by NYC Licensed Master Plumber Anthony Vigilante (#1728), holds a Fire Suppression Contractor B license plus additional trade licenses, and has been BBB Accredited since 2004.
The company uses upfront, flat-rate pricing quoted before work begins, rather than open-ended hourly billing, and dispatches background-checked, uniformed technicians.