Cowichan Valley Companies Join Forces In Plumbing, HVAC & Electrical Services
Members of the 360 Comfort Systems team
COWICHAN VALLEY – Two heads are better than one.
Long-time friends Brody Funk, owner of Super Plumber, and Reed Gary, owner of 360 Comfort Systems, decided to put their heads together and merge the two companies earlier this year. The resulting amalgamation means the combined operation offers plumbing, HVAC and electrical services under one roof at Whippletree Junction south of Duncan, and business is booming.
Brody Funk of Super Plumber is President of the amalgamated company
They’ve expanded their service area from Parksville to Greater Victoria, and added new features: A home service maintenance program that includes HVAC, to go along with what they’ve already offered for plumbing.
“The biggest challenge in a merger, is moving two businesses that are full-steam-ahead locomotives on different tracks, and putting those tracks together,” explains Funk. “Merging the culture is the most challenging thing initially, then after that it’s trying to identify the challenges and unique opportunities that present themselves in each market, and attacking them one at a time.”
Gary is Chief Executive Officer and Funk is President of the new firm under the banner of corporate name 360 Super Techs Inc., which became official in April. Both firms continue to be known throughout the marketplace by their pre-merger brand titles.
“Changing the name to do a brand change would be very expensive,” notes Funk. “Both companies have pretty strong brands in this market, and there are a lot of good reasons to keep them as is.”
Gary purchased the former Pioneer House restaurant building, set on two acres next to the Trans-Canada Highway, and have renovated it to suit their needs.
Reed and Erika Gary at 360 Comfort Systems
“We still call it the Pioneer shop,” Funk notes. “We converted the old kitchen into a sheet metal shop. The old bar is still there, and that’s our training area for our plumbers, HVAC and electricians, and we have added offices upstairs. We’re actually adding more offices upstairs and doing an expansion at the back of the building for our warehouse.”
Funk started Super Plumber in 2006.
“I came from Saskatoon and dropped out of the sky and the same week I arrived I started the company,” he recalls. “In 2008 we expanded into the Nanaimo area, and in 2012 we bought another plumbing company in Victoria and expanded into the Victoria area.”
360 Comfort Systems was started by Reed in 2011, and it’s focus thus far has been mostly on the Cowichan Valley, although future plans call for expanding into the Victoria and Nanaimo markets.
“I was sort of mentoring Reed because I was a few years older than he was,” Funk states. “We were buddies and we do shop talk for a long time for about a decade. We were part of similar contractor groups and associations, and we had a lot of commonalities, covering the same areas of the Island, with similar business models for the home service industry.”
Merger discussions began in late 2019 but were put on hold when the COVID pandemic struck.
Those chats resumed in 2020.
Super Plumber is easily recognized with its colourful vehicles
There are 60 employees in the merged companies, which are really family businesses. Gary’s wife Erika and oldest daughter and son work in the company, while Funk’s daughters and a cousin are also employed.
“We have a very large plumbing department and a very large HVAC installation department,” Funk notes. “We also do a lot of HVAC service and repair, and we are in the beginnings of building out an electrical home service. We had an internal need for electrical service, so we added that and we’re already offering electrical services to our clients, although we’re not promoting it much yet.”
With growth continuing at a rapid pace and supplies becoming scarcer, 360 Comfort Systems and Super Plumber are both ordering directly from manufacturers “ to try and cut out some of the slowdowns,” Funk says. “We need to make sure we have equipment and materials that our clients need. It’s going to be an interesting year.”
The secret to both companies success is straightforward.
“Our people. Our training. And our systems,” Funk says.
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