For Snoqualmie Valley homeowners, calling the plumber and calling the heating company have traditionally meant calling two different businesses. Noble Plumbing is hoping to make that a little simpler.
The Snoqualmie-based company has expanded into heating and cooling, bringing Snoqualmie Valley Mechanical and its owner, CJ Ploegman, into the Noble team. The move gives Noble the ability to handle both plumbing and HVAC needs under one roof — two separate trades that often cross paths in homes and commercial projects.
For Noble, the expansion is less about adding another item to its list of services and more about building an HVAC team around someone the company already knows and trusts.
“CJ is a bit of a unicorn carrying plumbing and electrical licenses,” Noble co-owner Nick Postiglione said. “He’s an absolute craftsman and embodies everything my brothers and I envision for Noble.”
Ploegman and the Noble team already knew each other from working on jobs around the Valley. Their work sometimes overlapped on projects involving boiler and radiant systems and commercial buildouts, making the relationship a natural one.
But there was also a practical problem. Ploegman was operating Snoqualmie Valley Mechanical largely on his own, which limited how many customers he could serve. Bringing him into Noble provides the infrastructure to change that.
“By bringing him on, we will be able to multiply his expertise with more technicians and apprentices learning from him,” Postiglione said.
“Hand-offs between companies can be clunky,” he said. “This will allow us to operate more efficiently.”
Noble says it is already seeing existing plumbing customers and contractors turn to the new division for their heating and cooling needs.
Building an HVAC Team Around a Local Tradesman
The expansion won’t happen overnight. Noble is bringing on two technicians to work under Ploegman, but Postiglione said the company doesn’t intend to rush the hiring process simply to fill its schedule.
“We should be able to get to people within the week,” he said. “Noble has a high standard for tradesmen and will take our time finding the right, trusted technicians to join our team.”
One of the company’s core values is “Elevate the Trade,” which Postiglione describes as continually improving, learning and trying to do better than the last time.
For customers, the goal is straightforward: one local company that can respond to both plumbing and heating and cooling needs.
Postiglione sees another benefit, too — keeping that work with tradespeople who live and work in the community.
“We think it would greatly benefit the Valley and keep the business here — with people you see and trust in your community every day at the grocery store, picking up their kids from school, etc.,” he said.
How Local is Local?
According to Postiglione, about 60 percent of the company’s work is in the Snoqualmie Valley, which Noble defines as stretching from Snoqualmie Pass to Carnation. Another 30 percent is in Issaquah and Sammamish, with the remaining 10 percent scattered around the greater King County area. He expects HVAC calls to follow roughly the same pattern.
Noble’s recent Issaquah office expansion was rooted in practicality: they ran out of room.
“Our Snoqualmie shop has enough space for one out of our five office staff members,” Postiglione said, adding an invitation that will probably sound familiar to anyone who has tried to find commercial space locally: “If anyone has a good spot for our entire team in Snoqualmie/North Bend, we are all ears!”
Tradesmen, Not Salesmen
Adding HVAC also introduces something Noble’s owners have thought carefully about: how to sell expensive equipment without becoming a sales-driven company. A new furnace or heat pump is a substantial purchase, and Postiglione said Noble wants to maintain the same philosophy it has used on the plumbing side.
Its technicians are not paid on commission. Postiglione is outspoken about that distinction. He believes commission-based compensation can create an incentive for a technician to sell a customer more than the original service call requires.
“We don’t do this here — our technicians are tradesmen,” he said. “We want the work and quality to speak for itself and then you tell your neighbor or post on Nextdoor/Facebook.”
That philosophy goes back to Noble’s beginnings. Postiglione said his brother Chris had previously worked for a commission-based company, and the experience helped shape what the brothers didn’t want their own business to become.
“The idea of someone doing this to our mom or family member didn’t sit well, so we created a company to displace the commission/sales strategy,” he said.
“We have the same values,” Postiglione said. “We live here, our kids go to school here, and we want to feel good when someone says, ‘Oh man, you guys came out when I needed someone ASAP for an emergency.’”
For Noble, the long-term goal isn’t simply to complete a service call.
“We want customers for life,” he said, “and we try to treat people in a way that earns their lasting trust.”
Putting Marketing Dollars Back into the Valley
That local philosophy extends beyond service calls. Noble supports youth sports, schools, senior centers and community events around Snoqualmie, North Bend and Fall City. Postiglione said the company would rather put some of its marketing budget into those organizations than spend all of it buying online advertising.
“I like to say we prefer our marketing dollars stay in the community versus giving it to San Francisco tech giants,” he said. “I’d much rather sponsor Mt. Si sports, the foodbank, farmers market, etc., than spend money on Google or Facebook ads.”
He admits that approach might not generate customers as quickly as digital advertising.
“It might not be the most effective way to generate business in the short term,” he said, “but it feels better for us to do that in the long term.”
And that’s the thread connecting Noble’s move into HVAC with the company it is building. The business is expanding its services and its team, but the goal isn’t simply to get bigger. Noble wants to take a local tradesman who was already serving Valley customers, give him the people and resources to serve more of them, and keep that work connected to the community.
If it works, Valley homeowners will have one more reason to keep their next plumbing — or now heating and cooling — call close to home.
For more information, visit www.noble-plumbing.com.
