Is ‘Brown Friday’ Really Plumbers’ Busiest Day of the Year?

The idea is that plumbers feel the strain of Brown Friday as their schedules get seriously clogged after Thanksgiving Thursday. All those turkey trimmings, potato peels, and… let’s just say 'overworked toilets'… create a perfect plumbing storm.

But do plumbers really see a big increase in callouts on Brown Friday?

Or will we have to flush all this turkey talk away once and for all?

We’re here to get to the bottom of the matter (all puns intended).

So, let’s dive in to finally sort the facts from the myths and the stats from the sludge.

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What Is Brown Friday for Plumbers?

Brown Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, when your plumbing often gets a second helping it can’t handle.

The turkey has been gobbled up, the pumpkin pie demolished, and every drain in the house has done double duty. Clogged sinks and overflowing toilets supposedly reach their peak. 

That’s when plumbers brace themselves for what many in the trade call Brown Friday.

But is Brown Friday really the busiest day of the year for plumbers? 

We’ve looked into the data to find out. And while we were at it, we put together some smart strategies to help your team handle the holiday rush without getting buried in backups.

What Plumbing Problems Are Said to Be Common on Brown Friday?

Before we dive into the data, let’s take a quick look at some of the holiday horror stories that give Brown Friday its name:

• Blocked sinks and busted disposals: Turkey bones, potato peels, stringy veggies. If it shouldn’t go down the drain, you can bet someone’s put it there.

• Overworked toilets: What goes in must come out. With all those extra guests and full bellies, the bathroom ends up busier than the kitchen.

• Grease in the pipes: Some might think that flushing turkey grease down the sink with hot water is a good idea. It’s not. The grease just cools down and solidifies further along the line.

• DIY disasters: Uncle Rick gets brave with a wrench and decides he can fix that slow drain. Next thing you know, you’re replacing the whole trap.

For plumbers, too, there are issues at this time of year:

• Parts? What parts? Holiday closures mean it’s tough to get replacements if you run out. If it’s not on the truck, you might be out of luck.

• Short-staffed teams: Getting people to work the holiday weekend is a challenge. Do you call in extra help or risk being swamped?

That last one is the tricky bit for most plumbing companies around holiday time. Do you schedule a full crew just in case? 

Or is Brown Friday just hype, and you’re wasting payroll on a slow day? 

That’s where you need specific numbers. We have them…

Is Brown Friday the Busiest Day for Plumbers?

It’s time to flush out the truth. 

At ServiceTitan, we looked at records from over 350 plumbing businesses using our platform since 2018. That’s a flood of field data, with thousands of calls, bookings, and revenue stats to analyze.

What did we discover? That the days immediately before and after Thanksgiving are consistently busier than Brown Friday, by quite a large margin.  

In fact, the two Mondays either side of Thanksgiving land in the top 10 busiest days of the year, while Brown Friday doesn’t come close.

Actually, the Trend is Toward Mondays

According to ServiceTitan data, the Monday before Thanksgiving sees 80 percent more calls than a typical Friday after the Thanksgiving holiday. The Monday after is even higher with 85 percent more calls. 

In one of the years measured, the Monday immediately after the holiday brought in more revenue than any other day that year!

A plumbing business that usually pulls in $10,000 on a regular weekday might only see $7,000 on Brown Friday, but they’ll often see $14,000 on the Monday after. That’s double the money, just three days later.

It makes sense when you think about it. Hosts start noticing issues when they’re prepping their house for guests. Then, after everyone leaves and the plumbing’s had a serious workout, more problems are spotted. 

Either way, those Mondays fill up fast, with Brown Friday turning into more of a slow drip than a flood.

As Mary Jean Anderson from Anderson Plumbing, Heating & Air puts it:

“The Mondays before and after Thanksgiving are busier than Brown Friday… we’re usually pretty busy on Mondays, but it’s surrounding that holiday that we are busier than usual.”

So, let’s make it clear. It’s not that Brown Friday is dead. It just isn’t the blockbuster it’s made out to be.

How Do Plumbing Companies Handle Increased Seasonal Demand?

Brown Friday might not be the plumbing apocalypse it’s cracked up to be, but that doesn’t mean the holiday season is quiet.

There’s still a spike in demand around Thanksgiving, which means more last-minute emergency callouts than usual. 

The big question is: how do you stay on top of it without exhausting your team or letting your customers down?

Let’s look at how innovative plumbing businesses manage the holiday rush and what tools make a difference when the phones are ringing off the hook.

1. Boosting staff levels and extending hours

When demand spikes, you’ll need more people to put things right. This usually means calling in off-duty techs or offering overtime.

Before you book staff in, review recent trends. If past holidays or cold snaps sent your schedule into overdrive, then plan ahead this time. 

If you don’t have your own data yet, just remember that those Mondays around Thanksgiving are some of the busiest days of the year, and prepare for the mad rush.

To get ready for the busy holiday season, it helps to upskill your team, so apprentices and junior techs can step in where needed and keep things moving.

If you really want to get ahead of the rush, then a smart scheduling tool makes a big difference. 

With ServiceTitan’s Adaptive Capacity Planning, you can set exactly how many jobs your crew can handle each day and break the schedule into realistic time slots based on who’s available.

It also helps keep your revenue up and your team running at full speed without burning out.

2. Dispatching like clockwork

When the holiday rush hits, you need to run an even tighter ship than usual. This means keeping an eye on every tech and every job in real time. 

That way, you’ll know instantly if someone’s stuck in traffic or their van decides to die in the driveway. It’s better than finding out an hour later when a customer’s already losing their patience.

ServiceTitan’s Dispatch Board is an interactive, real-time map of your entire operation that lets you see instantly who’s where, what they’re working on, and what’s coming next.

It also automatically prompts customers to confirm appointments and details by text, so you don’t lose jobs because someone forgot they booked' or mistyped their address. 

If you need to reach a tech, you can also message them right from the dispatch board.

3. Streamlining customer call intake

When the phones are ringing off the hook, like they do on either side of Thanksgiving, it’s easy for things to get missed. A lost note here, a forgotten follow-up there, and before you know it, jobs are going down the drain.

Fortunately, ServiceTitan’s Call Booking software helps your CSRs (customer service reps) cope better with the influx of calls.

The built-in caller ID and auto-fill mean your team knows who’s on the line before they pick up, as the customer’s info is displayed on-screen.

You can set up custom call prompts and drop-downs to guide your CSRs through the call. It means they’re not having to rack their brains remembering what to ask, and they’re actually listening instead. They get cleaner job tickets and more chances to spot upsells.

Everything gets recorded, so your techs will know if the customer said their house number was 150 or 115 or whether the CSR promised a quote or just a follow-up call. 

Your team can also record and view important details such as home size and year of build. When a past customer calls about a clogged sink, your CSR is better placed to spot any signs that it’s actually a bigger issue and send out a tech ready to handle the whole job.

4. Avoiding costly mistakes under pressure

When your techs are racing from job to job, it’s easy for things to get overlooked. Maybe they forget to take a photo of the jobsite or miss a detail they’d usually notice.

That’s why it’s good to have a standardized checklist system in place that makes sure no corners are cut, even when things are crazy busy.

ServiceTitan’s Required Forms feature adds guardrails to your team's workflows. It can display a form on the screen for specific job types. If a tech forgets to fill out a required form, ServiceTitan won’t let them close out the job until it’s done. 

The Job History feature is also helpful, as your team can pull up past notes, photos, asset details, part types, and other relevant information on their phones or tablets. It’s excellent for return visits or servicing a regular customer. 

5. Communicating clearly with customers

When people call a plumber around the holidays, they’re probably already stressed out. They’ve got family in the house, someone sent a turkey leg down the garbage disposal, and the sink’s overflowing. Now they’re waiting, watching the clock, wondering if anyone’s coming.

Clear communication is a must. If you send real-time updates and ETAs, it calms people down and shows them you’ve got things under control.

ServiceTitan’s Integrated SMS and Customer Notifications relieve stress on both ends. Automated customer updates let you keep people informed without having to pick up the phone.

You can tailor text and email templates for every stage of the job, including reminders during the run-up and surveys afterwards. 

If techs get stuck in traffic or need a gate code, they can quickly send a text message from the app, avoiding pointless back-and-forth with the office. 

You can also text customers with a GPS tracker so they can see the tech’s location in real time.

Over to You!

If you’re banking on Brown Friday to be your biggest day, you might miss out on some real money-making opportunities a few days either side. 

The Monday before and the Monday after Thanksgiving tend to be the busiest for plumbing businesses.

We didn’t just pull this out of thin air. The numbers come from our data covering 350+ plumbing contractors. We counted booked jobs per day and calculated revenue based on the invoices. 

Then we rounded everything to the nearest five percent so it’s easy to digest, just like that first slice of pumpkin pie!

Tools like ServiceTitan keep things flowing before the backups begin. With features like the dispatch board, required forms, automated texting, and live tracking, your team can handle the holiday chaos without losing their cool.

ServiceTitan is a powerful office management, dispatch, scheduling, and marketing tool, all rolled into one. It helps home service businesses keep track of calls, book jobs faster, dispatch techs more efficiently, and stay in touch with customers. Around busy holiday times, it’s a lifesaver. Your customers are happier, and it saves you from drowning in admin.