Colorado plumbing marketing timed to the first freeze and priced as one total

Your busiest stretch starts with the first hard night of fall. In Colorado that night arrives in a fairly fixed week, so the freeze campaign can be ready before the first split pipe instead of after it.

NOAA's thirty-year normals give each city a median first fall freeze. The dates sit four days apart:

• Boulder, October 5. It is also the last to thaw, with a median last spring freeze of May 6 in Boulder's normals.
• Fort Collins, October 7. Its station normals put the spring thaw earliest of the four, on May 2.
• Colorado Springs, October 8. The Springs airport record counts 159.7 nights a year at or below freezing.
• Denver, October 9. At the Denver airport station, 156.3 nights a year reach freezing and 6.2 drop below zero. We plan Aurora from this record too, since it is the nearest of the four.

So the winterizing reminder to past customers goes out in the last week of September, Boulder's list first. The frozen-pipe page and the after-hours answering should be live by October 5. The plumbing page covers what that page says. This section is about when it goes up.

A freeze call can also turn into a bigger sale. The repair the homeowner called about is outside the federal Cooling-Off Rule, but a new water heater sold on that visit is a home sale of $25 or more and is inside it. Skipping the three-day wait takes a separate, dated statement in the buyer's own handwriting. A printed checkbox does not count.

Colorado adds a rule for credit sales signed at home. Under the state's home solicitation law, that buyer has until midnight on the third business day to back out. Its emergency exception also needs a separate signed statement, not a printed form. So a financed water heater sold during a freeze call needs both checked.

The service call price in your ads needs a second look this year. Colorado now wants the total, as one number, wherever an ad shows a price.

The rule comes from Colorado's total-price law, in force from the first day of 2026. Every advertised price now has to be what the customer actually pays, as a single number with no fees broken out. That figure must also be the most prominent price on the ad.

What it means for a plumber, on our reading:

• A fee you add on top. An ad with a low service call price and a trip fee listed beside it splits a price you control. Fold the fee into the number, or drop it.
• Prices that depend on the job. The law gives a safe harbor when the total truly cannot be known at the time of the offer. The ad then lists the things that move the price, every fee the customer must pay and a plain note that the final bill can differ. A fixed charge that is yours to set does not qualify.
• Government charges. These can stay out of the total.

It reaches every place a price appears: Google ads, Facebook posts, the Business Profile, the website and the truck wrap. The governor signed the bill on April 21, 2025, so the law has been public for well over a year. The attorney general may write rules under it, so check for any before a campaign leans on the safe harbor.

Colorado sets tighter water-use limits on showerheads, toilets and faucets than federal law does. A quote or product page that offers the wrong model is offering something that cannot be sold here.

Under Colorado's water-efficiency law for plumbing products, showerheads, toilets and public lavatory faucets sold in the state must be WaterSense-listed. Residential kitchen faucets are capped at 1.8 gallons a minute, with a temporary boost to 2.2 allowed.

The federal limits are looser: 2.5 gallons a minute for showerheads and 2.2 for kitchen faucets, under the federal water-use standard. So a page copied from a national supplier's catalog can list a model that meets federal law and not Colorado's.

Two pieces changed on January 1, 2026. The state requirement for private bathroom faucets and for urinals was repealed that day. Product pages that still say every faucet must carry the label are out of date.

Knowingly selling a showerhead, toilet or faucet that falls short can bring an attorney general penalty of up to $2,000 per violation.

The rule also hands you an offer. Denver Water pays a rebate of up to $100 on a WaterSense toilet. A toilet replacement ad aimed at its customers can name that, as long as it credits the rebate to Denver Water.

Heat pump water heaters need care at this altitude. ENERGY STAR wants them in a space that stays between 40 and 90 degrees all year, with 1,000 cubic feet of air around the unit. A tank in an unheated garage may not qualify, so ask where it sits before quoting one.

The state's heat pump tax credit goes to the installing company, and only to one on the Energy Office's approved list. The customer sees it as a discount on its own invoice line. Amounts move from year to year. Confirm the current figure with the Energy Office before any ad prints one.