Plumber in Dedham.

Dedham holds about four centuries of building in one town. There is colonial-era fabric around Dedham Square and the Precinct One streets behind it, dense two-families through Oakdale, and street after street of post-war capes in Riverdale and Greenlodge. Almost every decade of American plumbing practice is represented somewhere inside the town line.

That range is the reason the van carries what it carries. A call on one street is a 1950s cape with original galvanized supply going soft at the threads; a call four minutes away is a Victorian whose heating has been rebuilt twice by two different people. Being based here also means Dedham gets the shortest response of anywhere on the list, which matters most at two in the morning.