This Plumber Will Never Stay In Water Closet

Looking for a plumber? Here's one who can fix a leak with the best of them, but lacks the one distinguishing mark of a journeyman plumber.

"No Butt Crack Plumbers," declares an ad in the Seattle Scroll, a small, alternative publication. "No job too big or small. Fast. Highly literate. Progressive demeanor. Woman owned."

Meet Suzanne "Zan" Scommodau, a licensed commercial plumber who has proclaimed herself free of said crevice and is darn proud of it.

She's been a plumber since 1979 and has a growing list of customers, some of whom have been greeted by this phone message when they call: "Yo, I'm Zan. I'm a plumber and a rapper. I can sing you a song or fix your crapper."

Humor has served her well since she became only the third woman in Washington to join the plumbers union. That was 18 years ago. Since then, she's fixed a lot of clogged toilets, and her knowledge of plumbing is downright moving.

"I have a whole book on the history of toilets," she says. "They used to look like teapots in England. You wouldn't believe what those queens sat on."

Moreover, Scommodau has discovered a plumbers graveyard at Lake View Cemetery, established at the turn of the century because so many plumbers died from exposure to lead and asbestos.

Such things delight Scommodau, 40, who lives in a small South Seattle home.

Inside, a collection of toy toilets is quietly displayed in her living room. Outside, two motorcycles are parked near her work van, which sports a bumper sticker that says, Flush Rush (as in Limbaugh).

She is a big, boisterous woman who thinks her true calling might have been opera ("listen to my voice - it's booming!") but somehow got sidetracked into plumbing.

Life is strange that way, she muses, noting that she was a laborer and fruit-picker before landing an apprenticeship in 1979. She was open about being a lesbian, and her presence did not go unnoticed.

"I'm a big gnarly woman," she explains, noting that she was a target for big gnarly insults. She says she endured them for years, until the day she met "the Sheetrocker."

He harassed her so much, she said, and in front of so many workers, that she finally quit and started her own business five years ago. But not before chasing him across the job site and cussing him out.

"I call some construction workers Neanderthal knuckle draggers," she says.

Having said that, Scommodau quickly defends most of the men she's worked with and even employs them at her company, Zan's Plumbing.

"I don't mind hiring men as long as they can work like a woman," she tells them during interviews. If they laugh, they get the job. If not, they're passed over.

For years, Scommodau has advertised herself in The Stranger as the Rad Dyke Plumber. A lot of her clients are gay, but certainly not all.

She just won a contract to put in an irrigation system at the Benaroya Symphony Hall, and the Burien Community Church recently hired her to fix a rundown rental house.

"She was recommended by a plumbing buddy, and we're very happy with her work," says church official James Telgenhoff. "She's real easy to deal with, and her people actually showed up when they said they would."

She also makes annual appearances at the Gay Pride parade, riding her motorcycle with the Dykes on Bikes. In 1993, she shaved her head to simulate a balding man, dyed the side hair magenta, and wore a jacket that read: Cure AIDS, not Baldness.

She's no stranger to causes and even has a philosophy about plumbing. She calls it the "No. 1 contribution that separates us from the Third World. If we could separate waste and water and bring clean water to villages, that's the first step to stop starvation."

Scommodau enjoys distinguishing herself from other plumbers, although there are undisputed commonalities.

"Plumbers at lunch are a hoot," she explains.

"We talk about the grossest things while eating our sandwiches. One plumber had a job at a mortuary and the line that sucks the blood was broken, so. . . ."

Oh, never mind.