Walking into Humble Plumbing’s office on Wall Street is like walking into a workshop.

Shelves filled with cubbies and boxes line the small store. Every available space, every surface, is filled or covered with fittings, pipes, parts and pieces to keep anyone’s plumbing working properly.

For more than 80 years, the Humble family has helped customers and plumbers alike.

Walker Humble started the business in 1933, the beginning of the Great Depression, and kept working into his 90s.

These days, Steve Humble works in the office and handles sales while his brother Phil is out in the world handling plumbing repairs and other calls.

Though both are well into their 60s, they say retirement is still a long way away.

“Retirement at Humble Plumbing is 90 years of age,” Steve said. “I’m 68. Phil is 66, and unless they pat us in the face with a shovel first, we have 24 years left. Our father taught us to focus on the now and do the best we can each and every day.”

“What I learned from my father was don’t dwell on what hurts,” Phil said. “My father came in at age 92 and said his back hurt, but he still worked.”

For the Humbles, the business is a labor of love.

“What we do is very arduous, physically strenuous and mentally challenging,” Steve said. “If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.”

The standard was set early by their father, the brothers said.

After Walker graduated from Transylvania University, he returned to Winchester and opened the business on Main Street. He wanted to be a sheetmetal worker, but plumbing was a way to be of service to the community, they said.

Throughout the current shop, which was built as a repair garage for Ford Model Ts, there are still traces of Walker, whether it’s pencilled notes on shelves or his hand-made corner shelves designed to fit in corners behind an open door.

“It looks cluttered, but it’s ours,” Steve said.

The office is Steve’s domain, where he works with customers, places orders and runs the business.

“He does inventory once a year,” Phil said.

Meanwhile, Phil spends his days working on plumbing jobs from his truck.

Originally, Steve worked in the field as well, but took over the office about 20 years ago.

“By giving each other different roles, we gave each other the space to successfully spend 50 years in business with each other,” Steve said. “It has been a very complementary shared experience.”

In years past, they had other employees, but these days, it is just the two brothers.

“A few years ago, we had 10 employees,” Steve said. “Now it’s just us. We’ve found we like it this way.”

Plumbing was all they wanted to do. Both spent time working in the shop as children and returned for their careers.

“In college, we all took different courses,” Steve said. “Our sisters are college professors. I think we contribute in a very professional way as plumbers.

“Dad’s attitude was, ‘I have something to do here.’ He would attempt to solve the problem.”

At the end of the day, that’s what Steve and Phil do: solve problems.

Whether it’s helping another plumber or contractor locate hard-to-find parts or walking a home handyman through a toilet repair or completing a job themselves, if they fix the problem, it’s a good day.

“We’re grateful to have the opportunity to fix someone’s problem,” Steve said.

Often, the two can figure the solution out together.

“I’ll come in with a problem and ask him for help,” Phil said.

“There’s very little we haven’t seen,” Steve said. “At the end of the day, there’s a sense of accomplishment because you are presented with a problem to resolve.” §