Plumbing
Leaks, drains, and
water heaters.
Water showing up where it should not, a drain that will not clear, a cold shower on a Monday morning. Tell us what the house is doing and we will tell you what it usually means and how soon we can be out.
What we get called for
Plumbing tells on itself
A stain on a ceiling, a drain that gurgles when the washer empties, a basement that smells wrong after a hard rain. Name the symptom and we can usually narrow it down on the phone.
Leaks, seen and unseen
Supply lines, shower valves, a damp ring at a toilet base, and leaks that only show up on the bill.
Slow drains and backups
One slow fixture is a local clog. The whole house slow at once means the main line.
Water heaters, tank and tankless
No hot water, hot water gone in five minutes, rusty water, or a tank that pops when it fires.
Sump pumps and basement water
A pump that runs nonstop, a pump that never starts, and discharge lines frozen shut in January.
Frozen and burst pipes
Rim joists, crawl spaces, unheated garages, and outside walls are where pipes go in a cold snap.
Low pressure and old pipe
Weak showers upstairs, brown water on the first draw, and galvanized steel rusting closed from the inside.
Leaks, toilets, faucets
Start with where the water is coming from
Visible leaks are the easy ones. A supply line weeping at the nut, a shutoff that will not seal, a shower valve that drips after you turn it off. The source is right there.
Hidden leaks cost money. Watch for a water bill that jumps for no reason, a warm spot on a basement slab, a stain on the ceiling under a bathroom, or a musty closet backing up to a shower.
Free test: shut off every fixture, including the ice maker, and watch the water meter. If the dial keeps creeping, water is leaving the system somewhere.
A running toilet is the leak people live with longest, because nothing ever gets wet. It is almost always a soft flapper, a fill valve that no longer shuts, or a chain with the wrong slack.
Faucets fail by type. Cartridge, ceramic disc, ball, and compression each go their own way, and on a fixture old enough that parts are scarce, a new faucet beats the hunt.
Find your main water shutoff before you need it. In most homes here it is in the basement near where the line comes in from the street. Turn it far enough to know it is not seized, leave it open, and show everybody who lives there. At two in the morning that valve is the difference between a wet floor and a wrecked basement.
Drains and sewer
Slow drains, backups, and sewer smells
One slow fixture is a local clog. Hair and soap in a tub, grease in a kitchen line, wipes in a toilet no matter what the box says.
The whole house slowing at once is the main line. Water rising in a floor drain when the washer empties, a toilet bubbling while the tub drains, gurgling from a fixture nobody is using.
In the older neighborhoods around Oak Park, Berwyn, Cicero, and Forest Park, the usual culprit is roots in clay tile. Cabling opens the line. A camera tells you whether it is roots, a belly holding water, or a break, which decides between a yearly cleaning and a repair.
Sewer smell with no backup is usually a trap that dried out in a floor drain, and a couple quarts of water reseals it. If the smell stays, we look at a wax ring, a cracked fitting, or a blocked vent.
Skip drain chemicals on a line that is fully blocked. They never reach the clog, they sit in the pipe, and they make the job dangerous for whoever opens it.
Water heaters
No hot water, not enough hot water, rusty water
On a gas tank, no hot water at all usually means the burner is not lighting: pilot, thermocouple, gas valve, or control board. On electric it is a dead upper element or a tripped high limit. Both are worth diagnosing before anybody talks replacement.
Hot water that runs out early is different. A failed lower element, a broken dip tube, or inches of sediment on the tank bottom all shrink how much usable hot water you have.
Rusty water on the hot side that clears on cold points at the tank, usually a spent anode rod. Popping and rumbling is sediment cooking against the burner, which means the tank is working harder than it should.
Age predicts failure better than any single symptom. Most tank heaters run eight to twelve years, and the build date is in the serial number on the label. Past that, a leak is a question of when, and a tank that goes while you are at work floods whatever is around it.
Tankless units fail differently. They throw an error code, run hot then cold, or lose output as scale builds on the heat exchanger. Hard water is rough on them, and descaling on a schedule is the difference between a long life and a short one. We work on both kinds.
Basements and winter
Sump pumps, flooding, and frozen pipes
The sump pump is the appliance nobody looks at. It sits in a hole for months, then one storm asks it to run six hours straight. Floats stick, check valves let the same water fall back in, discharge lines get crushed in the yard, and motors burn out with no warning.
Test yours before the next big rain. Pour five gallons into the pit. The pump should start, clear it, and shut off cleanly. One that hums without pumping, or keeps running on an empty pit, needs attention now rather than during the storm.
The storm that fills the pit is the storm that takes your power out, and a pump with no electricity is a decoration. If the basement is finished, ask about a battery backup while we are there.
Winter moves the risk upstairs. Pipes freeze in rim joists, crawl spaces, unheated garages, and outside walls. In a deep cold stretch, open the cabinet doors under sinks on exterior walls, keep a pencil thin trickle at the farthest fixture, and disconnect the garden hoses.
If a faucet stops flowing on a cold morning, leave it open and call. Never thaw a pipe with a flame. Most burst pipe damage happens on the thaw, when the ice melts and pressure finds the split.
Pressure, pipe, disposals
Weak showers, old steel pipe, and the thing under the sink
Low pressure at one fixture is the fixture: a clogged aerator, a fouled cartridge, a shutoff only part way open. Low pressure everywhere is the house: a failing pressure reducing valve, a main shutoff never opened all the way, or supply pipe narrowed on the inside.
That last one shows up in homes built before copper. Galvanized steel rusts from the inside out until a three quarter inch pipe passes what a pencil would. The tells are weak flow upstairs when water runs downstairs, brown water on the first draw, and pinhole leaks one after another. At that point patching becomes an expensive habit, and repiping the runs that are actually failing in copper or PEX is the honest answer.
Disposals are blunt about it. A hum with no spin means a jammed flywheel. Silence means the reset button, the switch, or a dead motor. A leak at the top means the sink flange gets reset, and a leak from the bottom means the unit is done.
Emergency triage
What to do before the truck gets there
If water is running somewhere it should not be, work down this list while you are on the phone with us.
- Shut the water off. Use the stop under the sink or behind the toilet. If you cannot reach it, or the leak is inside a wall, close the main.
- Keep water and power apart. If water is near outlets, the furnace, or the panel, kill that circuit at the breaker. Do not wade through standing water to reach a panel.
- Turn the water heater down. If the leak is at the heater, close the cold inlet on top, then set a gas unit to pilot or switch an electric unit off at the breaker.
- Bleed the pressure off. With the main closed, open the lowest faucet in the house so the water left in the pipes drains there instead of through the break.
- Stop flushing and draining. On a main line backup, every flush and every load of laundry adds to what is already coming up in the basement.
- Move what you can, then photograph it. Get boxes and electronics up off the floor, and take pictures before you mop.
- Leave the chemicals in the cabinet. On a blocked line they sit in the pipe and make the repair more dangerous.
- Have the details ready. Address, which fixture, when it started, and whether the water is off yet. That tells us who to send and with what.
Questions we get
Straight answers
My drain is slow. Can I just pour something down it?
On a drain that still moves, sometimes. On one that is fully stopped, no. The chemical sits in the pipe against a clog it cannot reach and makes the next repair a hazard. If the same drain clogs every few weeks, the line needs to be opened mechanically.
How old is too old for a water heater?
Most tank heaters run eight to twelve years, and the build date is usually in the serial number on the label. Age alone is no reason to replace a working unit. Age plus a new symptom is different: rusty water, rumbling, or moisture at the base means plan the replacement rather than wait for the floor to get wet.
Water is coming up in my basement floor drain. Whose line is that?
It depends where the blockage sits. Between the house and the property line it is generally yours. Out in the public main it is generally the municipality. We open the line and run a camera, which shows where the restriction actually is. If it is on the public side, you will have footage when you call your village.
Why does my basement smell like sewer when nothing is backed up?
Usually a dried out trap. Floor drains and fixtures nobody uses lose the water seal that keeps sewer gas out, and a couple quarts of water fixes it. If the smell comes back, we look at a wax ring, a cracked fitting, or a blocked vent stack.
Should I repipe or keep patching the galvanized?
One pinhole leak, patch it and watch. Three in two years, brown water in the morning, and a shower that dies when the dishwasher starts, the pipe is done and patching becomes an expensive habit. We would rather repipe the runs that are failing than sell you every pipe in the building.
How soon can somebody get here?
Call and ask. It depends on the day, the weather, and what is already on the board, and a person will give you a straight answer instead of a promise we cannot keep. If your water is already off, say so, because that changes how we schedule it.
Towns we cover for plumbing work:
There is a $125 service charge to come out. That pays for the trip and the diagnosis, which means finding what is actually wrong and telling you what it costs to fix. It is a separate charge and is not credited toward the repair. Once you have the repair price, nothing happens until you approve it.
Tell us what the water is doing.
Leak, clog, backup, cold shower, or a sump pump you do not trust. One call gets a plumber out, and the same company handles the heating, cooling, and electrical work in your house too.