Plumbing Guides & Honest Cost Ranges

From the top or the bottom, here is what a leak means and the first moves to make.

A gas and electric troubleshooting checklist to get your hot water back, plus when to call a pro.

Stop the water in the next 30 seconds, then clear the clog the right way.

Shut off the water fast, limit the damage, and know when it is an emergency.

Humming, clicking, silent or leaking - each one points somewhere different. Start with the power, never with your hand.

North Texas does not freeze often, which is exactly why its pipes are exposed. Here is the work to do before the front arrives.

Most shower clogs sit in the first few inches. Start there, skip the chemicals, and know the signs that mean something bigger.

A running toilet is the most expensive small leak in a house - and usually a part that costs less than a takeaway meal.

Most kitchen clogs sit within a few feet of the basket strainer. Here is how to clear one safely - and how to tell when it is not the sink at all.

Water at the foot of a toilet is usually one of four things. Three of them are cheap, one of them is damaging your floor right now.

A dripping hose bib is usually a worn washer. Water appearing only when the faucet is on, or inside the wall, is a different and more urgent problem.

One fixture or the whole house, hot only or both - the answer to those two questions eliminates most of the possible causes immediately.

Sewer gas gets in through one of a short list of openings. Work through them in order and you will usually find it in an afternoon.

A frozen pipe is a pressurized pipe. Open the faucet first, warm it from the right end, and know the two signs that mean you should close the main instead.

This is the one piece of plumbing knowledge that decides how bad a burst pipe gets. It takes ten minutes to learn and you only need it once.

One slow drain is a fixture problem. Several at once, with gurgling, is the main line - and the first thing to do is stop running water.

Popping and rumbling is almost always sediment. Screeching is a valve. Here is how to tell them apart before you spend anything.

Roots do not break into a good pipe. They follow water out of a pipe that is already cracked - which is why cutting them is a trim, not a cure.

Your water meter is a leak detector you already own. Twenty minutes with it will tell you whether you have a leak and roughly where to look.

A slab leak rarely announces itself. It shows up as a warm patch, a water bill that will not come back down, or the sound of water with the house silent.

Typical service life, what shortens it in North Texas, and the signs that mean you are shopping rather than repairing.

Two different products solving the same problem. Here is the honest comparison, including the hard-water catch.

For most homeowners the choice is already made by what is in the wall. Here is how to tell, and when switching is worth the extra work.

The dividing line is sudden versus gradual, not cheap versus expensive. Knowing which side you are on changes what you do in the first hour.

Tank size is the number on the sticker. First hour rating is the number that decides whether anyone runs out of hot water.

A failed regulator is a quiet, expensive problem: it stresses every joint, valve and appliance in the house at once. Here is how to test for it.

Gray, blue or black flexible plastic stamped PB2110. If that is what feeds your fixtures, the question is when to replace it, not whether.

Texas publishes every plumbing license in a free searchable database. Checking takes two minutes, and it is the single best thing you can do before hiring anyone.

Cast iron rusts from the inside out, so the pipe looks fine until it does not. In a slab home, that is the whole problem.