Seattle, WA

Find a plumber in Seattle, WA who has opened up a house this old

Plumbing trouble in Seattle usually arrives from one of two directions. On the supply side, galvanised steel run in the 1920s has spent a century closing up from the inside. On the waste side, a clay lateral you own outright runs the length of the garden to the main, with a street tree sitting on top of it. Neither is interesting and both are costly to leave alone. A plumber who works this city daily can usually tell which one you are describing before the van leaves the yard.

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Who pays for a broken sewer pipe in Seattle, me or the utility?

You do, for the whole length. Seattle property owners own their side sewer from the house all the way to the public main, including the portion buried under the pavement and the planting strip. The utility maintains the main itself. That boundary is why sewer work here is the most expensive plumbing most homeowners ever face.

Galvanised supply does not burst, it strangles

Houses put up before the Second World War were plumbed in galvanised steel, and a good number of them still have stretches of it behind the plaster. It corrodes from the inside outward, so the failure mode is not a dramatic split but a slow narrowing until the shower drops to a trickle whenever anyone runs a tap downstairs. By the time you notice, the interior diameter is a fraction of what it started as, and no descaling trick reverses it. Patching one length simply moves the restriction along. When a plumber recommends a whole-house repipe on a 1920s bungalow, they are usually right, and the honest ones will cut out a sample and show you the cross-section rather than asking you to take it on faith.

Cast-iron waste reaching the end of a long life

The drainage side of an old Seattle house is typically cast iron, and cast iron does have a service life. It scales internally, the bottom of horizontal runs thins out, and eventually a hub joint under the ground floor starts weeping into the crawlspace where nobody looks. The smell reaches you before the stain does. A camera survey of the internal waste tells you whether you are looking at one bad section or a stack that wants replacing while the walls are open for something else. If you are already gutting a bathroom in a pre-war house, that is the cheap moment to deal with it, and it is worth asking for the price as a separate line.

The side sewer is yours, and the street trees know it

This is the fact that surprises people who have owned houses elsewhere. In Seattle the private side sewer belongs to the property owner along its entire run, under the garden, under the planting strip and under the road surface, until it meets the public main. Older laterals are vitrified clay in short jointed lengths, and the mature maples and plane trees that make these streets pleasant send roots straight into those joints looking for water. The symptoms are gradual: slow drains everywhere at once, gurgling, a backup that clears with rodding and returns each autumn. Rodding buys a season. A camera survey tells you whether lining or open replacement is the honest answer, and replacement under a paved street is a different order of job to replacement under a lawn.

What gets permitted, and who is allowed to hold the wrench

Plumbing alterations in Seattle are permitted work, and side sewer work carries its own permit route with the city on top of the plumbing permit itself. Straightforward jobs move quickly; anything involving the public right of way, excavation in the street or a change to the connection is a slower path measured in weeks rather than days. On top of that, Washington regulates the individual as well as the business: the company must hold current registration with the Department of Labour and Industries, and the person doing the work must be a certified plumber or a trainee working under one. Ask which of those is turning up at your house, because the answer varies more than the marketing does.

Read the bid for what it excludes, and for tax

Two plumbing quotes for the same job routinely differ because one of them has priced restoration and the other has not. Ask each bidder in writing who patches the plaster, who reinstates the concrete or the lawn, who pays for the permit, who disposes of the old cast iron, and what happens if the survey finds a second defect further along the run. On an old house, also ask what the price assumes about access, because a crawlspace you can sit up in and one you can barely post yourself into are not the same labour. Washington charges retail sales tax on construction labour as well as on materials, so establish whether each number you are comparing is quoted inclusive or exclusive before you decide which is cheaper.

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Good to know locally

Two things to check, and both are free

Washington requires a plumbing contractor to register with the Department of Labour and Industries, post a surety bond and carry general liability insurance, and the state publishes a free lookup showing status, bond, insurance and any claims made against the bond. Separately, the state certifies individual plumbers, so the business being registered and the person in your crawlspace being certified are two different questions. Confirm the legal name on the registration matches the name printed on the contract you are being asked to sign.

Steep ground changes the pressure at your tap

A city built across ridges and valleys does not deliver the same water pressure to every address. Houses low on a hill can sit at the high end of the supply range and want a pressure-reducing valve to protect fittings and appliances, while houses near the top of the same hill can run soft enough that an unnoticed restriction elsewhere becomes obvious. When the whole house loses pressure at once it is more often a failing reducing valve or a corroded supply run than anything the utility has done, and a plumber can gauge it at a hose bib in a few minutes.

Mild winters and unprotected crawlspaces

Seattle winters are wet rather than severe, which is precisely why exposed pipework here is so often unprotected. Then an outbreak of genuinely cold, dry air settles over the region for several days and the calls arrive together: split hose bibs, frozen runs in vented crawlspaces, and uninsulated lines in an unheated garage. Insulating the exposed runs under an old house is cheap, unglamorous autumn work and it is a fraction of the cost of the repair and the drying-out that follows a burst.

The pipe in question, who owns it, and what it usually wants

The pipe or fitting	Whose problem it is	What it typically needs
Clay side sewer under the garden and pavement	Yours, end to end, right up to the main	Camera survey, then spot repair, lining or replacement
The public sewer main in the street	The utility	Reported, not repaired by your plumber
Cast-iron waste stack inside the walls	Yours	Section replacement where it has scaled or split
Galvanised supply from the meter into the house	Yours from the meter onward	Repipe in copper or PEX, generally whole-house
Water meter and the service to it	The utility	Utility work order, not a plumbing permit
Pressure-reducing valve on a steep-lot property	Yours	Testing and replacement when the house pressure drifts

What plumbing work costs in Seattle

Seattle labour rates sit at the upper end for the region, and on old houses the cost is driven less by the fitting being installed than by what has to be opened, moved or reinstated to reach it. Most shops charge either a call-out and diagnostic fee with hourly labour after it, or a flat rate quoted from a book before any work begins. Neither is a trick, but you should know which you have agreed to before the van arrives, and it is worth asking whether the diagnostic is credited against the repair. Small work such as a fixture swap, an angle stop or a rebuild is a modest job in any pricing model. A whole-house repipe or a stack replacement is a project, priced against how much of the house has to be opened and how much of it the plumber puts back. Side sewer work carries the widest spread of all, because a lining in an open garden and an excavation across a paved street with traffic control are separated by an order of magnitude. Treat any number that arrives without a camera survey behind it as a guess, and treat a bid conspicuously below the others as a bid that has quietly excluded restoration, disposal or the permit.

Areas we serve

BallardFremontBeacon HillColumbia CityWest SeattleGreenwood…and more

Frequently asked questions

My drains are slow all over the house at once. What does that point to?

Symptoms that appear everywhere simultaneously usually sit downstream of everything, which means the main waste line or the side sewer rather than any one fixture. In older parts of the city, root intrusion into a jointed clay lateral is the common cause and it tends to recur seasonally. A camera survey settles it in an hour and gives you footage of the defect and its distance from the house, which is also what any sensible second quote will be priced from.

Is lining the side sewer better than digging it up?

It depends on the condition and the shape of the existing pipe. Lining suits a lateral that is structurally intact but jointed and root-infiltrated, and it spares you the excavation, which is where most of the money and all of the disruption sits. A pipe that has collapsed, sagged into a belly or lost alignment cannot be lined into good condition and needs opening up. A plumber who recommends one without having looked inside the pipe is guessing.

Does a water heater replacement really need a permit?

Yes, it is permitted work in Seattle, and a contractor who tells you otherwise is taking a shortcut on your behalf rather than theirs. Unpermitted work has a way of surfacing at the least convenient moment, usually during a sale when a buyer's inspector asks a question nobody can answer. The permit is a small proportion of the job and it should appear as a line in the quote.

How much of my old plumbing has to be replaced at once?

Supply and waste age on different clocks, so treat them as separate decisions. Galvanised supply is generally an all-or-nothing question because the restriction simply migrates if you patch it. Cast-iron waste can often be dealt with in sections, replacing what is bad and what is already exposed. The plumber's job is to show you the evidence for each and let you sequence the work over a couple of years if that suits your finances better.

Can a plumber do the work while I stay in the house?

For most jobs, yes, with the water off for part of a day. A whole-house repipe is more disruptive because walls and ceilings open up in several rooms at once, though a competent crew works in zones so you keep at least one bathroom in service. Side sewer replacement leaves the house without usable drainage for the duration, so ask for that window in writing and plan around it.

Should I get more than one quote?

For planned work, yes, and give every bidder the same written description of the job so you are comparing like with like. For an active leak, no. Comparison shopping while water is moving across a floor costs far more than any difference between quotes. Get it stopped first, then take your time over the permanent repair.

What does using this service cost me?

Nothing, at any stage. Sending us the details of the job is free, hearing back from plumbers is free, and there is no fee to us if you go on to hire one of them. The only bill you will see is from the plumber you choose, for the work they carry out.

How many plumbers will actually contact me?

Usually two to four. They are picked for the type of plumbing you have described and for whether they genuinely take work in your part of the city, then matched to you by a person. Your details are not resold, not published and not added to any list.

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Describe the symptom, roughly when the house was built, and whether it is one fixture or the whole property. We will bring L&I-registered Seattle plumbers to you. It is free, there is no obligation, and your details stay private.

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