Lead Service Lines in Philadelphia: What Owners Should Know
The pipe that brings water from the street into your basement belongs to you, not the city. Here is how to tell what it is made of and what your options are if it turns out to be lead.
Plumbing Help
Plumbing help for Philadelphia homeowners
Short, practical guides written by Clifford Haskell, our plumbing guides editor, from the questions we answer every week.
Written for ownersNot sales pitches
10 guides
All plumbing guides
Basement Backups and Backwater Valves in Philadelphia
If your floor drain gurgles and then overflows during a hard storm, the problem is usually not your pipes. It is the sewer in the street pushing back.
Who Owns the Sewer Lateral in Philadelphia?
When a sewer pipe breaks under the sidewalk, most owners assume it is the city's problem. In Philadelphia it is almost always yours, all the way to the main.
Frozen Pipes in Philadelphia: What to Do First
You turn the kitchen tap on a cold morning and get a trickle or nothing. Do these things first, in this order, before the ice turns into a leak.
What a Water Heater Replacement Costs in Philadelphia, PA
The number on the unit's box is only part of the bill. This guide puts national planning figures next to the things that move the price in an older Philadelphia house.
The House Trap: The Philadelphia Fitting Few Owners Know
Plenty of Philadelphia owners walk past their house trap for years without knowing its name. Here is what it is, what the little vent by the sidewalk has to do with it, and how to tell when it starts causing trouble.
How to Use Your Water Meter to Find a Leak
A water bill that jumps for no reason, or a hiss you cannot place, usually means water is going somewhere you cannot see. Your water meter can tell you whether that is true and roughly where to look, and the test costs nothing but a little patience.
Tank vs Tankless Water Heaters in a Philadelphia Rowhome
In a narrow Philadelphia rowhome, the choice between a tank and a tankless water heater is mostly decided by things outside the box: where the exhaust can go, how big the gas line is and how far hot water has to travel. Here is how to think it through before anyone quotes you a unit.
Warning Signs of a Failing Cast Iron Stack
The cast iron stack is the vertical drain that runs from the roof to the basement and carries everything your house sends down. It rarely fails all at once. It gives warnings for years, and most of them are easy to spot once you know where to look.
Sump Pump or Backwater Valve: Which Does Your Basement Need?
Owners often call us asking for a sump pump when the water on their basement floor came up through the floor drain, or ask for a backwater valve when the walls are seeping after rain. The two fix different water. Figure out which one you have and the choice mostly makes itself.
Questions
About these guides
Clifford Haskell, our plumbing guides editor, writes them from the questions Philadelphia owners ask us on the phone.
No. Where a guide gives a dollar range, it is a published planning range from national cost data. Your price depends on the job and is confirmed before work starts.
Some problems you can check yourself, and the guides say which. Anything involving gas, sewage or a pipe you cannot see is a job for a plumber.
Guide not answering it?
Call and describe the problem. We will tell you whether it can wait.