Service areas › The Bronx

Plumber in the Bronx

The shop is in the Bronx, so this is the borough we know best — the buildings, the basements, and the way a seventy-year-old drain line tends to give out.

The plumbing here

Most of the Bronx was built before the war: walk-ups, two- and three-family houses, and six-storey elevator buildings. The waste lines in them are mostly cast iron, which lasts a long time but scales up on the inside until a four-inch stack drains like a two-inch one. The supply side is often galvanised steel, which rusts inwards and narrows the same way.

Most houses here still have a house trap — a U-bend on the main line just inside the front wall, with a fresh-air inlet beside it. It is the most common single place for a whole-house backup in the borough, and the first thing we check when every fixture is slow at once.

What we get called out for

• Brown or rust-coloured water for a few seconds after the water has been off — galvanised supply corroding from the inside.
• Water coming up through the basement floor drain when a toilet upstairs is flushed — usually the house trap or the line just past it.
• Low pressure at one fixture while the rest of the apartment is fine — typically a narrowed galvanised branch or a clogged valve, not the city supply.
• A water heater in a shared basement that has started to rust at the base.
• A drain in a multi-family house that blocks every few months on the same floor.

Before we come out

• In a two- or three-family house, tell us which unit has the problem and who has the key to the basement — the main shutoff and the house trap are almost always down there.
• If you rent, the landlord usually has to authorise the work and is usually the one paying. We send the written price to whoever is approving it.
• In an apartment building, let the super know before the visit. Anything that means shutting a riser is the building's decision, not ours or yours.

Questions from the Bronx

Do you replace galvanised pipe?

Yes, a section at a time or a whole run. Where only one branch is failing we price that branch and tell you how the rest looks, rather than quoting the house by default.

Every drain in the house is slow. Is that the city sewer?

Rarely. Far more often it is the house trap or the main line between the trap and the street. We open the trap first, because that tells us which side of it the blockage is on.

Do you work in apartment buildings as well as houses?

Yes — for tenants, owners and managing agents. For building-wide work, the management usually books it directly.

Other areas we cover

Manhattan, Queens, Nassau County, Suffolk County, Westchester County and Bergen County. Near the edge of one? Call (914) 429-6900 with the address.