Bathroom Plumbing in Austin & San Antonio

Supply leaks are constant: the pipe is under pressure whether or not you are using the fixture, so the drip never stops and the water meter keeps moving with everything off. Drain leaks only happen when water goes down, so the spot dries out between uses. A quick test: dry the area, leave the fixture alone for a few hours and check. Wet again means supply. Dry until you run the sink or flush means drain. Toilet seal leaks are a third kind; they show up after flushes, at the base or on the ceiling below. Our plumbers run these same tests on arrival, which is how we keep drywall and tile openings to a minimum.

Yes. Adding a bathroom or moving a toilet, shower or sink means new supply, drain and vent lines run to code, and in Central Texas that usually means working in or under a concrete slab. We look at where the existing drain and vent stack are, tell you which layouts are straightforward and which mean cutting concrete, and coordinate the rough-in with your contractor so inspections happen before the walls close. Casitas and garage conversions are common projects for us in both Austin and San Antonio. Quotes are written and honored for 72 hours, and financing is available on larger jobs.

The smell usually comes from biofilm on the pop-up stopper and the inside of the tailpiece, a slimy mix of hair, soap and toothpaste that bacteria feed on. Pulling the stopper and cleaning it often solves it. If the smell is more like sewer gas, the trap may have lost its water seal, either because the sink is rarely used and the water evaporated in our heat, or because a blocked vent is siphoning it out. A dry trap refills when you run the tap; a siphoning trap keeps coming back and needs the vent checked. If the odor is in more than one fixture, that points to a drain line problem, and we would look at the whole drain system.

Usually. If the rest of the house is fine and only one sink is weak, the problem is local: a scaled aerator, a cartridge packed with mineral grit, a supply line kinked behind the vanity or a shutoff stop that is not fully open. We clean or replace the aerator and cartridge first, which fixes most cases. If the faucet is old enough that the cartridge is no longer made, replacing the faucet can be the cheaper path, and we will tell you that rather than hunting for parts. If the whole house is weak, that is a different problem, often a failing pressure reducing valve, and we treat it as one.