One Way Rooter & Plumbing has worked in Lakewood since 1979. We take slab leaks, sewer laterals, drain stoppages, camera inspections and water heater work across the city. Our California contractor license is #537893, and we are bonded and insured. Estimates are free. Call (562) 947-0110 during office hours, or the same number after hours for an emergency.
Lakewood Service Area
Calls that reach us before noon are usually scheduled for that afternoon.
- County: Los Angeles County
- ZIP codes: 90712, 90713, 90715
- Working in Lakewood since: 1979
- License: CSLB #537893, bonded and insured
- Office hours: Monday to Friday 7:30am to 5pm, Saturday 8am to 12:30pm, Sunday closed. Emergency line answered 24 hours.
We take calls in every Lakewood ZIP code, including Lakewood Park, Lakewood Mutual, Mayfair, Carson Park, the blocks around Bolivar Park and Mayfair Park, and the Del Amo Boulevard and Lakewood Center corridor. Cities next to Lakewood are on the same route: Long Beach, Bellflower, Cerritos, Paramount and Artesia.
Plumbing Problems in Lakewood Homes
Houses Finished Between 1950 and 1953
Lakewood went up almost all at once. About 17,500 houses were built here between late 1949 and 1953, at the peak one house every seven and a half minutes, and the city incorporated in 1954. That history sits behind our schedule. Whole tracts share a build date, a foundation type and a plumbing spec, so when one house starts failing, the houses on either side of it are running on the same clock. Original supply lines from that period were galvanized steel. Galvanized rusts inward from the pipe wall, and the rust keeps closing the opening until the far fixtures get a fraction of the flow they were sized for. What the homeowner notices is brown water on the first draw of the morning and a shower that goes weak the moment the washing machine fills.
Copper Laid Back Into the Same Slab
These houses sit directly on concrete with the water lines running through the pour. When galvanized was pulled out during the seventies and eighties, the replacement copper often went back into the floor along the original path. Copper corrodes from the outside in soil, and it wears thin at any point where it rests against gravel or rebar. A pinhole under a slab pushes water into the ground with nothing above to show for it, so the house reports the leak another way: a bill climbing month over month, running water audible with every tap closed, or a single warm patch of floor tracking the hot line. Once one pinhole opens in a run, a second one in the same run tends to follow within a year or two.
Laterals as Old as the House
The pipe carrying waste from the house out to the street was laid when the tract was built. Clay and cast iron were both used here. Clay arrives in short lengths with a joint every few feet, and decades of soil movement work those joints apart until roots reach through the gap and hold back everything that passes. Cast iron scales instead, and the scale narrows the bore until paper catches and stacks up behind it. Either way the first sign appears at the lowest fixture in the house and comes back a few weeks after a cable has been through. We camera the line before quoting, because roots at one joint and a collapsed length of pipe are different jobs at different prices.
Mineral Content and Water Heater Life
Water in this part of Los Angeles County carries a heavy mineral load. Heating it drops that mineral out of solution, where it settles across the floor of a tank or bonds to an electric element. Sediment on a gas tank floor sits between the flame and the water, so the burner stays lit longer and the steel above it runs hotter than the design allows. On an electric heater the scale wraps the element until the element burns out. This is the reason most Lakewood water heaters come up short of the service life printed on the label. Draining the tank once a year removes the bulk of it, and a softener keeps it from forming at all.
Slab Leak Detection and Repair in Lakewood
A slab leak is a break in a pressurized water line running under the foundation, and it will not seal itself. Slab leak work begins with locating the line, and that step is what keeps the opening in the concrete small. We listen for the leak acoustically and isolate pressure on each run before anything gets cut. Our leak detection service gives you the position and the extent of the failure before you commit to a repair.
What Starts One
- Soil chemistry attacking copper from the outside until the wall perforates
- A line vibrating against rebar, gravel or concrete until it wears through at the contact point
- Ground movement from seismic activity and seasonal soil shift, which folds or splits the pipe
- An installation that laid the line across a sharp edge or left a poor solder joint
How It Gets Repaired
We go through the options with you before anything starts. A single failure in a line that is otherwise sound can be spot-repaired through a small opening in the floor. A run that has already leaked twice, or an original galvanized line still buried in the slab, is better rerouted overhead or taken out of service with a copper repipe, since opening the floor a third time costs more than doing the whole run once. Where the failure turns out to be on the supply line between the meter and the house, water line repair or a full water line replacement is the shorter route.
Lakewood Drain Cleaning and Sewer Line Work
Drain cleaning is most of what we do here. Kitchen lines narrow with grease, tub and shower lines close with hair and soap, a bathroom sink holds a ring in its P-trap, and a garage or laundry floor drain comes up when the washer discharges. We work out whether the stoppage sits in the fixture arm, the branch or the main before anything goes into the pipe. A cable opens a hole through the blockage and leaves the coating on the pipe wall that produced it, which is why a cabled kitchen line often stops again inside the year. Hydro jetting takes that wall back to full diameter with water. For a line that keeps stopping no matter how often it is cleared, see recurring clogged drains, and for straightforward main line clearing, rooter service.
When two fixtures back up together, or the lowest drain gurgles while another one runs, the lateral is where to look. Those calls start with a sewer camera inspection, which puts the inside of the pipe on a screen with a footage count on the fault. The reading decides between a spot sewer line repair, a trenchless replacement that leaves the lawn and driveway where they are, and a full sewer line replacement. We camera the line before recommending that anything be replaced.
Water Heaters in Lakewood
No hot water is the earliest call of the day. Water heater repair starts with identifying the part that quit, because a heater with a dead thermostat and a heater at the end of its life look identical from the hallway. A cracked dip tube lets cold water mix in at the top of the tank and leave with the hot, and the tell is plastic flecks caught in an aerator. A scaled element on an electric unit burns out and takes the hot water with it. Thermostats drift off setting or fail outright, and we set them to 120 degrees. A burner assembly, gas control valve or relief valve that has gone bad gives lukewarm water or a unit that will not light at all.
At some point the repair stops being worth paying for. Gas tanks around here generally reach 6 to 8 years and electric tanks 8 to 10, and the mineral load pulls both numbers down. The serial number on the data plate carries the build date, so we can tell you the age of the unit before you decide anything. Rumbling and popping point at sediment on the tank floor or a spent anode rod, which is the sacrificial metal that corrodes in place of the steel. Rust at the cold inlet or around the relief valve means the tank is going from the inside. A leak through the tank wall cannot be sealed, and we will tell you which kind of leak you have. Where the numbers land on replacing, we handle tank units and tankless installation, and we can put a softener in ahead of the heater where scale is the underlying cause.
Other Plumbing Work We Do in Lakewood
- Leaking pipes and pipe replacement
- Garbage disposal repair and replacement
- Toilet repair and replacement
- Sump pumps
- System maintenance and plumbing inspections
- Commercial plumbing for Lakewood businesses
- Emergency plumbing, answered 24 hours
Lakewood Plumbing FAQ
How soon can you get to Lakewood?
Call during office hours to schedule an appointment. Once the office closes, the emergency line reaches someone who will tell you on that call whether the problem needs a truck tonight.
What hours are you open?
The office runs Monday through Friday from 7:30am to 5pm and Saturday from 8am to 12:30pm. We are closed Sunday. The emergency line is answered 24 hours, weekends and holidays included.
Can you come out on a Saturday?
Yes. Saturday mornings are regular booked work through 12:30pm. Sunday work goes through the 24-hour emergency line only.
Do estimates cost anything?
No. We look at the problem and give you the price before work begins, at no charge. Diagnostic work that needs equipment, such as running a sewer camera, gets quoted before we run it.
Are you licensed and insured?
Yes. One Way Rooter & Plumbing carries California contractor license #537893 and is bonded and insured. That number is public, so you can check it on the CSLB website before you pick up the phone.
Do you cover the whole city?
Yes, all of 90712, 90713 and 90715, from Lakewood Mutual and Bolivar Park across to Mayfair, Carson Park and the Lakewood Center area. We also take calls in Bellflower, Cerritos and Long Beach.
My house is one of the original tracts. Does it need a repipe?
Not on age alone. A house of that era still running its factory galvanized supply is a repipe candidate, because galvanized closes from the inside and shows up as brown water and low pressure at the fixtures furthest from the meter. The same house repiped in copper thirty years ago may have plenty of life left. What moves one onto the list is a second slab leak in the same run, or pressure that has dropped across the whole house rather than at one tap. We look at both of those before we tell you whether repiping is the answer.
Why does my water heater keep failing early?
Mineral in the water. It comes out of solution as the water heats and settles in the tank or coats the element. A yearly flush clears most of it, and a softener stops it from forming. We include the flush in system maintenance visits.
Call a Lakewood Plumber
Call (562) 947-0110 to book a plumber in Lakewood, or send a message through the contact page. If a pipe has burst, the sewer is backing up, or the water is off overnight, use the same number and ask for the emergency plumber line.
