One Way Rooter & Plumbing has been plumbing Long Beach houses, duplexes and small commercial buildings since 1979. The work runs from drain stoppages and sewer laterals to slab leaks, camera inspections and water heater replacement. Our California contractor license is #537893, and the company is bonded and insured. Estimates come at no charge. Reach us at (562) 947-0110 during office hours, and at the same number any hour of the night for an emergency.
Long Beach Service Area
Call (562) 947-0110 to schedule an appointment.
- County: Los Angeles County
- ZIP codes: 90802, 90803, 90804, 90805, 90806, 90807, 90808, 90810, 90813, 90814, 90815
- Working in Long Beach 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.
Our route reaches every part of the city: Downtown and Alamitos Beach, Belmont Shore, Belmont Heights and Naples, Bluff Heights and Rose Park, California Heights and Los Cerritos, Bixby Knolls, Wrigley, North Long Beach, Lakewood Village, Los Altos, El Dorado Park Estates and the East Long Beach blocks around Los Altos Center. We work the bordering cities on the same days, including Lakewood, Paramount, Bellflower and Cypress.
Plumbing Problems in Long Beach Homes
A Mix of Pre-War and Postwar Housing
Long Beach incorporated in 1897 and has been building ever since, which makes it a different job from a city that went up in one stretch. The oceanfront tracts around Belmont Heights, Belmont Shore and Naples came out of the Alamitos Land Company. Bixby Knolls, California Heights, Los Cerritos and North Long Beach were subdivided from Rancho Los Cerritos after 1916. California Heights alone holds roughly 1,500 houses built in the late 1920s, mostly Spanish Colonial Revival, and it is the largest historic district in the city. Then the northeast corner filled in after the war, with Lakewood Village, Los Altos and El Dorado Park Estates going up through the fifties and sixties. Two houses eight blocks apart can be forty years and one foundation type removed from each other, so we ask what you have before we predict what is wrong with it.
Raised Foundations and Cast Iron Stacks
Houses in the pre-war neighborhoods generally sit on a raised foundation with a crawlspace underneath. That is worth knowing, because it puts the drain lines and much of the supply where a plumber can reach them without cutting concrete. What is under there is usually the original cast iron drain and vent stack. Cast iron rusts from the inside surface outward, scale builds along the bottom of the horizontal runs where waste sits longest, and the bore closes off a little more every year. Once the pipe wall thins enough the bottom drops out of a horizontal run and the leak goes into the crawlspace. Galvanized supply lines from the same era close inward the same way, which is where the brown first-draw water and the weak upstairs shower come from.
Slab Tracts in the Northeast of the City
The postwar side of Long Beach is built the way the tracts north of it are, on a concrete slab with the water lines running through the pour. That puts a supply failure under the floor with nothing above it to see. The house reports it another way, through a bill that climbs with no change in the household, water audible when nothing is running, or a warm strip of floor that follows the hot line from the heater. Copper in soil gives out from the outside, and it wears thin anywhere it sits against rebar or gravel. A run that has leaked once will usually leak again in the same length of pipe.
Older Apartment Buildings and Duplexes
A lot of the city lives in two-to-eight unit buildings put up between the twenties and the fifties, and those have their own pattern. The kitchen lines from several units tie into one branch, so a stoppage that looks like one tenant’s sink is often the shared line beyond the wall. Shutting water off for one unit frequently means shutting off the riser for the building, so we work out the valve arrangement before the first fitting comes apart. Where a building has been converted or added onto, we camera the drain to see what actually connects to what.
Long Beach Drain Cleaning and Sewer Lines
Drains are the volume work. Drain cleaning here covers the kitchen line coated with grease, the tub or shower stopped by hair, the sink whose trap is holding a ring, the toilet that quit after something went down it, and the floor drain in a laundry porch. The first thing we establish is whether the blockage is in the fixture arm, the branch line or the building main, since that answers what tool goes in and how far it has to travel. A cable clears a path through the obstruction and leaves the deposit that formed it sitting on the pipe wall. Hydro jetting strips that deposit off with water pressure and returns the line to its full diameter, which is what a grease-loaded kitchen line in an older building needs. Lines that stop again every few months belong under recurring clogged drains, and a plain main-line clearing is rooter service.
Everything in the building empties into the lateral, so a lateral problem announces itself with two fixtures backing up at once or the lowest drain gurgling while another one runs. We open those calls with a sewer camera inspection that shows the inside of the pipe on a monitor with the distance to the fault. On the older streets that footage decides between clearing roots at a joint, a spot sewer line repair, a trenchless replacement that spares the yard and the sidewalk, and a full sewer line replacement. Nothing gets replaced on a guess.
Water Heater Repair and Replacement in Long Beach
The no-hot-water call comes in before seven most mornings. Water heater repair begins by isolating which component stopped working. A dip tube that has cracked drops incoming cold water at the top of the tank instead of the bottom, so the cold leaves through the hot outlet and the aerators start collecting plastic flecks. On electric units the mineral coating on the element eventually burns it out. Thermostats fail or get knocked off setting, and 120 degrees is where we put them. Burner assemblies, gas control valves and relief valves all fail in ways that read as lukewarm water or a unit that will not stay lit.
Replacement becomes the cheaper answer at a certain point. Gas tanks in this area tend to run 6 to 8 years and electric tanks 8 to 10, and local water shortens both. Mineral drops out of solution as the water heats and lands on the tank floor or the element, which is why so many Long Beach heaters fall short of their rated life. Sediment on the floor of a gas tank insulates the water from the burner, so the burner runs longer and the steel over it overheats. Popping and rumbling are that sediment, or a used-up anode rod. Rust showing at the cold inlet or the relief valve means the corrosion is already inside the tank. We read the build date off the serial number and give you the age before you choose. When the answer is a new unit we install tank heaters and handle tankless installation, and a softener ahead of the heater keeps the next one from going the same way.
Slab Leaks Under Long Beach Foundations
A slab leak is a pressurized water line failing under the concrete, and the water keeps moving until the line is shut. Finding it precisely is what keeps the concrete work small, so slab leak service starts with acoustic listening and pressure isolation on each run rather than with a saw. Leak detection also covers gas lines and irrigation lines, which sometimes turn out to be what the meter was actually reading.
Signs Worth Calling About
- Running water you can hear with every fixture in the house closed
- Pressure that drops or swings without a change at the street
- Damp carpet or mildew at the base of a wall with nothing leaking above it
- A water bill rising month after month while usage stays flat
- A warm area of floor that follows a line rather than sitting where the sun hits
Once we know where it is, we lay out what each repair costs before starting. A first failure in sound pipe can be spot-repaired through a small opening. A run with a second leak in it, or an original galvanized line under the floor, is usually rerouted overhead or replaced through a copper repipe. Failures out between the meter and the house call for water line repair instead, and in crawlspace houses a bad run can often be replaced from below with ordinary pipe replacement.
Other Plumbing Work We Do in Long Beach
- Leaking pipes in crawlspaces, walls and ceilings
- Toilet repair and replacement
- Garbage disposals
- Sump pumps
- Plumbing inspections before a sale or a purchase
- Commercial plumbing repairs for Long Beach storefronts and restaurants
- Emergency plumbing, answered 24 hours
Long Beach Plumbing FAQ
How quickly can someone get here?
Call during office hours to schedule an appointment. After we close, the emergency line puts you through to someone who will say on that call whether it can hold until morning.
When is the office open?
Monday to Friday, 7:30am until 5pm, and Saturday from 8am until 12:30pm. Sunday the office is closed. The emergency line answers around the clock, holidays included.
Do you take Saturday appointments?
Yes, Saturday mornings are ordinary scheduled work up to 12:30pm. Anything on a Sunday runs through the 24-hour line as emergency work.
What does an estimate cost?
Nothing. We look at the job and quote a price before any work begins. Where diagnosis takes equipment, such as a camera run down a lateral, we price that step first and let you decide.
Is the company licensed and insured?
Yes. One Way Rooter & Plumbing operates under California contractor license #537893 and carries a bond and insurance. The license number is public and can be looked up on the CSLB site.
Do you work in every Long Beach neighborhood?
Yes, from 90802 downtown out to 90808 and 90815 in the east, and 90805 and 90810 to the north and west. Belmont Shore, Bixby Knolls, Wrigley, North Long Beach, Los Altos and everything between them are on the route.
Do you handle apartment buildings and rentals?
Yes. Much of our Long Beach work is duplexes, fourplexes and small apartment buildings. We can work with a property manager on access and billing, and residential plumbing on multi-unit buildings is routine for us.
My house was built in the 1920s. What should I expect to find?
Usually a cast iron drain system and galvanized supply, both original. Neither one fails all at once. Cast iron scales and thins along the horizontal runs, and galvanized closes from the inside until pressure at the far fixtures drops off. A camera in the drain and a pressure reading at a hose bib tell you where the house actually stands, and from there a partial repair or a copper repipe is a decision you can make with numbers in front of you.
Call a Long Beach Plumber
Call (562) 947-0110 to get a plumber out in Long Beach, or write to us through the contact page. For a broken line, a sewer backup or no water in the middle of the night, use the same number and ask for the emergency plumber.
