Plumbing contractors in the United States

The wage figure above covers three occupations

The employment and pay line on this page comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics occupation 47-2152, which the bureau titles plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters. Those are three different jobs. A plumber works on the water, waste and gas systems of a building; a pipefitter works on high-pressure process and mechanical piping; a steamfitter works on steam systems. They are trained separately and in many places licensed separately.

The bureau publishes them as one series, so the median wage and the employment count on this page are a blend of all three and are not a plumbing-only measure. In a metro with heavy industry or a large institutional steam load, the blend leans toward the industrial half and reads higher than residential plumbing alone would. This site prints the occupation title exactly as the bureau writes it rather than relabelling the series, because relabelling it would be the error.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, occupational employment for plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters

Find your shutoffs before you need them

A supply failure is measured in gallons per minute until someone closes a valve, and every plumbing emergency page in the world is written for people who are looking for that valve while standing in water. There are usually three answers. Each fixture has its own stop, under the sink or behind the toilet. The water heater has a cold-inlet valve on the pipe entering the top of the tank. The house has a main shutoff, normally where the supply enters the building, on the street side of the meter, or in a box at the property line.

The one worth finding today is the main. Open and close it once so you know it turns, because a main valve that has not moved in twenty years sometimes does not. In a house on a well rather than a municipal supply, cutting power to the pump is the equivalent move.

Knowing the answer does not replace a plumber. It decides how much of the house the plumber has to dry out first.

Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, WaterSense, finding and fixing leaks

Water heaters are usually permitted work

Swapping a water heater looks like an appliance replacement and is treated as building work almost everywhere, because of what surrounds the tank rather than the tank itself: a gas connection and its combustion venting, or a dedicated electrical circuit; a temperature-and-pressure relief valve and the discharge line that has to terminate somewhere safe; seismic strapping in some states; and a drain pan where a leak would reach a finished floor.

This site publishes no permit rule for your address, and will not, because permits are issued by city and county building departments and both the requirement and the fee vary between neighbouring jurisdictions. What is worth knowing is the shape of the answer: the contractor doing the work normally pulls the permit, a quote that is materially cheaper than the others sometimes omits it, and an unpermitted installation is a question that returns at the point of sale.

Source: U.S. Department of Energy, water heating

Drains and supply are two different problems

A slow drain, a backing-up sewer line and a dripping supply joint are usually quoted by the same company and are not the same kind of work. Drain and sewer work is about slope, root intrusion, joint failure and what has been flushed, and the tool that answers it is a camera rather than a wrench. Supply work is about pressure, material and connections.

The distinction matters when a house changes hands. A camera inspection of the lateral between the house and the main is a separate purchase from a general home inspection, and it is the only way to see a clay-tile lateral that is intact enough to drain today and cracked enough to fail next year.

Plumbing questions answered on this site

• Water heater leaking from the bottom: how urgent?
• A pipe froze: what do you do first?
• Tank or tankless: which water heater replacement?
• Is a sewer line camera inspection worth it before you buy?