The price is on this page before anybody gets in the van.
Plumbing inside the house and septic outside it, for Lathrop, Plattsburg, Gower, Holt, Turney and Cameron. Find what your house is doing below.
Start here
Find the thing your house is doing.
You do not need to know what is wrong. You need to know what it costs, and whether it is a tonight problem or a Monday problem. That is what these eight are for. Every price is the flat rate for the usual version of that job, in daylight hours, inside our normal area.
Every drain in the house is slow at once
Not one fixture. All of them, and the lowest one backs up first. That is the main line or the tank, not the sink.
Main line cabled from the cleanout, $265
Call tonight
One toilet, and only that one
Everything else drains fine. Nine times in ten it is the trap in that toilet, and twice a year it is a child's toy we hand back to you.
Pulled, cleared and reset, $190
Tomorrow is fine
No hot water, or hot for four minutes
Four minutes means a broken dip tube or a dead lower element. No hot at all on a gas heater usually means the thermocouple.
Diagnosis $95, applied to the repair
Tomorrow is fine
Wet ground and a smell over the lateral field
The field is saturated and the tank is pushing solids into it. Pumping buys you weeks, not years. Read the section below before you agree to anything.
Tank pumped and inspected, $445
Call tonight
Water standing in the basement floor drain
The lateral out to the main or the tank is blocked past that point. Stop running water in the house until it is cleared, including the washer.
Cabled, $265. Camera added, $180
Call tonight
A faucet or a valve that will not stop dripping
Cartridge or seat. On anything under about fifteen years old we rebuild it. Past that the part usually costs more than the faucet.
First fixture $145, each after $65
This can wait
Pressure dropped everywhere, all at once
On rural water it is usually the pressure reducing valve at the meter. On a private well it is the pump or the bladder tank, and we will send you to a well contractor.
Valve replaced, $310
Tomorrow is fine
Something is running behind a wall
A supply leak inside a wall is the one on this list that gets expensive by the hour. Shut the main off at the meter and then call.
Located and opened, from $240
Call tonight
Half the calls out here are septic, and almost nobody has seen their own system.
This is what is buried in your yard. It is worth two minutes, because the difference between a $445 pump-out and a $14,000 new lateral field is usually something a homeowner did without knowing it mattered.
1The lateral
One pipe from the house to the tank, and it needs a quarter inch of fall per foot. Too flat and solids settle. Too steep and the water runs off and leaves them behind.
2The risers
If yours are buried, every pump-out starts with digging. Bringing two lids to grade is $340 once and it pays for itself in two visits.
3The three layers
Grease on top, water in the middle, sludge on the bottom. Only the middle is supposed to leave. When the sludge is deeper than a third of the tank, it starts leaving too.
4The distribution box
Splits the flow between the trenches. It settles out of level over the years and sends everything down one line, which is how a field dies a third at a time.
5The lateral field
Perforated pipe in gravel. The soil, not the pipe, does the work. Once it seals over there is no unclogging it. This is the $14,000 part.
What actually kills a lateral field
- Flushable wipesThey are not. They do not break down and they bridge the outlet baffle.
- Cooking grease down the sinkThickens the scum layer until it reaches the outlet.
- A truck, a camper or a pool parked on the fieldCompacts the soil. The soil is the filter.
- A water softener discharging into the tankThe brine kills the bacteria doing the digesting.
- Never pumping itThree to five years for a family of four out here. Write the date on the panel box.
- Additives sold at the farm storeAt best nothing. Some of them liquefy the sludge and send it straight to the field.
The rest of the board
Flat rates, quoted before work starts. If the job turns out not to be the usual version, you get the new number before anything else happens, and you can say no.
| Work | Flat rate |
|---|---|
| Diagnostic visit, weekday, inside our area | $95 |
| Water heater replaced, 40 or 50 gallon gas, tank and labour | $1,690 |
| Toilet replaced, your fixture | $220 |
| Hose bib or frost free sillcock replaced | $185 |
| Sewer line camera and locate | $180 |
| Septic tank pumped, up to 1,250 gallons | $445 |
| Two septic risers brought to grade | $340 |
| Real estate septic inspection with written report | $395 |
| After hours, weekends and holidays, added to the above | +$150 |
Prices held through 2026. Outside Clinton, Clay, DeKalb and Caldwell counties there is a $2 per mile charge past the county line, and we will tell you the number on the phone rather than surprise you with it on the invoice.
Things we will tell you no about
- Well pumps and pressure tanks. Different licence, different truck. We will give you two names.
- New construction rough-in on anything over about 2,500 square feet. Two of us cannot keep a builder's schedule.
- Selling you a new lateral field on the same day we pump the tank. If the field is failing you get a second look after it has drained down.
- Additives, treatments and yearly maintenance plans. We do not sell any of the three.
After six, it is the same two people who answer.
No dispatcher and no call centre. If it can safely wait until morning we will say so on the phone and save you the after hours charge, which is the only reason to publish it.
(816) 555‑0118After hours adds $150 to the flat rate. Sewage backing up into the house is never a wait, so call regardless of the hour.