Plumbing answers for Chattanooga homes.

Most Chattanooga homes have two shut-offs: a valve inside, where the water line enters the house, and the meter box near the street. The inside valve is usually in the crawl space or basement on the wall facing the street, or beside the water heater in a house built on a slab.

Look for a round wheel handle (a gate valve, turn it clockwise until it stops) or a lever handle (a ball valve, turn it a quarter turn so the lever sits across the pipe). Older gate valves often seize or snap, so find yours and try it gently before you ever need it.

If the house valve will not close, the water can be shut at the meter box by the street. The meter belongs to the water utility, so call them or a plumber if you are not sure how to operate it. Once you have found your valve, tag it so everyone in the house knows where it is.

Shut off the main water valve straight away, then open a faucet at the lowest point of the house to drain what is left in the pipes. Stopping the water is what limits the damage; everything else can wait a few minutes.

If water is near outlets, light fittings or the electrical panel, keep out of the wet area and switch off power to that part of the house at the breaker panel only if you can reach the panel while standing somewhere dry. Move what you can out of the water, take photos for your insurer, and call a plumber.

Do not turn the water back on to check whether it has stopped. Leave it off until the pipe is repaired.

Leave the building immediately, and call Chattanooga Gas or 911 from outside, well away from the house. Do not look for the leak yourself.

On the way out, do not switch lights or appliances on or off, do not use a phone indoors, do not light anything, and do not start a car in an attached garage. Leave the door open behind you and keep everyone out until the gas company or fire department says it is safe.

Gas piping, gas valves and gas appliance controls are not homeowner repairs. Once the utility has made things safe, a licensed professional can repair the cause.

Stop using water everywhere in the house: no flushing, showers, dishwasher or washing machine. When sewage comes up at the lowest drain, the main line is blocked, and every gallon you send down comes back up.

Keep children and pets away from the area, since sewage carries bacteria. If you have an outside cleanout and can see that it is full, that confirms the blockage is between the house and the street or the septic tank.

Call a plumber and ask for the line to be inspected with a camera once it is cleared, so you know whether it was a one-time clog or roots, a break or a sag that will bring it back.

Close the cold water valve on the pipe above the water heater to stop it refilling, and if the heater is electric, switch off its breaker. That stops the leak from being fed and protects the elements.

If the heater is gas and you smell gas, leave the house and call the gas utility or 911 from outside. Otherwise leave the gas controls alone and let the plumber deal with them.

Water coming from the tank itself means the tank has rusted through and the heater needs replacing. Water from a fitting, the drain valve or the relief valve pipe can often be repaired. Either way, keep the cold valve closed and call.

Use the small stop valve on the wall or floor behind the toilet, or under the sink, and turn it clockwise until it stops. That isolates the fixture while the rest of the house keeps its water.

These little valves sit untouched for years and can stick or weep when they are finally turned. If one will not move with firm hand pressure, do not force it with pliers; shut the main instead and have the stop replaced.

Houses built before about 1960 in neighborhoods such as St. Elmo, Highland Park, North Chattanooga and Missionary Ridge commonly have galvanized steel water lines, cast iron drain stacks and a clay sewer pipe running to the street. Homes from the 1960s and 1970s usually have copper water lines with cast iron or early plastic drains.

Houses from the late 1970s to the mid 1990s may have gray polybutylene water pipe. Newer homes use PEX or CPVC for water and PVC for drains.

Most older houses are a mix, because each repair over the decades was made with whatever was current. Knowing what you have tells you which problems to expect.

Yes, in most cases. Galvanized steel pipe rusts from the inside, and by the time it is 60 to 80 years old it is usually choked with scale, prone to leaks at the threads, and near the end of its life.

The signs are low pressure that is worse on the hot side, rusty water first thing in the morning, and a history of leaks at joints. You can check a pipe by scratching it: galvanized is dull gray, a magnet sticks to it, and the scratch shows silver.

Replacement can be done in stages, starting with the worst runs, but patching galvanized one leak at a time generally costs more in the long run than replacing it.

Cast iron drain pipe typically lasts 50 to 100 years, so in a Chattanooga house built before 1960 it is at or past the age where problems appear. It usually fails from the inside along the bottom of horizontal runs.

Warning signs are slow drains throughout the house, a sewer smell in the crawl space or basement, rust blisters or damp streaks on the pipe, and clogs that keep coming back because the inside of the pipe has turned rough.

Cast iron does not all fail at once. A camera inspection shows which sections are sound and which are not, so only what needs replacing gets replaced.

Polybutylene is a gray flexible plastic water pipe installed in many homes from the late 1970s to the mid 1990s. It can become brittle and split without warning, so plumbers generally recommend replacing it rather than repairing it.

Look where pipes are exposed: at the water heater, under sinks and in the crawl space. Polybutylene is usually gray (sometimes blue outdoors), about half an inch to an inch across, and often stamped PB2110.

Some insurers ask about it, and home inspectors routinely flag it. If you are buying a house from that period, it is worth knowing before closing.

If the whole house has low pressure, the usual causes are a failing pressure reducing valve, a partly closed main valve, or old galvanized pipe narrowed by rust. If only one faucet is weak, the cause is nearly always a clogged aerator or a faulty cartridge in that fixture.

Note whether the problem is on hot, cold or both. Low pressure on the hot side only points to the water heater or the hot piping. A sudden drop across the house, especially with an unexplained wet patch in the yard or a higher water bill, can mean a leak in the service line.

A plumber can put a gauge on the system in a few minutes and tell you whether the problem is the supply or the piping inside the house.

Yes. Household pressure above 80 psi is too high under the plumbing codes used in Tennessee, and it wears out water heaters, toilet fill valves, washing machine hoses and faucet cartridges. It is common in Chattanooga at the bottom of hills, because water mains in the valleys carry more pressure.

Signs include banging pipes, faucets that spit when first opened, a relief valve that drips on the water heater, and toilet valves that fail every year or two.

The fix is a pressure reducing valve on the main line, usually set between 50 and 60 psi, together with an expansion tank at the water heater. An inexpensive gauge that screws onto a hose faucet will tell you your pressure.

Repair it if the pipe material is sound and this is the first or second leak. Repipe if the leaks are coming from old galvanized or polybutylene, or if they are becoming regular, because the rest of that pipe is the same age and in the same condition.

An honest plumber will tell you which situation you are in. A pinhole in otherwise healthy copper is a repair. The third leak in a year on 70-year-old galvanized is the pipe telling you it is finished.

Repiping does not always mean the whole house at once. Replacing the main runs under the house often solves most of the trouble, and the branches can follow later.

A sewer camera inspection sends a waterproof video camera on a flexible cable through your drain line, so you and the plumber can see the inside of the pipe. You need one when a main line clogs more than once, when several drains are slow together, before buying an older home, and before paying for any sewer repair.

The camera shows roots, cracks, separated joints, low spots that hold water, and grease or scale. A locator above ground marks exactly where the problem is and how deep, so nobody digs in the wrong place.

It is the difference between being told you need a new sewer line and being shown whether you do.

Yes. A standard home inspection does not look inside the sewer line, and in a Chattanooga house built before the 1970s that line is likely clay or cast iron that may be many decades old. A camera inspection before closing costs little compared with replacing a line you did not know was broken.

Mature trees between the house and the street, a patched area in the yard or driveway, and slow drains during the showing are all reasons to insist on it.

If the inspection finds a problem, you can negotiate the repair before you own it. If it finds nothing, you have bought peace of mind.

The homeowner is responsible for the sewer lateral on their own property. Inside the City of Chattanooga, a 2022 ordinance moved responsibility for four-inch laterals under the city right-of-way from homeowners to the City, so a problem in that section can be reported to the City.

Outside the city, much of Hamilton County is served by the Water and Wastewater Treatment Authority (WWTA), which has its own rules and a private service lateral program. Rules have changed in recent years, so check with whichever sewer provider is on your bill before paying for work near the street.

A camera inspection with a locator tells you exactly where the defect is, which settles the question of whose section it is.

Roots can be cut out to get the line flowing again, but they grow back, usually within a year or two, unless the pipe they are entering is repaired or replaced. Roots only get in where there is already an opening: a clay joint, a crack or a separated connection.

After the line is cleared, a camera shows how bad the pipe is. If the roots enter at one or two joints, a spot repair may be all that is needed. If every joint has roots, replacing the line ends the cycle.

Old clay laterals under big oaks and maples are the classic case in Chattanooga's older neighborhoods.

Several slow drains at once, or gurgling in one fixture when another is used, means the trouble is in the main drain or the vent system, not in the individual fixtures. One slow sink is a local clog; a slow tub, toilet and sink together is a main line problem.

A common sign is the toilet bubbling when the washing machine drains, or water rising in the tub when the toilet is flushed. That calls for clearing the main line and, if it happens again, a camera inspection.

We advise against them. Liquid drain cleaners rarely clear a real blockage, they sit in the pipe and attack old metal, and they leave a trap full of caustic liquid for whoever has to open the drain next.

For a slow sink, clean the stopper and trap or use a small hand snake or plastic hair tool. If that does not work, the clog is further down and needs a proper machine.

Never mix drain products, and tell your plumber if anything has been poured down the drain.

A cleanout is a capped pipe that gives direct access to the main drain line so it can be cleared and inspected. It is usually a three- or four-inch white or black plastic cap at ground level near the foundation, in line with the route to the street or septic tank.

Many older Chattanooga houses have no outside cleanout, or have one buried under mulch or soil. In that case the line has to be reached through a roof vent or by pulling a toilet, which is slower and messier.

Having a proper two-way cleanout installed makes every future clearing and inspection easier and cheaper.

Only toilet paper and human waste belong in a toilet, and no grease, oil or fibrous food scraps belong in a kitchen drain. Wipes labeled flushable do not break down the way toilet paper does and are among the most common causes of blocked lines and burned-out sewage pumps.

Keep out of the system: wipes of every kind, paper towels, feminine products, dental floss, cooking grease, coffee grounds, rice and pasta, and paint or solvents. This matters even more if you are on a septic tank or have a grinder pump.

Check your water bill: if it includes a sewer charge, you are on public sewer; if it shows water only, or you have a well, you are almost certainly on septic. Inside the City of Chattanooga most homes are on sewer, while many homes on Signal Mountain, in the north and east of Hamilton County and in the surrounding counties are on septic.

Other clues are a septic tank lid or riser in the yard, a patch of greener grass over the drain field, and property records that mention a septic permit. The county health department's records often show the tank's location.

If nobody knows where the tank is, a camera with a locator can follow the line from the house and find it.

Most household septic tanks should be pumped every three to five years, following U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidance. A large family, a small tank or a garbage disposal shortens that interval.

Pumping removes the solids that settle in the tank. If they build up too far they wash out into the drain field and clog the soil, and a failed drain field is by far the most expensive part of the system to replace.

Keep a record of each pumping. If you have just bought a house and there is no record, have the tank pumped and inspected so you start from a known point.

The main signs are slow drains throughout the house, sewage odors indoors or in the yard, wet or unusually green ground over the tank or drain field, and sewage backing up at the lowest drain. Any of them means the system needs attention soon.

Not every backup is the tank. The pipe from the house to the tank can be blocked by roots, a broken section or a low spot, and that is something a camera inspection will show.

Avoid driving or parking over the tank and drain field, and do not add more water to a struggling system while you wait for help.

Yes. A camera can inspect the line from the house to the septic tank and the tank's inlet, which is where many septic backups actually start. It shows breaks, roots, sags and blockages, and a locator can find a buried tank.

A camera does not tell you the condition of the soil in the drain field. That is judged from how the tank and field behave, and by a septic professional when the tank is pumped.

A grinder or ejector pump sits in a sealed basin and pumps wastewater uphill when the plumbing is lower than the sewer main or septic tank. Chattanooga's hillside lots, and basement bathrooms almost anywhere, are the usual reasons a home has one.

Wastewater drains into the basin by gravity. When it reaches a set level, a float switches the pump on and sends it through a small pressure pipe to the sewer or tank. A grinder pump also cuts solids fine so they pass through the smaller pipe.

The basin normally has a control box and a high-water alarm on a post or wall nearby. If you have one, know where its breaker and alarm are.

Cut your water use to the bare minimum and call a plumber. The alarm means the water in the basin is higher than it should be, and you have limited storage before it backs up into the house.

You can silence the buzzer at the panel if it has a silence switch; the warning light will stay on. Check that the pump's breaker has not tripped, and reset it once only. If it trips again, leave it off.

Do not open the basin. It is a confined space containing sewage, sewer gas and live electrical equipment.

Septic systems in Tennessee are permitted under the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC), which works through county offices; in Hamilton County, applications have been handled locally by the county health department's groundwater protection program. A permit is needed to install a new system or to repair or alter the tank or drain field.

Work on the plumbing inside the house and on the line to the tank is plumbing work. Installing septic systems and pumping tanks require their own state permits. Ask whoever you hire which license or permit covers the work they are quoting.

A tank water heater usually lasts 8 to 12 years. Past that age the risk of the tank rusting through rises quickly, so a heater in its teens is living on borrowed time even if it still makes hot water.

The date of manufacture is usually coded into the serial number on the rating label, and the installation date is often written on the tank. Rusty hot water, rumbling, moisture around the base and rust on the fittings are all signs it is near the end.

Replacing a heater on your schedule is far cheaper than replacing it, and the flooring, after it lets go.

Popping and rumbling come from sediment on the bottom of the tank. Minerals settle out of the water as it is heated, and steam bubbles forcing their way up through that layer make the noise.

It is not dangerous in itself, but the sediment makes the heater less efficient and shortens its life. Flushing the tank can help if it is done regularly from early on. On an old heater that has never been flushed, the drain valve may clog or fail to reseal, so it is better left to a plumber.

For an electric water heater, check whether its breaker has tripped and reset it once. For a gas water heater, check that the gas supply to the house is on and look at the status light on the control; if you smell gas at any point, leave and call the gas utility or 911 from outside.

If an electric heater's breaker trips again, leave it off: that points to a failed element or thermostat. If a gas heater's pilot or burner will not light or will not stay lit, call a plumber. Gas valves and burner controls are not something to adjust or take apart yourself.

Lukewarm water that runs out quickly usually means a failed lower element on an electric heater or a broken dip tube, both of which are repairs.

A dripping temperature and pressure relief valve means either the valve has worn out or it is doing its job because pressure in the tank is too high. Both need attention, and the valve must never be capped or plugged.

The usual cause of repeated dripping is thermal expansion: water expands as it heats, and in a system with a pressure reducing valve or check valve it has nowhere to go. A properly sized expansion tank cures it.

The relief valve is the safety device that keeps a water heater from over-pressurizing. If it runs steadily or releases hot water, shut off the cold supply to the heater and call a plumber.

You need one if your plumbing is a closed system, meaning there is a pressure reducing valve, check valve or backflow preventer on the water line. Plumbing codes require a way to absorb thermal expansion in a closed system, and many Chattanooga homes with high street pressure have one.

Without it, pressure spikes every time the heater runs, which is hard on the tank, the relief valve and every fixture in the house. Expansion tanks do wear out, typically in 5 to 10 years; one that is full of water and heavy when tapped has failed.

Chattanooga's city water is moderately hard. Tennessee American Water, which draws from the Tennessee River, reports total hardness of roughly 54 to 90 milligrams per liter, about 3 to 5 grains per gallon.

That is enough to leave some scale in a water heater and spots on glassware, but well below the level where a softener becomes close to essential. Homes on other utility districts or on private wells, especially wells in limestone, can have much harder water.

Your utility's annual water quality report gives the figure for your supply, and well water should be tested directly.

They do different jobs. A filter removes things such as sediment, chlorine taste and odor, or specific contaminants; a softener removes the calcium and magnesium that make water hard. On Chattanooga city water most households that want better water are best served by a carbon filter, and few truly need a softener.

On a private well the answer depends entirely on a water test. Iron, sulfur smell, sediment, hardness and bacteria each call for different equipment, and guessing leads to buying the wrong system.

Start with what bothers you (taste, smell, staining or scale) and a test result, then choose equipment to match.

It is possible in homes built before 1986, when lead solder and lead-bearing fittings were still allowed, and some older homes were connected to the main with a lead or galvanized service line. Water utilities are now required to keep an inventory of service line materials, so your utility can tell you what its records show for your address.

Running the cold tap for a minute or so after water has sat for hours, and using cold water for drinking and cooking, reduces exposure in the meantime. The only way to know is to have the water tested by a certified laboratory.

If a lead service line or lead-soldered piping is confirmed, replacing it is the lasting answer.

A rotten-egg smell from the hot water only is usually caused by a reaction between the anode rod inside the water heater and bacteria in the water. It is most common on well water and in heaters that have sat unused.

The cure is normally to flush and disinfect the tank and change the anode rod to a different type. If the cold water smells as well, the source is the water supply or the well, which is a filtration question instead.

Pipes in unheated spaces are at real risk once the outside temperature falls to about 20°F or lower for several hours. Chattanooga gets nights like that most winters and now and then a much harder freeze, as at Christmas 2022, when temperatures fell into the single digits.

Because our winters are usually mild, many houses here have water lines in vented crawl spaces, outside walls and attics with little insulation. Those are the pipes that freeze first, along with outdoor faucets.

Wind matters as much as the thermometer: a draft through a crawl space vent or a gap in the foundation can freeze a pipe on a night that would otherwise be harmless.

Disconnect garden hoses, close crawl space vents, open the cabinet doors under sinks on outside walls, and let faucets on vulnerable lines run at a thin steady stream overnight. Keep the heat on, no lower than about 55°F, even if you are away.

Before winter, insulate exposed pipes in the crawl space and attic, seal gaps where cold air blows in, and make sure everyone in the house knows where the main shut-off is.

If you will be away during a freeze, shutting off the main and opening a faucet to relieve pressure is cheap insurance.

Open the faucet it serves, then warm the frozen section gently with a hair dryer, a heating pad or warm towels, starting at the faucet end. Never use a torch, a heat gun or any open flame: that is how house fires start and pipes split.

If you cannot reach the frozen section, warm the room and the space around it and give it time. Know where your main shut-off is before the pipe thaws, because a pipe that has split will only show itself when the ice melts.

If water appears anywhere it should not as things thaw, shut the main and call a plumber.

Yes. Disconnect hoses from every outdoor faucet before the first freeze. A hose left attached traps water in the faucet, and that is the most common reason outdoor faucets split in a Chattanooga winter, including frost-free ones.

If the faucet has its own shut-off valve inside the house or crawl space, close it and open the outside faucet to drain the line. Foam covers help a little, but they are no substitute for removing the hose.

A split faucet often leaks only when it is next turned on, inside the wall or crawl space, so check the first time you use each one in spring.

Yes. Tennessee's Board for Licensing Contractors, part of the Department of Commerce and Insurance, licenses plumbing work. Jobs under $25,000 are generally done under a Limited Licensed Plumber (LLP) license, and plumbing projects of $25,000 or more require a state contractor's license with a mechanical-plumbing (CMC-A) classification.

Cities and counties can add their own requirements, and plumbing permits are issued locally. The point for a homeowner is simple: the person or company doing the work should be able to show you a current license that covers the size of your job.

Ask for the license number and look it up on the State of Tennessee's license search at verify.tn.gov, which is run by the Department of Commerce and Insurance. It shows the name on the license, its type, its status and its expiry date.

Check that the name matches the business you are dealing with and that the license is active. You can also call the Board for Licensing Contractors in Nashville if something does not look right.

Ask every plumber you are considering, us included, for theirs before work begins.

Many do. Replacing a water heater, repiping, altering drain or water lines and repairing or replacing a sewer line typically require a plumbing permit and an inspection, while like-for-like repairs such as changing a faucet or clearing a drain do not.

Inside the City of Chattanooga, permits are issued by the city's Land Development Office; elsewhere in Hamilton County they come from the county's building inspection department or the town concerned. Your plumber should tell you whether your job needs one and should be the one to pull it.

A permit means someone independent checks the work, which protects you now and when you sell the house.

A good estimate states in writing what work will be done, which materials will be used, the price, what is not included, and whether a permit is needed. It should be specific enough that two plumbers reading it would do the same job.

Watch for vague lines such as 'repair sewer' with no length, depth or material, and ask how surprises will be handled, for example rock, a second break or rotted flooring. On sewer work, ask to see the camera footage that the estimate is based on.

Ask for their Tennessee license number, proof of insurance, whether the job needs a permit and who pulls it, what the price covers, and what they stand behind afterward. Clear, unhurried answers to those five questions tell you most of what you need to know.

It is also fair to ask who will actually be doing the work, whether they have done this kind of job in a house like yours, and whether they will show you the problem before fixing it.

Be careful with anyone who pushes you to decide on the spot or will not put the price in writing.

Yes. Living Water Plumbing does both residential and commercial plumbing in the Chattanooga area, including water heaters, water filtration systems and camera inspection of sewer and septic lines.

Call 423-567-0011 and describe the building and the problem, and we will tell you plainly whether it is work we can take on.