Plumbers in Kensington, San Diego

Kensington Park opened for lot sales in 1910, with Craftsman houses first and a wave of Spanish Revival homes by the late 1920s. Plenty of those houses still have their original tile, plaster walls and built-ins. Owners usually want the plumbing fixed and the character left alone. In a house this age the two can pull against each other, so here is how we approach the three jobs where that happens most.

A Shower Valve Behind Original Tile

Old two-handle shower valves wear out, and replacement parts for them get harder to find. Replacing the whole valve body is often the lasting fix. Today’s valves are pressure-balancing or thermostatic, which California requires for new shower valve installations. They keep the water from turning scalding when someone flushes a toilet mid-shower.

The valve sits inside the wall, and there are two ways in. The first is from the back: if a closet or hallway shares that wall, we can open it there and leave the tile untouched. The second is from the front, through the tile itself, kept as small as the new valve allows. Before you book, find out what’s on the other side of your shower wall. It decides most of the plan. Our shower valve installation page goes through the job in more detail.

Replacing Old Supply Pipe Without Gutting the Plaster

Many older San Diego homes still have galvanized steel supply pipe, which narrows from the inside as it corrodes. The signs are weak pressure at several fixtures, brown water after the house sits unused, and leaks at threaded joints.

Replacing it doesn’t have to mean opening every wall. If your house sits on a raised foundation, new lines can often run through the crawlspace and come up through the floor under each fixture. An attic can serve the same purpose. Where a pipe has to pass through plaster, the openings are small and patchable. A repipe needs a City permit and an inspection, and we handle both.

Keeping a Vintage Sink, Tub or Toilet

A pedestal sink or clawfoot tub that still works doesn’t need to go. What usually fails around it is the small stuff: the shutoff valves under the fixture, the supply lines and the old faucet washers. We replace those and leave the fixture in place.

Selling soon? Look at the toilets and showerheads first. The City of San Diego requires older, high-flow fixtures to be replaced before a sale, with exemptions for some historic fixtures. Our City Heights page explains how that rule works, and it applies in Kensington the same way.

Before You Call

• Note which rooms share a wall with the shower or tub.
• Check whether the house has a crawlspace hatch, often in a closet floor or outside along the foundation.
• Look at a pipe under a sink or near the water heater: gray and threaded usually means galvanized steel, while copper is orange-brown.

Have those answers handy when you call. Drain clogs are the one call we pass along; Drain Mob handles those for our customers.

Courtesy Plumbing holds California contractor license #910268 and works on homes throughout Kensington. The office picks up weekdays, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., at (858) 567-0544, or you can describe the house on our contact page.