Fixtures & Faucets in San Jose, CA
A dripping faucet wastes up to 3,000 gallons a year; a running toilet can waste ten times that, which is real money on a San Jose water bill. Fixture problems are small until they are not, and they are the most satisfying fixes in plumbing: an hour of work and the annoyance is gone.
We repair and install faucets, toilets, sinks, garbage disposals, shower valves, and hose bibs. Bought your own fixture at Costco or online? We are happy to install customer-supplied fixtures and will tell you upfront if a model has a reputation for trouble.
One South Bay note: hard-water scale is usually what kills cartridges, fill valves, and aerators here. When we replace a part, we will show you the scale and tell you whether the rest of the fixture has life left or you are better off replacing it once instead of part-by-part.
When people call us about this
- Faucet dripping or handle getting stiff
- Toilet running, ghost-flushing, or rocking at the base
- Garbage disposal humming, jammed, or leaking underneath
- Weak or scalding shower from a failing mixing valve
- Outdoor hose bib dripping or spraying at the handle
Questions we get asked
Can you install a fixture I bought myself?+
Yes, and plenty of people do. One request: open the box and check it before we come out. The commonest reason a fixture install turns into two visits is a part missing from the carton or a finish that arrived damaged, and neither is visible until somebody opens it. It is also worth knowing that fixtures vary a lot in how they are built, and the inexpensive ones often use plastic internals that fail in a few years, so the money saved on the fixture comes back as a service call later. We are not going to refuse to fit something because we did not supply it, but if we think a particular unit will give you trouble we will say so before we install it.
Why does my toilet keep running?+
Almost always one of two parts, and both are cheap. Take the lid off the tank and put a few drops of food coloring in the water, then leave it twenty minutes without flushing. If color appears in the bowl, the rubber flapper at the bottom is not sealing. They wear out with age and with our water, and swapping one is a two-minute job with the stop valve closed. If the color stays put but it still runs, the fill valve is letting water past into the overflow tube, and those replace easily too. It is worth doing promptly rather than living with it, because a toilet that runs intermittently all night wastes a genuinely surprising amount of water.
Is it worth repairing an old faucet or should I replace it?+
It comes down to whether parts still exist for it. A good-quality faucet from a brand that still supports it is usually worth rebuilding, because cartridges and seals are inexpensive and the body of a well-made tap outlasts several sets of internals. Where it stops being worth it is when the finish has gone, when the parts have been discontinued, or when it is a builder-grade unit whose internals are plastic and will fail again in a year or two. There is also a middle case worth mentioning: if the tap is fine but the flow has faded, that is often just scale in the aerator, and unscrewing and soaking it costs nothing at all.
Further reading: Hard Water in San Jose: What It Does to Your Pipes and Fixtures and The Toilet That Runs at Night, and Three Other Things You Can Fix Yourself.
Describe it to us and we will tell you what it is.
Phone consultations do not cost anything. If it turns out to be something you can sort out yourself, we will say so.
Related work
Fixtures & Faucets across the South Bay
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