Plumbing Guides & Resources

Written by the plumber who holds the license, for people who would rather understand the job than just be sold one.

Rather text? Send a photo of the problem to 352-377-9447 and we’ll tell you what it sounds like.

State Certified Plumbing Contractor CFC1430748

Locally owned. Two year parts and labor warranty. We patch every hole we cut.

To come out and diagnose it

$ 69

Leak detection, find it or you don't pay

$ 375

Parts and labor warranty, manufacturer warranty on top

2 yr

These plumbing tips and guides for Gainesville and North Central Florida cover slab leaks, repiping, cast iron drains and lining, water heaters, well water treatment, softeners, septic systems and Alachua County permits. Each one is written by First Choice Plumbing, state certified CFC1430748, with real prices where we have them. $69 to come out. Call or text 352-377-9447.

Start with what is happening right now

Not ready to talk to anybody yet? Browse the full library below.

Browse the guides

Leaks and water loss

Leak detection, and what $375 actually buys. How we find a leak without guessing, what the flat rate covers, and why you do not pay if we do not find it.

Slab leaks in a Florida house. Why slab-on-grade construction hides leaks for months, the five signs worth acting on, and how we open only what has to be opened.

What to do the day you find a hidden leak. Shut it off, photograph it, and call your insurer before you call a restoration company. GRU also runs a leak adjustment program worth asking about.

Pipes and repiping

Repiping, start to finish. What gets opened, how long you are without water, what materials we use and why, and how the holes get patched.

Polybutylene and galvanized. If your house was piped between 1978 and 1995, this one is worth ten minutes. Polybutylene fails at the fittings, with no warning.

Plumbing for a bathroom remodel. What a plumber prices, what a tile setter prices, and where the two jobs meet. We price the plumbing and bring in a tile partner.

Drains and sewer lines

Drain clearing is not drain cleaning. One is an hour and a half. The other is a milling machine and a day or two. Know which one you are being sold.

Descaling old cast iron. What the inside of a fifty year old pipe actually looks like, and what it takes to bring it back to bare metal.

Lining a pipe instead of digging it up. We are a NuFlow certified contractor. Epoxy lining from the inside is usually faster than open cutting and cheaper than rebuilding a floor.

What a sewer camera shows you. You watch the same monitor we do, before anybody decides anything.

Water heaters

Tank water heaters. Sizing, gas versus electric, what a permit covers, and the maintenance that decides whether you get eight years or fourteen.

Tankless, honestly. Who it suits, who it does not, and the annual flush. We flush with vinegar, not chemicals.

Well water, softeners and water quality

Why your well water smells like rotten eggs. Usually hydrogen sulfide out of the Floridan Aquifer. Sometimes it is only the water heater, which is a much smaller fix.

Softener or full filtration? Hardness alone is a softener. Sulfur needs air injection and a gas-off tank. Iron, sulfur and hardness together is the full train.

Softeners and Gainesville city water. GRU water runs moderately hard at roughly eight grains per gallon, so city customers are usually a softener conversation, not a whole system.

Iron and sulfur removal. What the equipment does, what it costs to run, and how often the media actually needs attention.

Septic systems

Septic, in plain language. How a tank and drain field work together, what shortens their life, and what we do and do not handle.

Drain fields. The signs one is failing, what replacement involves, and why Alachua County springs-protection rules can change the system you are allowed to install.

Pump-outs, and who we send you to. We do not pump. We will point you to the outfit we trust rather than leave you calling around.

Permits, license and paperwork

Do you need a permit in Alachua County? For most real plumbing work, yes, including a water heater swap. Which office signs off depends on where your house sits.

How to check a plumber’s license. What CFC means, how to look up a number, and what it tells you when somebody will not hand theirs over.

What our warranty covers. Two years parts and labor, manufacturer warranty on top, and what happens when you call us back.

Out in the county

Farm and barn plumbing. Horse waterers, feeders, hose bibs, outdoor kitchens and pool lines around Hawthorne, Williston and High Springs.

Gas lines. Licensed plumbers are licensed for gas. What that covers and what it does not.

Fixtures. Faucets, toilets, disposals, shower valves and pans. No tile work, and we say so before you book.

New construction and remodels. Rough-in through trim-out, with the owner running the estimate.

Cost and paying for it. What plumbing work costs around here. Real ranges for the jobs people actually ask about, and what makes a quote swing high or low. Financing a bigger job. Available down to around $500. We walk you through the terms before you commit, and there is no pressure if you would rather not.

Guides written and reviewed by Will Harrod, Florida Certified Plumbing Contractor CFC1430748.

What these guides will not do

They will not pretend every problem needs a truck. A running toilet, a stuck disposal, a hose bib washer, a garbage disposal reset button you did not know existed. If a guide can talk you through it, it does, and we would rather you fix it yourself and remember who told you how.

They will not tell you to replace something that has years left. If your water heater is nine years old and working, the guide says so. If your cast iron still has wall thickness, lining can wait.

They will not scare you. There is a page on this site about what waiting actually costs, because that is real, but you will not find flood photos and a countdown timer.

And they will not hide the parts we do not do. No tile. No paint. No septic pump-outs, inspections or tank removal. No backflow certification. No heating and air, no electrical. We are not a general contractor. If what you need is on that list, call anyway. We will tell you who does it well.

See every question we get asked.

Five things about plumbing here that a national article will never tell you

City water is moderately hard.

GRU water runs about 140 mg/L as calcium carbonate, roughly eight grains per gallon, pH 8.6, drawn from the Floridan Aquifer and treated at the Murphree plant. That is hard enough to shorten the life of a water heater and spot up glass, and soft enough that most city homes do not need a full treatment train.

The rotten egg smell has two suspects.

On a well it is usually hydrogen sulfide out of the aquifer. On city water GRU points at the water heater, and the fix can be as small as swapping a magnesium anode rod for aluminum. We test first. It is free.

Gainesville grew in the sixties and seventies.

If your house predates 1975 it almost certainly has cast iron drains, and cast iron scales shut from the inside long before it leaks.

1978 to 1995 is the polybutylene window.

Gray flexible supply line, failing at the acetal fittings, without warning.

Permitting depends on your side of a line.

Unincorporated Alachua County permits through Growth Management. Inside the City of Gainesville and the other municipalities it goes through their own building office. On septic, county springs-protection zones can require an enhanced nutrient-reducing system on new installs.

The difference is in who wrote it

What you are really looking for	First Choice Plumbing	Typical Installer / Big-Name Brand
Who wrote the guide	The owner who holds the license, CFC1430748	An agency writer who has never been in a crawlspace
Prices in the article	$69 to come out, $375 flat leak detection, published	"Contact us for a free quote"
Local detail	GRU hardness, aquifer sulfur, 1978 to 1995 polybutylene, county permit split	Advice that would read the same in Ohio
Do it yourself steps	Included, even when it means we do not get the call	Left out on purpose
Work they will not do	Listed plainly, with a referral	Yes to everything, sorted out on your time
How the library is organized	By what is going wrong in your house	Newest blog post first
Old cast iron	Milled clean or lined from the inside	Cut it out, dig it up, rebuild the floor
Well and septic content	Covered, because half our service area is on both	Barely mentioned

$69 to come out. Financing available on larger jobs.

Who wrote these guides

Will Harrod holds the license, CFC1430748, and he still runs the estimates himself. Everything on these pages came out of jobs he or Mike actually did, in houses in Gainesville, Hawthorne, Melrose, Newberry, Williston and out through Putnam and Levy county.

The shop is locally owned and small on purpose. Kim answers the phone and does the dispatching. Mike runs service and drains. Ben is coming up fast behind him. Nobody here works off a commission sheet, so nothing in these guides is written to steer you toward the expensive version.

That is also why the guides say no as often as they say yes. When the owner is the one standing in your hallway a week later, it does not pay to oversell anything on a website. About us

What reading and not calling actually costs

There is a point where research stops helping. A slab leak does not stay a plumbing bill. It turns into a flooring bill, a cabinet bill, and a water bill you cannot argue your way out of. Cast iron that has scaled shut does not open back up on its own, and the backup always picks the worst possible hour.

Polybutylene fails at the fittings without warning, and it does not care that you were going to get to it in the spring. Untreated well water quietly takes years off a water heater and every fixture in the house.

None of that is a scare story. It is just what happens on a long enough timeline, and every one of those repairs is cheaper on the day you first noticed something was off.

What it looks like when you did the homework

You walked into the conversation knowing what the job was. Nobody got to talk you into a system your water does not need, because you had the test results in your hand. You knew the price before anybody picked up a tool. The permit got pulled, the inspector came, and the paperwork is in a folder in the kitchen drawer.

The water out of the tap does not smell like anything. The drains run the way they did when the house was new. The wall we opened looks like nobody opened it.

And the next time something goes sideways, you are not starting over with a search and three voicemails.

$69

To come out and diagnose it

$375

Leak detection, find it or you don't pay

2 Years

Parts and labor warranty, manufacturer warranty on top

CFC1430748

Florida certified plumbing contractor

Questions about the guides

Where should I start if I do not know what is wrong?

Start with the symptom, not the system. A bill that jumped or a warm spot on the floor points at leaks. A gurgle when the washer drains points at the main line. Water that smells points at the water heater or the well. Pick the group that matches what you noticed, and if none of them fit, call or text and describe it. Kim has heard it before.

By the plumber. Will Harrod holds Florida certified plumbing contractor license CFC1430748 and reviews every page on this site. The writing is cleaned up, the plumbing is not. If a guide tells you a repair is simpler than somebody else quoted, that is on purpose.

Do you publish prices in the guides?

Where we have a real number, yes. It is $69 to come out and diagnose the problem, waived on larger jobs. Leak detection is $375 flat, and if we do not find it you do not pay. For everything else the guides give honest ranges and explain what swings a quote high or low, because a repipe on a two bath slab house and a repipe on a farmhouse with a crawlspace are not the same job.

Related: Leak Detection | Repipe

Do I need a permit for plumbing work in Alachua County?

For most real plumbing work, yes. Florida requires a permit to alter, repair, replace or convert a plumbing system, and that includes swapping out a water heater. Unincorporated Alachua County goes through the county Growth Management Building Division. Inside the City of Gainesville and the other municipalities it goes through their own building office. We pull the permit, meet the inspector, and hand you the paperwork at the end.

Is Gainesville city water hard enough to need a softener?

Moderately. GRU water runs around eight grains per gallon, which is hard enough to shorten the life of a water heater and leave spots on glass, but nowhere near well water territory. City customers are usually a softener conversation. Well customers are usually a bigger one. We test the water free either way before anybody starts talking about equipment.

Why does my well water smell like rotten eggs?

Usually hydrogen sulfide coming straight out of the Floridan Aquifer, which is common on wells across this part of Florida. Sometimes it is the water heater instead, which is a much smaller fix, and GRU points at the same two suspects for city customers. We test the water free and tell you which one it is before anybody starts talking about equipment.

Do you have guides for septic and well systems, not just city plumbing?

Yes, and that is deliberate. A good part of our service area is on a well and a septic tank, and most plumbing content online quietly assumes city water and a sewer hookup. We cover tanks, drain fields, locating and abandonment. We do not pump tanks and we do not do the certified inspection for a real estate closing, and the guides say so.

Related: Septic | Drain Fields | Septic Pump-Out

Can I use these guides to do the work myself?

Some of it, and we will tell you which parts. Resetting a disposal, replacing a hose bib washer, finding your main shutoff, flushing a tank heater. What you should not do yourself is anything that needs a permit, anything with gas, and anything inside a slab. Not because we want the call, but because an unpermitted water heater can turn into a problem when you sell the house.

Read as much as you want. Then let's go look at the actual pipe.

$69 to come out. $375 flat for leak detection, and if we don’t find it, you don’t pay. State certified, locally owned, and the owner still shows up. Book a visit or send us a question.

Leaks don’t stand a chance.

Tell us what's going on and we'll take it from there

You get a real person, a $69 visit, a flat price before we start, and a company that patches what it cuts and answers the phone when you call back. If a smaller fix is the right call, we’ll tell you that too.

First Choice Plumbing is a locally owned, owner led plumbing company working Gainesville, Hawthorne and Greater Alachua County. Leak detection, repipes, water heaters, drains, trenchless lining, well water filtration and septic. We find it, we fix it, we guarantee it.

Florida Certified Plumbing Contractor CFC1430748

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