What our crews find in Clinton, Langley, Freeland and Coupeville, from pumphouse shutoffs and septic lines to propane tankless heaters
Island homeowners usually ask us two things: whether a mainland plumber will really make the trip, and what to do about plumbing a city house never has. These answers come from our own calls on Whidbey.
Will a plumber from the mainland really come out to Whidbey Island?
Yes. Our shop is in Old Town Mukilteo, less than a mile from the ferry dock, and the crossing to Clinton takes about twenty minutes. We work across South and Central Whidbey, from Clinton and Langley to Freeland, Greenbank and Coupeville, and island calls carry a dispatch fee that we quote when you book.
Can you replace a water heater on the island?
Yes. In October 2026 Chase replaced a roughly twenty-year-old electric water heater at a house near Clinton with a new 50-gallon tank. He moved the earthquake strapping to fit it, added an expansion tank set to the house's water pressure, bled the air out through the tub and walked the homeowner through the new heater.
“Super friendly, approachable, and professional! Really nice guys on the phone as well as when they came out to replace our old water heater. They came out fast even though we’re on Whidbey and they had to cross the water. …”
Ezra V., Google review, October 2026
My tub roars every time a toilet flushes. Is my septic backing up?
Probably not. A rushing noise from a tub drain when a toilet flushes usually means the tub's trap has dried out and air is moving through it. At a Freeland house where the tub had not been used in about two years, Logan added water to the trap and the noise stopped.
The call had come in as plumbing backing up, a week after the septic tank was pumped. Logan also ran a camera through the vent from the roof to check it.
The shutoff in my pumphouse is leaking. Is that a plumber's job?
Yes. The piping, valves and pressure tank in a well pumphouse are plumbing. At a Langley house where a root ball had swallowed a leaking shutoff, Connor and Logan shut the pump off, drained the pressure tank, replaced the valve with a new ball valve and cycled the pump until the system held its pressure.
There is water in the yard between my well and the house. Whose leak is it?
On a private well, everything from the pump to the house belongs to the owner, and on a shared well or small water system the owner's part usually starts at the meter. At a Freeland property, Chase found a cracked two-inch PVC main buried in soft sand, cut out the bad section and rebuilt it with a swing joint.
Does an ejector pump need a service every year?
Once a year is a sensible rhythm. At a Langley property in August 2026, Logan and Willie cleared lingering toilet paper from the ejector pump serving an accessory dwelling, watched it cycle several times with the lid open, and confirmed at the end-of-line cleanout that it was moving all of the water each time it ran.
That service is separate from the septic inspection Island County requires, which is yearly for a system with a pump and every three years for a gravity system.
The line from my house to the septic tank keeps backing up. Could the pipe have sunk?
It can. Pipe that loses its slope holds water and waste in a low spot. At a Freeland house, Logan first dug out a belly where the outside line changed pipe types, and on a second visit he and Willie found the last foot before the tank sloping backward and relaid the run at a quarter inch per foot.
They had to chip out some of the foundation inside the crawl space to get that slope, a sign the house may have settled, and they recorded the finished line with a camera before backfilling.
My propane tankless water heater goes cold under a big draw. Is it the heater or the propane?
It can be either, which is why we measure. On a Langley tankless, Logan descaled the unit and found the gas pressure dropping about twice as far at full draw as it should, which pointed at the heater's control or the regulator on the propane tank. In Clinton, J.D. found the propane company had simply left a valve off.
Plumbing Help on Whidbey Island
Call the office, tell us where on the island you are and what is happening, and we will tell you how soon we can be on a boat.
Call 425-374-3909 · Request a Quote
Related: plumbing in Coupeville · plumbing in Freeland · plumbing in Langley · plumbing in Clinton · commercial plumbing in Langley · a toilet reset in Freeland · water heaters