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Converse Plumbing — Drains, Sewer Lines, Water Heaters

Converse is a split town from a plumbing standpoint. Older single-story homes along FM 1976 sit on aging clay laterals and pecan roots find every joint. Newer builds out toward Live Oak are 8–12 years in, which is exactly when the expansion tanks and PRVs start failing. We work both ends of that spread every week.

A real person picks up the phone. Same-day appointments most weekdays — and yes, we'll give you an honest window, not 'sometime between 8 and 6.'

What we do in Converse

Drain cleaning and hydro-jetting

Cable handles a soft stoppage. A jetter is what you actually need for grease or root intrusion — and Converse has both. After the line's clear, we run the camera so you see on a screen what was causing the backup. No guessing, no upselling on faith.

Sewer camera + locate

Color camera with 512Hz sonde. We mark the defect on the surface with paint and depth in inches, so any excavation goes in the right place the first time.

Water heater installs

Tank and tankless. We pull the City of Converse permit, install the expansion tank and new shutoffs, and haul the old unit away the same day.

Yard and slab leak repair

Acoustic and pressure-decay testing to find the leak without trenching the whole yard. Repair in copper or PEX-A depending on what's already there.

Sump pump and lift station service

Lower-elevation Converse properties off Lower Seguin Road sometimes need a sump in the crawlspace or a small lift station for a basement bath. We size by gallons-per-minute load, install with a check valve and battery backup, and test the float before we leave.

Garbage disposal & under-sink rebuilds

InSinkErator and Waste King 3/4 hp and 1 hp swaps. P-traps re-made in 1.5" PVC (no slip-fit thumb-tight nonsense), supply lines replaced with stainless braided, and shut-offs upgraded from compression to quarter-turn.

Whole-home shut-off & manifold upgrades

If your main shut-off is a 30-year-old gate valve frozen in the open position, that's a flood waiting on a deadline. We replace with a quarter-turn ball valve at the meter, and add a second one inside the house for true redundancy.

Neighborhoods we cover in Converse

• Live Oak (north Converse) — Newer subdivisions, year-8 PRV and expansion tank failures.
• Westwood Village — 1980s ranches, original water heaters past warranty, common swaps.
• Lower Seguin Rd corridor — Older single-story, root intrusion in clay laterals is the standing call.
• Kirby (adjacent) — Mixed era, occasional cast-iron stack work in pre-1970 stock.
• Universal City (adjacent) — Military housing turnover — fast scope, fast quote.

Technical notes

Common Converse plumbing patterns we see

Roots in the lateral are the number-one Converse call. The clay soil and mature pecans and live oaks team up to push fine roots through every joint in an older 4-inch line. Cabling clears the immediate backup; a jetter and a yearly scope keeps it from coming back inside six months.

On the newer side, we see a lot of expansion tank and PRV failures around year 8–10 of a build. Both are cheap fixes if caught early and ugly ones if they take out a water heater first.

Why your water heater dies the way it does

A standard 6-year-warranty residential tank doesn't usually fail because the steel rusts through. It fails because the magnesium anode rod is fully consumed by year 4 or 5, and after that the tank itself starts taking the corrosion. Pull the anode at year 3, replace it for $85 in parts, and the same tank goes 12+ years instead of 7.

Nobody tells homeowners this because the manufacturer prefers you buy the next unit on schedule. We tell you because the truck roll to swap an anode is 30 minutes — and we'd rather see you for that than for a 50-gallon flood at 6 a.m.

What a Converse sewer camera actually shows you

We push a self-leveling color camera with a 512Hz sonde down the cleanout. On the screen you see real-time video of the inside of your line — bellies, root intrusion, offsets, channeling, scale, and any prior repairs. Where defects show up, we mark them on the surface with paint and depth in inches.

What that buys you: a defect found at exactly 14 feet down, 7 inches deep, in your front yard means the excavator operator opens an 18" hole — not a 12-foot trench. The camera pays for itself the first time it stops a guess from becoming a backhoe job.

What plumbing costs in Converse

• Drain cable + camera follow-up: $285–$485 — Cable the line, clear the stoppage, run the camera, written report with location and defect noted.
• Hydro-jet (residential lateral, 60–80 ft): $485–$785 — Trailer-mounted jetter, root and grease cleared to bare pipe wall, pre/post camera.
• Sewer point repair (open-cut, 6 ft section): $1,485–$2,850 — Excavate to the defect, cut and replace in PVC with proper bedding, backfill and surface restoration.
• Trenchless pipe burst (per linear foot): $135–$185 / ft — Existing line burst and replaced with HDPE. Two pits instead of an open trench.
• Tank water heater replacement, 40 gal: $1,575–$2,150 — Includes expansion tank, T&P, pan, shut-off, permit, and haul-away.
• Anode rod replacement (preventive): $185–$285 — 30-minute service that adds 5–7 years to a tank water heater's practical life.

How a Converse service call runs

1 — Honest arrival window

Two-hour window we actually keep. We text 30 minutes out so you're not waiting by the door.

2 — Camera before quote where it matters

On sewer and slab work, we look first. Quoting blind is how you get scope creep.

3 — Fixed price in writing

Signed before we start. No 'might be more' verbal padding.

4 — Photo documentation of every fix

Before, during, after. Sent to your phone so the next plumber (in 10 years) has a record.

5 — One-year workmanship warranty

If we did it and it fails on labor, we come back. No paperwork wrestling.