Newmarket

Plumbing in Old Main Street

Brick storefronts, porches with gingerbread trim, and plumbing that has been patched by every generation since Victoria. Old Main Street is our favourite kind of puzzle.

We know the pipe behind the walls in Old Main Street
Drains, heaters, sump pits and leaks handled on one call
Floor protection and clean-up on every visit
Phone answered by a plumber, any hour

Homes and pipes in Old Main Street

The stretch of Main Street South and the side streets around it hold some of the oldest buildings in town, many from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Behind those facades, the plumbing tells a layered story. You might find a cast iron stack from the 1920s, galvanized supply lines added after the war, copper from a 1970s update and PEX from last year's kitchen, all in the same basement. Shops along the street often have apartments upstairs, so one building may carry several bathrooms on a drain that was never planned for them.

Fieldstone and rubble foundations are common. They breathe, they seep in spring, and they make running new pipe through a wall a careful job. Clay sewer laterals out to the street are still in service under many lots. Some houses even hide an abandoned cistern or a disconnected well pipe in the cellar, leftovers from before town water arrived.

Pipe you will likely find in Old Main Street

Supply pipe: Galvanized steel, patched copper, sometimes a lead service from the street
Drain and stack: Cast iron hub-and-spigot, clay sewer to the road
Usual call: Rust-choked supply, cracked stack, roots in the clay main
First thing to check: Whether the service line is lead or copper at the meter

Jobs we do most on these streets

Slow and backing-up drains. Scaled cast iron and root-invaded clay are the usual culprits, which makes drain cleaning our most frequent job on these blocks.
Low pressure upstairs. Old galvanized pipe narrows inside as it rusts, starving top-floor fixtures.
Water heater swaps in cramped basements. Low ceilings and narrow stairs make gas water heater replacement a matter of careful handling and proper venting.
Leaks at mixed-material joints. Where copper meets galvanized without a proper dielectric fitting, corrosion speeds up.

Freeze, thaw and storm calls here

Late summer is root season. Trees along the older streets send roots hunting for moisture, and a clay joint is an easy target. Expect slow basement floor drains in August and September if your lateral has never been cleaned.

Winter brings frozen supply lines in uninsulated rear additions and summer kitchens, which were never meant to be heated. Spring melt pushes water through stone foundations, and older homes often lack a sump pit entirely. Locate your main shut-off well ahead of trouble; in old houses it is sometimes in a strange corner, or buried behind storage.

Getting the van and tools to your door

Old Main Street is the heart of town, minutes from anywhere we work. Parking is the tricky part on the commercial blocks, so let us know if there is a laneway or rear lot behind the building. For shops, tell us about business hours; we can plan quieter work around opening times when it is not an emergency.

Neighbours around the lake will find our notes on Fairy Lake useful too, since many of those homes share the same age and quirks.

Asked on site

Should I replace the galvanized pipe in my older home?

If you have low pressure, rusty water or leaks, replacement is usually worth considering. A section-by-section approach can spread out the cost and disruption.

Is a clay sewer line always a problem?

Not always. Many clay lines still work well. A camera inspection shows whether the joints are intact or letting roots in.