Plumbing in Whitby

Homes and plumbing in Whitby

Whitby is close enough to Ajax that many of our customers cross the boundary every day without thinking about it. The town has a wide range of housing. Around the old downtown at Brock and Dundas there are century homes with plaster walls, stone or block foundations and plumbing that has been redone in pieces. South and west of there, postwar and 1970s neighbourhoods have their own set of aging pipes. Further out, large subdivisions from the 1990s onward fill the map, and the newest streets are still being built.

That mix means the calls vary from street to street. One morning it is a cast iron stack in a heritage house; that afternoon it is a basement bathroom in a home finished last year.

Common problems we see

• Heritage homes with leaky old fittings, poor venting and drains that clog often.
• 1970s and 1980s houses on their second or third water heater, with copper starting to pinhole.
• Newer homes with builder-grade fixtures wearing out and untested sump pumps.
• Hard water scale across all ages of home.
• Frozen hose bibs and pipes along exterior walls in January and February.

Services most asked for

Across Whitby we handle drain cleaning, water heater repair and replacement, sump pump installation and burst pipe repair. Homeowners finishing basements book basement bathroom rough-ins, and owners of older houses often need repiping. For anything urgent, see our emergency plumbing page.

We also have pages for two Whitby communities: Port Whitby by the harbour and Brooklin in the north.

Heritage homes downtown

Old houses near the four corners have character and quirks. Walls are thick and finished in plaster, floors are often original, and many owners care a great deal about keeping them that way. We plan our access carefully, using closets, basements and existing openings wherever we can. When a wall must be opened, we keep the cut small and neat. We also check how drains are vented, since many older homes were plumbed before modern venting rules and that alone can explain slow, gurgling drains.

Town rules and permits

Whitby, like Ajax, needs a permit for some plumbing work, such as adding a new bathroom or changing drain lines. We will tell you when a permit applies and what it involves. Our page on plumbing permits explains the general idea, and the details are similar in Whitby.

Getting to you

Whitby is right next door, and much of it is as close to us as parts of Ajax. Call (365) 363-2754. You talk to a plumber, we come and look, and you decide on the repair after we have shown you the problem.