Fort Myers Plumber

Plumbing Services in Fort Myers

Plumbing work in Fort Myers

Fort Myers has a little bit of everything under one roof, sometimes literally. You’ll find 1920s bungalows a few blocks from the river, ranch houses from the 1950s through the 1970s, stucco block homes from the 1980s and 1990s, and newer communities out toward I-75. Each of those eras came with its own pipe, its own drain material and its own weak spots. A good part of our job is knowing what’s probably behind the wall before we open it.

HomeFlow Plumbing handles repairs, replacements and installs for homes and businesses across the city. That covers leak detection, pipe and water line repair, repiping, drain cleaning, sewer line work, water heaters, fixtures and remodel plumbing. We also do the plumbing on new builds from underground through final. If you’re not sure which category your problem falls into, call us at (239) 518-4198 or send a request through our service request form and we’ll sort it out.

Older neighborhoods and what’s usually in the walls

The houses near downtown are some of the oldest in Lee County. Dean Park was built mostly between about 1916 and the mid-1920s and is on the National Register. Edison Park started going up in the mid-1920s. Seminole Park and the streets running off McGregor Boulevard have a mix of early homes and mid-century rebuilds. These are nice houses with real character, and they tend to hide plumbing that’s been patched by several generations of owners.

Pre-1960s homes

If the house is old enough, there’s a fair chance it still has some galvanized steel supply pipe. Galvanized rusts from the inside, so the opening gets smaller every year. The first thing most people notice is weak pressure at one fixture, usually the one farthest from where the water comes in, or brown water after the house sits for a few days. Drains in these homes are commonly cast iron, sometimes with clay pipe in the yard.

1960s to 1980s ranch and block homes

A lot of Fort Myers was built in this window. Copper supply lines are common, often run under or through the slab. Cast iron drains are still typical inside the house. Copper holds up well in a lot of cases, but pinhole leaks and slab leaks show up as these systems get older.

Late 1970s to mid 1990s

This is the era to ask about polybutylene. It’s a gray plastic supply pipe that was widely installed in Florida during those years, and it has a reputation for failing at the fittings and becoming brittle with age. If you see gray flexible pipe at the water heater or under a sink, have someone look at it. Homes from the 1990s onward more often have CPVC, and newer builds usually have PEX.

None of this is a rule. Plenty of older homes have already been repiped, and some newer ones were built with materials that didn’t age well. We look before we guess.

Your water: city utility, county utility or a well

An address that says Fort Myers doesn’t always mean City of Fort Myers water. Inside city limits, water comes from the city’s own treatment plant. It pulls brackish groundwater from deep wells in the Floridan aquifer and runs it through reverse osmosis before it goes out to homes. That process takes out a lot of the minerals, so city water tends to be easier on fixtures than raw well water.

A lot of homes with a Fort Myers mailing address are actually in unincorporated Lee County and get their water from Lee County Utilities. The county draws from several wellfields and also treats water from the Caloosahatchee. Out on the edges, some properties still run on private wells, and well water around here can be hard and carry iron or sulfur.

Signs your water is working against your plumbing

• White crust on faucet aerators and showerheads
• Water heaters that pop, rumble or lose hot water capacity
• Orange or brown staining in toilets and tubs, which usually points to iron
• A rotten egg smell from hot water only, which is often a reaction inside the water heater tank

If you’re on a well or you’re seeing buildup, flush the water heater more often and clean aerators a couple of times a year. We can repair or replace the fixtures and water heaters that take the hit. For bigger fixture swaps or a full bathroom redo, see our residential plumbing services.

Slab leaks

Nearly everything built here since the middle of the last century sits on a concrete slab, and a lot of the water lines run through or under it. When one of those lines leaks, the water has nowhere obvious to go. It soaks into the fill under the house, and you may not see a thing for weeks.

The clues are usually indirect. A water bill that jumps without explanation. The sound of running water when everything’s off. A warm spot on a tile floor, which points to a hot water line. Baseboards swelling, or flooring that starts to lift. If you shut off every fixture and your meter keeps spinning, you’ve got a leak somewhere.

We do leak detection to find where the line is failing before anyone starts breaking concrete. Once we know where it is, there are usually two ways to go. A single leak in otherwise sound pipe can often be repaired at that spot. If the house has had more than one slab leak, it’s usually a sign the rest of the pipe is headed the same way, and rerouting the lines through the walls or attic is the better long-term call.

Water heaters

Water heaters in Southwest Florida don’t get a break. They run all year, and on hard or well water they collect sediment fast. We repair, replace and install tank and tankless units.

A few things that should get your attention:

• Water pooling at the base of the tank, or rust on the bottom seam
• Rumbling or popping when the burner or elements are on
• Hot water that runs out faster than it used to
• Rusty water from the hot side only
• A relief valve that drips or has a stained discharge line

Where the heater sits matters too. In a lot of Fort Myers homes it’s in the garage or a utility closet off the garage, and a leak there often goes unnoticed until it’s a big one. A drain pan and a leak sensor are cheap protection. If you’re thinking about going tankless, we’ll look at your gas or electric service and your hot water use first, because tankless isn’t the right fit for every house.

Repiping and remodels in older houses

Repiping means replacing the supply lines in the whole house instead of chasing one leak after another. It’s the right move when you’ve got galvanized pipe that’s closing up, polybutylene, copper that’s had more than one pinhole or slab leak, or a mix of all three from years of partial fixes.

We do most whole-house repipes in PEX. It’s flexible, it handles Florida water well, and it can be run through attics and walls with fewer joints than rigid pipe. Rerouting overhead also gets the lines out of the slab, which is where many of the worst leaks in this area start.

Most people’s worry is the drywall. A repipe does mean opening walls in spots, but it’s targeted, not every room torn apart. We map the route ahead of time so the openings are where they need to be. If you’re already planning a kitchen or bath remodel, that’s a good time to do it, since the walls will be open anyway.

Remodels in older homes

Remodeling a bathroom or kitchen in a house from the 1920s or 1950s is a different job than doing the same thing in a newer build. The drain under the old tub may be cast iron with a lead joint. The shutoff valves may not close. The venting may not meet what the new layout needs. We’d rather find that out at the start than halfway through tile.

We handle the plumbing for bath and kitchen remodels, including moving fixtures, new shower valves and drains, tub swaps, toilet and faucet installs, kitchen sink and disposal work, and running lines for new appliances. When a remodel changes where fixtures sit, a permit is usually required, and we’ll tell you up front if yours does.

Drains, sewer lines and septic

Cast iron and root problems

Slow drains in one fixture are usually a local clog: hair in a tub, grease in a kitchen line, too much going down a disposal. When several fixtures act up at once, or the tub gurgles when you flush, the problem is further down the line.

In older homes around Fort Myers, that’s often cast iron. Cast iron drains rust from the inside, and over decades the bottom of the pipe can scale up, crack or wear through. Under a slab, that can mean water and waste leaking into the soil, sometimes with a sewer smell inside the house. Out in the yard, roots from trees and big shrubs find their way into older joints, especially clay pipe.

We clear clogged drains and main lines, and when a line keeps coming back it’s usually worth finding out why. Depending on what we find, the fix might be a spot repair, replacing a section, or replacing the line from the house to the city or county connection. Cast iron under the slab can be one of the bigger jobs in an older home, so it’s worth catching early.

Sewer or septic

Most homes inside Fort Myers city limits are on city sewer. There are still a few hundred parcels in the city on septic, and the city has been working to connect them over time. Outside city limits the mix changes. Some areas are on county sewer and some are still on septic, and it can change from one neighborhood to the next.

Knowing which one you have matters when something backs up. On sewer, a backup is usually a clog or a failed section of pipe between the house and the main. On septic, the same symptoms can mean a full tank or a failing drain field, which is a different fix. We handle the sewer side of that: sewer line repair and replacement, new sewer installation and cleanouts. If your property is switching from septic to sewer, we can run the new connection from the house to the tap.

A cleanout is worth having. A lot of older Fort Myers homes don’t have an accessible one, which means clearing a main line clog involves pulling a toilet or working through a roof vent. Adding a cleanout outside makes every future drain call faster and cheaper.

Storms, the river and flood-damaged plumbing

Hurricane Ian in September 2022 pushed the Caloosahatchee over its banks, and the River District downtown saw ground floors under water. Low-lying streets near the river and the creeks that feed it took water too. Heavy summer rain can do smaller versions of the same thing in neighborhoods with poor drainage.

Floodwater causes plumbing problems that don’t always show up right away. Water heaters that sat in floodwater usually need to be replaced, since the controls, burners and insulation don’t come back from it. Sewer lines can pick up sand and debris or get pushed out of place. Well equipment and backflow devices can get damaged. And when walls get opened for drywall replacement, it’s common to find old supply lines that were already in rough shape.

If you’re rebuilding after flood damage or planning to raise equipment higher, we can handle the plumbing side of the renovation work. Across the river, Cape Coral homeowners deal with many of the same storm issues, and out on the island Fort Myers Beach saw some of the worst of it.

Commercial plumbing downtown and along the corridors

Commercial plumbing in Fort Myers ranges from older downtown buildings in the River District to retail, restaurants, offices and medical space along Cleveland Avenue, Colonial Boulevard and Palm Beach Boulevard. The older downtown buildings tend to have the same issues as the old houses nearby, just bigger: aging cast iron stacks, galvanized risers and fixtures added over the years without much planning.

We do repairs, fixture replacement, drain and sewer work, water heaters, and plumbing for tenant buildouts and renovations. Restaurants and food service spaces tend to need regular drain maintenance because of grease. For more on what we do for businesses, see our commercial plumbing page.

New construction, permits and who inspects

We handle plumbing on new homes and commercial builds through every stage. That’s underground (drain, waste and sewer lines before the slab is poured), rough-in and top-out (supply lines and drains in the walls), trim-out (fixtures and water heater), and final. Details on how we work with builders are on our new construction plumbing page.

City permit or county permit

Where the permit comes from depends on where the property sits, not the mailing address. Inside Fort Myers city limits, permits and inspections go through the city’s building, permitting and inspections division. Addresses in unincorporated Lee County go through the county. Relocating or adding plumbing generally needs a permit in both, and new construction always does. Some simpler work, like a like-for-like residential water heater swap, has different rules depending on the jurisdiction, so we check before we start.

Getting that wrong can hold up a closing or an insurance claim later. It’s one of the first things we confirm on any job that needs a permit.

Simple maintenance for Fort Myers homeowners

• Know where your main shutoff is and make sure it turns. In older homes it’s often seized or buried.
• Flush your tank water heater once or twice a year, more often if you’re on a well.
• Put a pan and a leak sensor under water heaters in garages and closets.
• Keep grease out of the kitchen drain. It hardens in the line, especially in older cast iron.
• Check under sinks and behind toilets for dampness or corroded supply lines a few times a year.
• If you have gray polybutylene or galvanized pipe, plan for replacement instead of waiting for a leak.
• Before hurricane season, know how to shut off water and gas, and keep the area around outdoor cleanouts clear.

If you’re leaving for the summer, shutting off the main while you’re gone is cheap insurance against a leak running for weeks with nobody home.

When to call us

Call when you see water where it shouldn’t be, hear water running when nothing’s on, smell sewer gas, or have more than one drain acting up. Also call if you’re buying an older house and want to know what’s in it before you close. For everything else, from a dripping faucet to a full repipe, give us a call at (239) 518-4198 or use the service request form.

We work throughout Lee, Charlotte and Collier Counties, including Lehigh Acres to the east and Bonita Springs to the south. The full list is on our service areas page.