Plumbing costs

Plumbing prices are local. Labor rates, permit fees, and how hard your house is to work in - slab foundation, finished basement, tight crawlspace - move the number more than the parts do. Treat every range on this page as a sanity check, not a quote. If a bid lands far outside the range, that isn't proof of a ripoff; it's a prompt to ask why.

Here are the ranges we could source for 2026. Drain cleaning: $100-$275 for a sink, tub, or shower clog; $175-$600 to snake a main line. Sewer camera inspection: $125-$750, higher if there's no cleanout and the plumber has to pull a toilet for access. Hydro jetting: roughly $350-$1,600. Water heater replacement: $900-$5,500 all in, with most standard installs at $1,200-$2,500. Whole-home repipe: $4,000-$15,000, with PEX materially cheaper than copper.

Watch the gap between the diagnosis and the recommendation. The single most common way homeowners overspend on plumbing is agreeing to a large job on the strength of a free inspection. A camera inspection that finds a "failing" sewer line should come with recorded footage you can keep and show to a second contractor. If the company won't hand over the video, that's your answer.

Financed prices are not the same as cash prices. When a quote is presented as a monthly payment, ask for the total cash price in writing. Dealer-arranged financing often carries a markup buried in the job price, and you can only see it by comparing the two numbers side by side.