Every Milwaukee house type has the same four problems.
Not the same four for every type. But a bungalow fails like a bungalow, and a Polish flat fails like a Polish flat. Here’s what we check first in each.
House by house.
The bungalow
Cast iron stack in a closet, galvanized water lines with low upstairs pressure, a clay lateral to the street with roots in it, and a laundry tub drain that was never vented.
The Polish flat
A worker’s cottage raised on new foundation to add a garden-level unit. Two kitchens on one stack, a basement bath added later, and drains sized for half the people now using them.
The upper & lower
Two units stacked, two water heaters, one main shutoff in a place only the first owner knew. Often a steam or hot-water boiler shared by both floors.
The Victorian
Lead service line from the curb, one-pipe steam, and three generations of remodels in the same wall. These take the longest to diagnose and teach us the most.
Why we ask what kind of house it is
When you call, Mike will ask what kind of house you have and roughly when it was built. That’s not small talk. It tells him what the pipes are probably made of, where the stack probably runs, and what to put on the truck.
It also tells him how much to warn you about. An old house rarely has just one problem, and we’d rather tell you about the second one before it’s an emergency than surprise you with it.
What we won’t do to an old house
Rip out what works. Plenty of hundred-year-old cast iron has decades left in it, and plenty of steam boilers run fine with a good cleaning. If it isn’t broken, we tell you so and leave it alone.
Know what kind of house you’ve got? Call and tell us.
We’ll tell you what we’d check first.
The old-house plumber’s site, built in seven days.
Sixteen pages: house types drawn by hand, three generations of the family, an honest hourly rate explained, and a lead service line page written for Milwaukee.