After 35+ years working in Houston-area homes, we’ve learned that good plumbing isn’t only about who you call when something breaks. It’s about knowing where to find real answers fast — when something feels off but you’re not sure what’s actually wrong, or whose problem it is.
Below are the four resources we actually use and recommend to customers. Bookmark them. They’ll save you money, time, and sometimes a flooded slab.
CenterPoint Energy — for anything gas-related
CenterPoint is the natural gas utility for most of greater Houston. They’re the first call before any work that involves digging in your yard, and the only call if you smell gas in the house.
If you smell gas, leave first and call CenterPoint’s 24-hour leak line at 713-659-2111. Don’t flip switches, don’t start the car in an attached garage, just get out.
Before any kind of digging — fence post, pool, even deep landscaping — call 811 at least two business days ahead. It’s free, it’s the law, and the alternative (hitting a gas line) is a different kind of bad day. CenterPoint handles the locate and marks the lines for you.
For service, billing, or scheduling a meter inspection, head to centerpointenergy.com. It’s also where you start a service transfer if you’re moving inside their territory.
We coordinate with CenterPoint regularly on gas line installs, water heater hookups, and tankless conversions. Anything past the meter is fair game for a licensed plumber. Anything on their side stays theirs.
City of Houston Public Works — for water, sewer, and boil notices
Houston Public Works runs the water and wastewater systems for the City of Houston. Their site at houstonpublicworks.org is where you go for:
Boil water notices. When pressure drops or a main breaks, the city issues notices for affected ZIP codes. Sign up for alerts so you’re not finding out from a neighbor’s Facebook post. The notices also tell you when it’s safe to stop boiling, which matters more than people think — a lot of folks keep boiling for days after the all-clear.
Annual water quality reports. Required by the EPA, these tell you exactly what’s in your water — including hardness, chloramines, and any compliance flags. Houston water is hard (usually 11–15 grains per gallon, which is “very hard” by most charts). That’s why we see so many water heater scaling issues and short fixture lifespans here. If your water heater is dying at six or seven years instead of twelve, hardness is almost always the reason.
Service line responsibility. The city owns the main and the service line up to the meter. From the meter into your house, it’s yours. When a leak happens between the meter and the foundation, that’s where slab leak detection and repair come in — and it’s not on the city.
Permits. Most major plumbing work in Houston requires a permit pulled by a Master Plumber. Our license is #16188 and we handle the paperwork side for customers, but the public works site is where the rules and forms live if you want to read up.
Harris County Flood Control District — for storm and flood awareness
If you’ve lived in Houston longer than a hurricane season, you already know HCFCD is the agency that built and maintains the bayous and detention basins keeping us drier than we’d otherwise be. Their site at hcfcd.org is the source for:
Flood maps and risk assessments. Pull up your address and see what zone you’re in. This matters for plumbing because homes in flood-prone areas face more frequent sewer backups during heavy rain. If your house has had a backup once and you’re in a flooded watershed, it’ll happen again.
Atlas 14 rainfall data. This is the updated rainfall expectation set after Harvey. It changed how engineers size drainage and how cities plan for storms. If you’re considering a backwater valve or a sump system, the Atlas 14 numbers are part of the math your plumber should be working from.
Real-time gauge data. During a storm, you can watch bayou and channel levels live. We’ve used this to time service calls during weather events — there’s a window between “it’s raining” and “the streets flood” where we can still get to a customer.
The plumbing connection: most Houston sewer backups during heavy rain aren’t a problem with your line. They’re the city’s collection system overwhelmed and pushing water back up through the lowest opening in your house — usually a downstairs shower drain. A backwater valve fixes that. But you only know to ask for one if you understand where the water is actually coming from.
EPA WaterSense — for saving water (and money) in a hard-water city
epa.gov/watersense is the federal program that certifies water-efficient fixtures. WaterSense-labeled toilets, faucets, and showerheads use roughly 20% less water than standard equivalents while performing the same.
Why this matters in Houston: water bills here aren’t just about the water itself. The city’s wastewater charges are tied to your water use, so cutting consumption cuts both halves of the bill. Hard water also wears fixtures out faster, so when you’re replacing a toilet or showerhead anyway, going WaterSense costs the same and gives you better long-term economics.
A few pointers from years of installs:
- Toilets: WaterSense models flush at 1.28 gallons or less. We’ve installed dual-flush models that go even lower, and modern designs don’t clog the way the early low-flow toilets did in the ’90s.
- Showerheads: 2.0 gpm or less. The good ones don’t feel weak. Pressure-compensating designs are night and day better than the cheap ones.
- Faucets: 1.5 gpm aerators are basically a free upgrade. A $5 part can cut a faucet’s water use by 30%.
Houston has occasionally offered rebates for WaterSense fixtures. Check the Public Works site for current programs.
When to call these — and when to call us
Use the resources above for: official information, utility issues, permits, flood planning, and water-saving research.
Call us at 713-955-1919 for: anything past the meter, anything past the gas regulator, slab leaks, water heater work, sewer line repair, drain cleaning, or any plumbing problem that needs a licensed Master Plumber on site.
The line between the city’s responsibility and yours runs right at the meter for water and right at the gas regulator for gas. Everything between those points and your fixtures is what we do — and have done in Houston since 1989.
If you’re not sure which side of the line a problem is on, call us. We’ll tell you straight.