Hear from Our Customers
A slow drain that keeps coming back isn’t just annoying — in a Curtis Park home with original clay sewer laterals and fifty-year-old elm roots pushing through every available gap, it’s a warning sign you can’t ignore.
When we handle the repair correctly the first time, that warning goes quiet. You stop watching the water level in your sink. You stop wondering if the backup is going to be worse next time.
Curtis Park homes are some of Sacramento’s most valued and most loved — and the infrastructure underneath them reflects their age. Galvanized supply lines that have been corroding from the inside for decades, clay tile sewer laterals that crack under Sacramento’s expansive clay soil as it swells in winter and shrinks through the long dry summer, cast iron drain stacks that have been doing their job since before your grandparents were born.
A real plumbing repair in Curtis Park means understanding what we’re actually working with, not just clearing the symptom and leaving. When the repair is done properly — with quality materials, accurate diagnosis, and a flat-rate price you agreed to before anyone touched a wrench — you get your home back. No surprise invoice. No repeat visit in six months because someone used the cheapest part available. Just a fix that holds, in a house that deserves it.
We founded Murray Plumbing in 2009 after earning our contractor’s license from the ground up. We built the company one job at a time, and there’s no corporate dispatch layer here, no call center routing your request to whoever’s available. When you call us, you’re reaching a locally rooted plumbing repair company that has been serving Curtis Park and Sacramento County for over fifteen years.
Curtis Park sits right in the heart of Sacramento’s historic residential core, bounded by Broadway to the north, Freeport Boulevard to the west, Sutterville Road to the south, and Highway 99 to the east. We know this part of Sacramento. The housing stock, the sewer conditions, the permit process through the City of Sacramento Building Division — none of it is new territory for us.
Every technician is fully licensed under California’s C-36 plumbing contractor requirements and carries complete insurance. You can verify that directly on the CSLB database before you book. Our 4.7 out of 5 Google rating across 93 reviews isn’t a number we put on a brochure — it’s what happens when we show up on time, give an honest quote, and fix things correctly.
It starts with a call. Whether you’re dealing with a drain that’s been sluggish for weeks or a pipe that let go at midnight, the first step is the same — you reach a real person, not a voicemail.
Our response time is one of the things customers mention most in reviews, and for Curtis Park homeowners dealing with urgent situations, that matters. Once a technician is on-site, the first priority is accurate diagnosis. In a neighborhood where many homes still have their original clay tile sewer laterals and mature elm or palm roots running alongside them, guessing is expensive.
Camera inspection is often the right starting point — it shows exactly what’s happening inside the pipe before any repair work begins. You see what the technician sees. That transparency isn’t a sales tactic; it’s how you avoid paying for the wrong repair.
From there, you get a flat-rate price before anything starts. Not an estimate that shifts once the work is underway — a specific number you agree to upfront. Because Curtis Park plumbing jobs often involve older infrastructure and City of Sacramento permit requirements for significant work, we handle the process correctly from the start. Permits are pulled when required, inspections are scheduled, and the work is done to current California Plumbing Code standards. When the job is finished, it’s finished — not temporarily patched until the next call.
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Plumbing repair in Curtis Park covers a wider range of situations than it does in a newer neighborhood, and our services reflect that reality. We offer general plumbing repairs and emergency plumbing repair around the clock — because a burst galvanized supply line or a sewage backup doesn’t wait for business hours.
Drain cleaning and hydro jetting address the root intrusion and grease buildup that are routine in a neighborhood with Curtis Park’s tree canopy and sewer lateral age. Hydro jetting in particular is worth understanding: it clears the entire interior of the pipe rather than simply punching a hole through the obstruction, which means the results last significantly longer than a standard snake job.
For sewer issues, camera inspection is the starting point. We offer trenchless sewer repair for situations where the lateral needs more than cleaning — and in a neighborhood where the mature elms and palms along the streets contribute directly to property values, trenchless methods matter because they fix the line without excavating the yard or disturbing the root systems of the very trees that define Curtis Park’s character.
Water line repair and waterline replacement address the aging supply infrastructure common in homes built before the 1960s. We also handle water heater repair, replacement, and tankless water heater installation, along with water filtration and reverse osmosis systems — relevant for Curtis Park homeowners who have noticed changes in water taste or clarity from aging municipal and home infrastructure. Whatever the issue, our diagnosis is honest and the price is set before the work begins.
If you’re in Curtis Park and dealing with a drain that backs up repeatedly — even after it’s been cleared — the most likely culprit is tree root intrusion in your sewer lateral. This is one of the most documented plumbing problems in the neighborhood, and it’s not a coincidence. Curtis Park is called the Neighborhood of Trees for a reason, and those mature elms and palms have extensive root systems that actively seek moisture during Sacramento’s long dry season, which runs roughly from May through October.
Older clay tile sewer laterals, which are common in Curtis Park homes built before the 1960s, develop microscopic gaps at their joints over time. Those gaps release moisture vapor underground, and tree roots follow that vapor directly into the pipe. Once roots are inside, they grow into dense mats that reduce flow to a trickle. Snaking the drain clears it temporarily, but the roots grow back — often within a few months.
A camera inspection is the right first step because it shows exactly what’s in the pipe and how far the intrusion has progressed. From there, hydro jetting can clear the line more completely than snaking, and trenchless repair can address the underlying pipe damage without excavating your yard or disturbing the tree roots above.
The honest answer is that you usually can’t tell without a camera inspection, and neither can we without looking inside the pipe. What looks like a simple clog from the outside can be a collapsed section of clay tile, a significant root mat, or a pipe belly — a low spot where debris collects because the pipe has shifted in the soil.
In Curtis Park, Sacramento’s expansive clay soil is a major factor: it swells in the wet winter months and shrinks during the dry summer, and that seasonal movement stresses underground pipes over decades, causing joint separation and gradual pipe deformation. A camera inspection gives you a real picture of what’s happening.
If the pipe has isolated damage — a cracked joint, a localized root entry point — a targeted repair or trenchless spot repair is often the right call. If the pipe has widespread deterioration across its length, replacement makes more sense economically because repeated spot repairs on a failing pipe add up quickly. We walk you through what the camera shows before recommending anything.
It depends on the scope of the work. In the City of Sacramento — which governs Curtis Park — routine repairs like fixing a leaking faucet, replacing a toilet, or clearing a clogged drain generally don’t require a permit. But more significant work does: sewer line repair or replacement, water line replacement, new fixture installations that involve opening walls or floors, and water heater replacements in many cases all require a permit through the City of Sacramento Building Division.
This matters for a few reasons. First, permitted work requires an inspection before it’s covered up — meaning the city verifies the work meets current California Plumbing Code standards. That inspection protects you as a homeowner. Second, unpermitted plumbing work can create complications when you sell the home, and in a neighborhood where Curtis Park homes regularly transact at or near $725,000, that’s not a minor issue.
Third, work done by an unlicensed contractor without proper permits can void your homeowner’s insurance coverage if something goes wrong. We pull permits when required and handle the inspection process — it’s part of doing the job correctly, not an add-on.
Snaking a drain means running a mechanical cable through the pipe to break up or pull out whatever is blocking it. It works, and for simple clogs it’s often the right tool. But it has a significant limitation: it punches through the obstruction rather than removing it from the pipe walls.
Grease, mineral buildup, and root material that’s coating the interior of the pipe stays in place, and the blockage tends to return relatively quickly. Hydro jetting uses high-pressure water — typically between 3,000 and 4,000 PSI — to scour the entire interior surface of the pipe. It removes grease, mineral deposits, and root material from the pipe walls rather than just clearing a path through the middle.
For Curtis Park homes dealing with recurring drain problems related to tree root intrusion or decades of buildup in aging clay and cast iron pipes, hydro jetting produces a genuinely clean pipe rather than a temporary fix. The results last considerably longer, and in many cases it’s the difference between a drain issue that stays solved and one that comes back every few months. It’s not the right tool for every situation — a collapsed pipe needs repair, not jetting — which is why camera inspection first is the better approach.
We offer 24/7 emergency plumbing repair, and fast response is one of the things customers specifically call out in reviews. One reviewer noted that we responded within minutes of a quote request and came out the same day. For Curtis Park homeowners dealing with a burst pipe, a sewage backup, or a water heater that’s failed, that kind of response time is the difference between a manageable repair and significant water damage to a home that may have original hardwood floors, plaster walls, and architectural details that are difficult or impossible to replace.
Most plumbing problems — roughly 70 to 80 percent of service calls — are urgent rather than planned. That’s why same-day repair is the standard at Murray Plumbing, not an exception. When you call, our goal is to get a licensed technician to your Curtis Park address that day, assess the situation accurately, give you a flat-rate price before any work begins, and fix the problem. If the job requires a City of Sacramento permit for emergency work, we handle that process correctly from the start so the repair holds up to inspection and protects your home long-term.
Flat-rate pricing means the price is set before any work begins, and that’s the price you pay. There’s no hourly clock running in the background that makes the final bill a surprise. Before a technician touches anything, you’re given a specific number based on what the job actually requires — and you decide whether to proceed. That’s the agreement.
For Curtis Park homeowners, this matters more than it might in a newer neighborhood. Older homes have a way of revealing additional complexity once work starts — an aging galvanized line that needs more attention than expected, a clay lateral with a secondary issue the camera caught during diagnosis. The flat-rate model accounts for the scope of the job upfront rather than billing by the hour and letting the final number climb.
Customers have noted in reviews that the final cost has sometimes come in under the original estimate. That’s not a common experience with hourly billing. The flat-rate approach also makes it straightforward to compare what you’re being quoted against other options — you’re comparing real numbers, not guessing what an hourly rate will add up to once the job is done.
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Other Services we provide in Curtis Park
