Hear from Our Customers
When your water pressure drops, your drain backs up, or something under the sink starts leaking, the clock is already running. Left alone, these problems don’t stabilize — they get worse, and usually at the worst possible time. Getting it handled right the first time means you’re not calling a plumber again in six months for the same issue.
For North Sacramento homeowners, that matters more than most places. The craftsman bungalows of Del Paso Heights and the stately 1930s and 1940s homes throughout Woodlake were built with galvanized steel pipes and clay sewer laterals that have had decades to corrode, shift, and crack. A proper repair — done with quality parts by someone who understands what’s actually inside these older systems — holds. A cheap patch job doesn’t.
North Sacramento’s mature tree canopy is another factor that doesn’t get enough attention. The clay-heavy soil throughout the area expands and contracts with the seasons, and during the long dry summers, tree roots go looking for moisture. Aging sewer laterals are exactly where they find it. Fixing a backed-up drain without addressing the root intrusion just means you’re dealing with the same problem again next summer. A real fix accounts for what’s actually causing it.
We founded Murray Plumbing in 2009 and earned our contractor’s license after the housing downturn, building this company from the ground up — one job at a time, one honest invoice at a time. This isn’t a franchise with a call center dispatching whoever’s available. When you call Murray Plumbing, you’re getting a licensed, insured team that’s been doing this work across North Sacramento and Sacramento County for over fifteen years.
North Sacramento has a distinct character that a lot of service companies overlook. The neighborhoods here — from Del Paso Heights to Woodlake to the Robla community near Dry Creek — have older infrastructure, real plumbing challenges, and residents who’ve been around long enough to know when someone’s giving them a straight answer versus running up a bill. Our 4.7-star Google rating across 93+ reviews wasn’t built on slick marketing. It was built on showing up on time, diagnosing the actual problem, and charging what was quoted.
Every technician on our team carries a valid California C-36 plumbing contractor license — verifiable directly through the California State License Board. That’s not a detail buried in the fine print. It’s how we operate.
It starts with a call. Whether you’ve got a sewer backup in Del Paso Heights or a water line issue in Woodlake, the first conversation is about understanding what’s happening — not upselling you on services before anyone’s seen the problem. We aim to get to most jobs in North Sacramento the same day you call, because in a neighborhood with older pipes and aging sewer laterals, waiting tends to make things more expensive, not less.
Once on-site, our technician assesses the situation and gives you a flat-rate price before any work begins. That number doesn’t change once the job is underway. No hourly clock, no “we found something else while we were in there” surprises tacked onto the final invoice. You know what it costs, you approve it, and then it gets fixed.
For jobs involving sewer lines — which are common in North Sacramento given the area’s aging clay laterals and root intrusion risk — a camera inspection gives a clear picture of what’s actually going on underground before any repair decisions are made. In Sacramento, plumbing work beyond basic repairs typically requires a City of Sacramento building permit, and we handle that process as part of the job. When the work is done, it’s done right — with parts built to last, not the cheapest option that gets you back on the phone in six months.
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We handle the full range of residential plumbing repair — drain cleaning, hydro jetting, sewer repair, trenchless sewer repair, camera inspection, water heater repair and replacement, water line repair, leak detection, and general pipe repair. For North Sacramento specifically, a few of these services come up more than others.
Galvanized pipe repair and repiping are common needs throughout the older housing stock in Del Paso Heights and Woodlake. Galvanized steel corrodes from the inside out over time — restricting water flow, discoloring water, and eventually failing. If your water pressure has been dropping gradually or your water looks slightly off, that’s worth having someone look at before a pinhole leak turns into a bigger problem.
Trenchless sewer repair is another service that’s particularly relevant in North Sacramento. The clay soil and mature tree canopy create consistent root intrusion risk in aging sewer laterals. Trenchless methods address the problem without tearing up landscaping or driveways — and often cost less than traditional excavation once you factor in restoration.
For property managers and landlords in North Sacramento’s renter-heavy neighborhoods, we offer the same flat-rate pricing and same-day availability that individual homeowners rely on. Deferred maintenance is common in rental properties, and when something finally fails, it rarely happens at a convenient time. Having a licensed plumbing repair contractor you can call without the runaround makes a real difference.
The honest answer is that you often can’t tell from the outside — and that’s not a sales pitch, it’s just how galvanized steel pipe failure works. The corrosion happens inside the pipe wall, gradually restricting flow and building up mineral deposits until pressure drops noticeably or discoloration appears in the water. By the time those symptoms show up, the pipe has usually been deteriorating for years.
For homes in North Sacramento’s older neighborhoods — particularly the 1930s and 1940s housing stock throughout Woodlake and the craftsman bungalows in Del Paso Heights — the question isn’t usually whether the original pipes will eventually need attention. It’s whether you’re dealing with a localized failure that a targeted repair can address, or a system-wide issue that makes repiping the more cost-effective long-term answer.
A camera inspection and a straightforward assessment from a licensed plumber gives you that answer without any obligation to proceed. We’ll tell you what we actually found — not what generates the largest invoice.
In North Sacramento’s older neighborhoods, the two most common causes are root intrusion and deteriorating clay sewer laterals. The clay-heavy soil throughout the area expands when it’s wet and contracts when it dries out — that constant movement stresses underground pipe joints over time, causing separations and cracks. Once there’s an opening, tree roots find it. During Sacramento’s long dry summers, roots aggressively pursue moisture, and aging sewer laterals are exactly where they end up.
A sewer backup isn’t just a drain problem. Raw sewage backing up into a home creates a health hazard and can cause significant damage to flooring and walls if it’s not addressed immediately. In North Sacramento, where many homes are connected to Sacramento’s older combined sewer infrastructure, a backup during a heavy winter storm can escalate quickly. This is one of the situations where same-day emergency plumbing service isn’t a luxury — it’s the difference between a repair and a much larger restoration job.
We use camera inspection to identify the actual cause before recommending a fix, so you’re not paying to clear a drain that’s going to back up again in three months.
For basic repairs — clearing a clogged drain, fixing a dripping faucet, replacing a toilet or faucet fixture — no permit is typically required. But for anything more substantial, the City of Sacramento requires a building permit through the Community Development Department. This includes water heater replacements, sewer line repairs or replacements, repiping, and new plumbing installations. Working without a required permit isn’t just a code violation — it can create problems when you sell the home or file an insurance claim related to the work.
We handle the permit process as part of the job on work that requires it. You don’t need to figure out what’s required or navigate the City of Sacramento’s permitting system on your own. The work gets done to California Plumbing Code standards, inspected where required, and documented properly. For North Sacramento homeowners with older homes that may have had previous unpermitted work done by prior owners, it’s also worth knowing that a licensed contractor can help you understand what’s been done and what may need to be brought up to current code.
Flat-rate pricing means the price is set before any work begins — based on what the job is, not how long it takes. We give you that number after assessing the problem, and you approve it before anything gets started. If the job ends up taking longer than anticipated, that’s not your problem. The price you agreed to is the price on the invoice.
This matters because the alternative — hourly billing — creates a situation where you have no idea what you’re paying until the job is done. A plumber working by the hour has no financial incentive to work efficiently, and you’re essentially writing a blank check once they start. In a price-sensitive market like North Sacramento, where residents are accustomed to watching their budget carefully, that kind of billing uncertainty is genuinely stressful.
Our customers have documented cases in their reviews where the final cost came in under the original estimate. That’s not a common thing in this industry, and it’s worth paying attention to.
Snaking — also called drain augering — physically breaks through a blockage using a rotating cable. It’s effective for clearing a clog quickly and is often the right call for a straightforward obstruction. Hydro jetting uses high-pressure water to scour the interior walls of the pipe, removing grease buildup, mineral scale, and root debris that snaking leaves behind. It’s more thorough and the results last significantly longer.
For North Sacramento homes with older clay or cast-iron sewer laterals, hydro jetting is often the better long-term answer — especially if you’ve had the same drain cleaned more than once in the past couple of years. Repeated snaking of the same line usually means there’s buildup or root intrusion that snaking isn’t fully addressing.
A camera inspection before hydro jetting confirms the pipe is in good enough condition to handle the pressure — you don’t want to hydro jet a lateral that’s already severely cracked, because that can cause further damage. We use camera inspection to make that call before recommending hydro jetting, so you’re not paying for a service that isn’t appropriate for your specific situation.
Yes. We offer 24/7 emergency plumbing repair, which matters in a neighborhood where a lot of the housing stock is old enough that failures don’t follow a schedule. A burst pipe in a 1940s Woodlake home at 10 p.m. on a Saturday isn’t something you can wait until Monday to deal with — water damage compounds quickly, and the longer it runs, the more expensive the cleanup becomes.
Emergency availability is also particularly relevant for the property managers and landlords who oversee a significant portion of North Sacramento’s housing stock. When a tenant calls about a backed-up sewer or a failed water heater, you need a licensed plumbing repair contractor who can respond the same day — not someone who puts you on a callback list.
Our flat-rate pricing applies to emergency calls the same way it applies to scheduled work. The price is agreed upon before the work starts, regardless of the time of day. There’s no separate emergency surcharge revealed after the job is done.
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Other Services we provide in North Sacramento
