Underground plumbing experts.
We fix the pipes and dig our own holes.
You need a plumber who goes underground. That's specialty work. Even the plumbers who do underground work - most of them sub out the digging and wait. That means a more expensive job that takes longer.
We live in one of the oldest cities in America. After more than 340 years, it's a mess underground. Some of those pipes are still terracotta. Plus there's a tangle of gas, electric, water, and fiber to work around without breaking anything.
Your job moves faster because the City already trusts us. Emergency work can start before the permit is filed, instead of waiting for days for permits and sub-contractors.
We do those jobs every day. We can walk you through what the Notice means and what it'll take to fix. We can help with financing too, more details below.
A sewer backup sometimes just needs Drain Cleaning and that's where you should start. For water surfacing outside, it could be a clog, a broken curb trap, a collapsed lateral, or a broken main.
Sometimes the camera shows that the pipes just aren't up to the job anymore. That's when the pipe has to be replaced, which usually means digging. Either way, you'll get a straight answer before anybody touches a shovel.
Your underground pipes aren't going to check your bank balance before they fail - and you can't exactly wait to fix them.
Before any dirt moves, the camera goes down the line. You watch the screen at the same time we do. Sometimes the problem isn't where everyone thinks it is. We figure it out first, so you don't waste time & money.
No waiting on a subcontractor's schedule. No surprise extra cost for somebody else's day-rate when the machine operator clocks out at 5pm. Our crew, our excavator, our truck - same day, same job, same price.
We dig the smallest hole that gets the job done. And we always know what's already in the ground before we touch a shovel. When we see a particularly sensitive line marked, we don't open it, we go under it.
Curb trap, lateral, water service, sewer line - fixed the same day the hole gets dug. No “we'll come back tomorrow when the excavator clears out.” No surprise on your bill because the sub took two days instead of one.
If we come through your foundation wall to run a new line, the wall gets cemented the same day. Greg learned that one the hard way: if it rains overnight and your basement floods - that's on us, not on you.
Yours, plus one neighbor in each direction on city blocks. In the suburbs, your grass goes back blade by blade. You'll see it cleaner than we found it.
For water service line replacement, we can run a pneumatic mole under the ground - a small bullet of compressed air that drills through the soil and pulls the new pipe behind it. No trench. No torn-up front yard. Just a small hole at each end and the pipe magically appears.
Ask if it's right for your job.
We're not perfect, we're plumbers; but our workmanship warranty is forever.
Here's the thing - in Philadelphia, the excavators are getting rich because the small plumbing companies don't have machines. So I watched the guy I was renting one from. I bought every piece of equipment he had, the exact same ones, and stashed it all in my garage until I was ready. Then the pandemic hit, the rental price went up 500 bucks a day, and I said: that's it. I'm digging my own holes from now on.
A homeowner called us about water in her basement. Three or four buckets a day after every rain. She'd already had two plumbers out. Both of them were looking for a sewer leak.
We took one look at the water and knew — it was clean. Spring water, not sewer water. Whatever was leaking wasn't anything the other guys were trained to look for.
So we traced it. Years ago, somebody had replaced her water service line. They'd left a stub of the old copper pipe in her foundation and never sealed it. Every rain, water followed the old pipe right into her basement.
We pulled the stub. Sealed the foundation wall with concrete. The next rain came, and her basement stayed dry.
She kept her foundation. She kept the rest of her plumbing. The bill was a fraction of what another sewer line replacement would've cost - and she didn't need a new sewer line.
We don't service symptoms. We fix problems.
Faster, Better Underground Plumbing for North Philly.
Plumbing isn't about pipes.
It's about taking care of people.
You have about 10 days to get a licensed plumber on it. The City won't fix the pipe between your property and the main — that's the homeowner's responsibility, even when the broken pipe is under the sidewalk or roadway. Call us and we'll walk you through what the Notice says, what the actual repair will be, and what the City programs are that can help with the cost. More on Notice of Defect →
You probably don't, yet. Most people who think they need a line replacement actually need a thorough camera inspection and a straight second opinion. We'll come out, run the camera, and tell you what's really going on — even if the answer is “you don't need anybody to dig.”
No. The hole only gets as big as the job needs. If one 6-foot trench solves it instead of trenching the whole line, that's what happens. For water service line replacements, sometimes the trench doesn't have to come up at all — we run a pneumatic mole under the soil and the new pipe goes in without a trench.
Mostly yes. Topsoil goes in its own pile, subsoil in its own pile, and they go back in the right order. The backfill gets tamped so the trench doesn't sink in six months. Grass grows back within a season. If there's specialty landscaping — a tree, a wall, pavers — tell us up front and we'll work around it or restore it.
Pennsylvania One Call (811) marks the lines before we dig — gas, electric, water, telecom. Greg sends every tech to the 811 dig classes, and the standing rule on our crew is: we see a line marked, we don't open it, we go under it. Sprinklers we map and protect, or cap and reconnect after.
Yes. Philadelphia requires permits for sewer line work and water service line work. We pull them, we schedule the inspections, we deal with the City. You don't have to.
Most residential excavation jobs — a single line replacement, a buried-pipe repair, a service line swap — take one to three days from dig to backfill. Bigger jobs or jobs waiting on permits go longer. You get a real timeline when we book.
Yes. Before we touch a shovel, the camera goes down the line and you're watching the screen at the same time we are. Whatever the camera shows, you see it the same time we do.
Yes. Every job, the crew takes pictures of your street, your sidewalk, and your concrete before any work starts. That way the condition of everything is on record — and you won't get blamed for a crack that was already there.
Yes, that's a separate B2B side of the business. Go to idigforplumbers.com for plumber-to-plumber excavation. Same crew, same equipment.
