Toilets
Straight swaps, comfort-height upgrades and low-flow replacements. Comfort height is the change people most often say they should have made years earlier — a couple of inches is a lot to bad knees.
Fixture Installs
Fixture Installs
Toilets, sinks, faucets, tubs, showers, laundry hook-ups and appliance water lines — fitted in homes, cottages and small businesses across Charlotte County.
The Work
Two jobs in one, and you only ever see one of them
The connections disappear within a day, into a cupboard or behind a wall. That half either holds water or it doesn't, and when it doesn't you find out slowly — a swollen cabinet base, a ring on the ceiling below. The visible half you meet every morning: a tap that shifts when you turn it, a toilet that moves under you, a line of silicone that wanders off straight.
And while the water is already off and the old unit is out on the floor, that's the moment to deal with the valves underneath. A shut-off that has sat untouched since the house was built is often the thing that seizes at the worst possible time. Changing one now costs a fraction of what it costs later as its own repair call — and the next person under that sink can stop the water in five seconds instead of running for the main.
Finished install photo
A new vanity or kitchen faucet. Landscape, ~1200×900.
On every install
- The old fixture drained, disconnected and out of your way
- Shut-offs tested, and swapped while the water's down if they're tired
- New supply lines where the old ones are stretched or corroded
- The fixture set level — no rocking, nothing over-cranked
- Sealed where sealing helps, open where a leak needs somewhere to show
- Everything run, and every joint checked dry before we leave
What Gets Installed
The everyday list — and the bit worth knowing first
Most fixture calls are one of these six. What's under each heading is the part that's useful before you buy, not after.
Sinks, faucets and shut-offs
Drop-in, undermount and pedestal, kitchen and bath. Hole spacing has to match the tap: a widespread set won't reach holes drilled for a centreset.
Tubs and showers
Valve, trim, waste and overflow, and the surround. The valve has to be set for the finished wall — board and tile included — or the trim plate stands proud, or sits too deep to reach.
Laundry hook-ups
Washer boxes, hot and cold valves, standpipe and trap, and laundry tubs. Rubber washer hoses are a common way a house floods with nobody home.
Dishwasher and fridge lines
Feeds for a new dishwasher or an ice maker, with a shut-off you can get at. If your fridge runs off an old piercing saddle valve, that's worth replacing — they clog, then they weep.
Outside taps
Frost-free sillcocks, with the shut-off inside where you can find it in October. A tap never drained down properly is the classic spring surprise.
Who Buys It
Buy it yourself, or we'll bring it
Both work. Some people have already stood in a showroom and picked out exactly the tap they want. Others would rather never think about it.
If you're supplying it
- Measure first. Rough-in, hole spacing and cabinet width rule out more fixtures than the finish ever does.
- Keep the box and every small bag — cartridges and mounting hardware are often packed separately.
- Have it on site before the day. One missing part turns a one-visit job into two.
- Send us the model number before you order and we'll flag anything that won't fit.
If you'd rather we brought it
Tell us the room, roughly what you want to spend, and what the fixture has to put up with. A busy family bathroom and a camp that's shut down every October aren't asking for the same thing.
We'll come with something that fits the opening and the budget, and say plainly where spending more buys you something — a better valve cartridge, say — and where it only buys a different finish.
Renovations & Additions
The cheapest call in a renovation is the early one
A drain four inches out of place is a pencil line on the subfloor at rough-in stage. Afterwards it's a saw, a Saturday and a patched ceiling. Venting is the same story: a fixture on the end of a long run needs air behind it, or the trap siphons itself dry and a brand-new bathroom starts smelling like an old one.
So we'd sooner walk the space before anything is closed in — where the toilet is going, which way the vanity drawers swing, whether the shower valve belongs where the plan says or eight inches over so you can reach it without standing in the spray. We're used to working around a carpenter's schedule.
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Walk the space
Fixture positions, drain and vent routes, and anything in the existing plumbing that will make the plan harder than the drawing suggests.
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Rough-in
Drain, waste, vent and supply go in while everything is open, and get tested. Valves are set to the finished wall thickness, and blocking goes in behind anything that has to carry weight later.
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Close it in
Insulation, board, tile, paint, cabinets. Nothing for us to do — it's simply the point after which changes stop being cheap.
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Finish and trim
Fixtures set, trim on, traps and tailpieces made up, then everything run and checked. The visit where the room stops being a building site.
Getting a plumber in at framing stage doesn't add a visit — it moves one. The work happens either way. The only question is whether the drain goes in the right place the first time, or gets moved later through a finished floor.
Once The Drywall's Up
How to tell it was done properly
Before any plumber packs up — ours or anyone else's — it's worth five minutes and a flashlight. None of this needs a trade licence to check.
The toilet doesn't moveSit down and shift your weight. A bowl that rocks will work its seal loose eventually.
There's a gap at the back of itSealed at the front and sides, deliberately open at the rear — so a failed seal shows on the floor instead of rotting the subfloor quietly.
The shut-offs turnThey should close by hand, without a wrench, and without emptying the cupboard to reach them.
Supply lines curve, they don't kinkA gentle bow with slack in it. Pulled tight or bent sharp at the fitting is a line that lets go early.
The handle clears everythingOpen the tap all the way. Handles catch on windowsills and backsplashes more often than you'd think.
It's still dry an hour laterRun the tap, flush twice, fill the tub. Then dry paper towel on every joint — slow drips don't show themselves in thirty seconds.
If something isn't right, say so before the truck leaves. Any tradesman worth calling back would rather sort it out standing there than take the phone call a fortnight later.
Older Houses & Camps
Old house, new fixture
A good share of the housing around here has had two or three generations of plumbing added to it, one project at a time. A fixture bought off a shelf this year assumes none of that history. Toilets are the usual one: twelve inches from the finished wall to the centre of the drain is standard now, and older houses turn up ten, fourteen, or a measurement nobody ever took.
None of that is a reason to leave the job undone. It's a reason to have someone look before you buy, so the surprise lands at the estimate rather than halfway through a Saturday. If the drain has been slow for a while, that's the moment to have it cleared properly — and if the plan adds a second bathroom to the same supply, ask whether the water heater is up to it before the tile goes down.
In an older home we look at
- The real rough-in measurement, before anything is ordered
- What the supply lines are made of, and what shape they're in
- Whether there's a working shut-off anywhere near the fixture
- Drain height and trap arm angle against the new cabinet
- Venting for anything being moved, added or re-routed
- Whether the floor under an old toilet is still sound
- On a seasonal camp, how the new fixture drains down each fall
While We're There
Fixture work tends to turn up neighbours
Once the cupboard is empty and the water is off, a few other jobs get a lot cheaper.
Leak & Pipe Repair
Seized shut-offs, weeping joints, and the drip that started the day the old faucet came off.
Learn moreWater Heaters
A new bathroom, a soaker tub or a second laundry all pull on the same tank. Better to know beforehand.
Learn moreDrain Cleaning
A new sink on a half-blocked drain solves nothing. With the trap off, that line is as easy to reach as it gets.
Learn moreReady When You Are
Got a fixture sitting in a box?
Tell us what it is and where it's going. We'll tell you what's involved, what it costs, and when we can be there. Renovating — call before the walls close.
506-321-6782Mon–Fri 8:00am–5:00pm · emergency call-outs by arrangement