Faucet, toilet and garbage disposal replacement in Los Angeles

Faucet replacement. Kitchen or bath. The old unit comes off and the new one goes in with new supply lines. Most of the time goes on lying under the sink, working blind in a cabinet. It sounds like a twenty-minute job. It rarely is.

Toilet replacement. Water off, tank drained, old unit lifted out. New wax ring or seal, then the new bowl set and leveled. It gets watched for a while afterward to be sure the seal is dry. And the old toilet has to be hauled away.

Garbage disposal replacement. Usually the simplest of the three, as long as the new unit matches the old one and there is already a plug or a hardwired connection under the sink. If there isn’t, or the switch needs moving, that part is electrical work for a licensed electrician.

This is the surprise that comes up most often on older LA plumbing.

Every sink and toilet should have a small shut-off valve on the wall behind it, called an angle stop. In a house that is decades old and has never had one touched, that valve often won’t turn. Sometimes it turns and then weeps steadily from the stem. Sometimes it closes and still doesn’t seal. It is a $15 part that turns a one-hour job into a two-hour job, because the water then has to be shut off at the main and the valve replaced before the fixture can go in at all.

None of that is a disaster. A pro who works on old houses carries the parts. But it is why an honest estimate covers the fixture swap and names the valve as a possible add-on instead of pretending it can’t happen. If your house is pre-war and the valves have never been replaced, budget for it.

California has a minor work exemption, under Business and Professions Code section 7048. It is narrower than most people think. All of these have to be true. The work is minor and is not part of a bigger project. The whole contract, labor and materials together, comes to less than $1,000. The job does not need a building permit. And it has not been split into smaller contracts to get under the number. The exemption also doesn’t cover someone who advertises in a way that might suggest to the public they’re a contractor, or who brings in another person to help with the work. Miss any one of those and the job needs a licensed contractor.

This matters more here than on most jobs, because fixtures cost real money and the fixture counts toward the total. Labor alone for a faucet or toilet swap sits well under $1,000. Add a $400 toilet, or a high-end kitchen faucet, and the combined job gets closer to it. Price is only one of the conditions though, so you can’t run it as a test on its own. Two ways to keep it simple. You buy the fixture yourself, so only the labor gets charged. Or the job goes to a licensed plumber. Tell us the fixture and we’ll say which way we would go.

Supplying your own is usually cheaper, and it keeps the charged total down. The trade-off: if it arrives damaged or doesn’t fit the existing holes, that is on you, and any warranty on the unit is yours to chase. If the pro supplies it, they handle the fit and the return. Either way is fine. Decide before the visit is booked, though, because it changes the price.

• Water pressure is poor throughout the house, not just at one fixture.
• Several drains are slow at once, or the toilet backs up over and over. LA’s older sewer laterals and tree roots are a common cause.
• Water seeps around the base of the toilet, or the floor feels soft. That can mean a failed flange or a rotted subfloor.
• The supply pipes are galvanized steel and visibly corroded.
• Anything involves moving a pipe, a drain line, or the water heater.

Tell us if any of these are true before a visit gets booked. All of them are work for a licensed plumber, and sending a handyman to a sewer problem helps nobody.