Bergen Home Services is a referral service, not a plumbing company. Tell us what is happening and where you are. We pass it to plumbers in our network who cover your town, and they contact you directly with their own price.
Takes about a minute, and it is free. Would rather talk? Call (201) 555-1234.
Burst pipe or active leak? Shut the water off at the main first, then call (201) 555-1234. Response times depend on which contractors are free, so calling reaches someone faster than this form.
We pass this to local contractors who cover your town. No cost, no obligation.
Pinhole leaks in 1960s copper, split lines in an unheated crawl space or cape kneewall, failed shutoff valves and burst supply hoses under a sink. The first job is stopping the water, then cutting out the bad section and repairing in copper or PEX with the right transition fittings.
Cabling and hydro jetting for kitchen branches packed with grease, main lines choked with roots, and floor drains that back up during a storm. Camera work locates the trouble by distance and depth, so you know whether you are buying a cleaning or an excavation.
Replacement of 40, 50 and 75 gallon gas or electric tanks, including the thermal expansion tank and the venting current code requires. Tankless conversions usually mean upsizing the gas line back toward the meter, new stainless sidewall venting and a condensate drain.
Whole house or one floor at a time, replacing rusted galvanized steel or gray polybutylene with PEX or type L copper. Most of the cost is access, because an open basement ceiling is a different job from fishing lines through plaster walls in a 1928 colonial.
Replacing the water service from the curb stop to the meter, and the sewer lateral from the house out to the street main, by open cut or trenchless pipe bursting. This is permit and street opening work, so the quote should spell out town fees, restoration and utility coordination.
Pump and check valve replacement, battery backup for the outages that come with a nor'easter, and backwater valves for houses that take sewer backups on low ground near the Hackensack River and Overpeck Creek. Also the ordinary work: toilets, faucets, angle stops, laundry boxes and frost-free hose bibs.
Plumbing prices in Bergen County come down to three things: how hard the pipe is to reach, whether the town requires a permit and an inspection, and whether you are calling Tuesday morning or Sunday night. These are typical North Jersey ranges that move with scope, not quotes.
| Job | Typical range | What moves the number |
|---|---|---|
| Emergency leak or burst pipe repair | Typical range: $350 - $1,800 | What moves the number: After-hours call fees run $150 to $500 before any repair. Opening a finished wall or ceiling to reach the split adds to it. |
| Main drain or sewer line clearing | Typical range: $275 - $750 | What moves the number: Cabling through an existing cleanout is the low end. Roots, no accessible cleanout or hydro jetting runs $600 to $1,500, and a camera inspection adds $250 to $500. |
| Gas water heater replacement, 40 to 50 gallon | Typical range: $2,000 - $3,800 | What moves the number: Includes permit, expansion tank and code venting. A tankless conversion with a new gas line and venting is closer to $4,500 to $9,000. |
| Whole-house repipe of galvanized supply | Typical range: $8,000 - $22,000 | What moves the number: PEX in a house with an open basement ceiling sits at the low end. Copper, three floors and plaster patching push it to the top. |
| Water service or sewer lateral replacement to the street | Typical range: $5,000 - $20,000 | What moves the number: Water service runs lower, sewer lateral higher because of depth. Driveway and sidewalk restoration and the town street opening permit drive the rest. |
Want a real number for your job rather than a range?
Get a free estimateThe things that matter most on this kind of job.
New Jersey licenses plumbers through the State Board of Examiners of Master Plumbers, and that license number is supposed to appear on the truck, the estimate and the advertising. Ask which licensed master plumber stands behind the job and confirm the number with the Division of Consumer Affairs. Then ask who is actually coming to the house, because apprentices do plenty of the work but a licensed plumber is responsible for it.
Water heater swaps, gas line changes, repipes, and water or sewer service replacements need a municipal plumbing permit in Bergen County towns, and an inspector has to sign off. If someone tells you a water heater needs no permit, that is a sign he does not plan to be there for the inspection. Unpermitted plumbing tends to surface later, at a home sale or in an insurance claim after a failure.
A clog and a collapsed line cost very different money, and you cannot tell them apart from the basement floor. Ask for the recording and the footage distance, so you know whether you are looking at roots at a joint 40 feet out, a belly holding water, or Orangeburg pipe from the 1950s that has gone oval. That one video is the difference between a clearing that buys you a season and a full excavation.
Most North Jersey shops price by the job, which is fine, but ask what the number covers and what happens when the wall opens and there is more bad pipe behind it. Get the diagnosis and the price in writing before you authorize the repair, even at midnight. In a real emergency it is reasonable to pay for a stop-the-water visit first and decide on the full repair in daylight.
Always verify before you pay a deposit. Plumbing is licensed separately in New Jersey, through the State Board of Examiners of Master Plumbers. Ask which licensed master plumber stands behind the job and check that license at njconsumeraffairs.gov. A shop that also takes on general home improvement work outside its plumbing license needs Home Improvement Contractor registration too. Ask for a certificate of insurance either way, and get any job over $500 in a written, signed contract.
Three steps, no cost to you, and no obligation to hire anyone.
Fill in the form or call. We ask what the work is, which town you are in, and roughly when you want it done.
We pass your details to contractors in our network who cover your town and do that specific type of work.
They contact you directly, walk the job and price it themselves. Compare the quotes and hire whoever you want, or nobody at all.
In a Bergen County house built before about 1960, it is usually galvanized steel supply pipe rusting closed from the inside. The tell is that pressure seems fine until two fixtures run at once, and the hot side is worse than the cold. A plumber can read static pressure at an outside hose bib and compare it to actual flow at an upstairs fixture. If static pressure is normal and flow is poor, the pipe is the problem, not the street main.
In most Bergen County basements the main valve is on the street side wall, just before or just after the water meter. Turn it clockwise until it stops, then open the lowest faucet in the house to bleed off the pressure. If it is an old gate valve that will not budge, do not force it, because the stem can snap and leave you worse off. There is also a curb stop under a small metal lid near the sidewalk, and your water utility can shut it from the street: Veolia in much of the county, Ridgewood Water in Ridgewood, Glen Rock, Midland Park and Wyckoff, and a borough water department in a few towns.
It depends on what the camera shows. Clay tile with root intrusion at the joints, where the pipe still holds a round shape, can often be lined or pipe burst without a full trench. A section that has collapsed, gone badly out of round, or bellied so it holds standing water usually has to be dug and replaced. Ask your town about the street opening permit early, because a recently repaved road can carry a paving moratorium that changes the restoration cost.
Sometimes, but it is rarely a simple swap. A typical 1950s Bergen County house has a gas line sized for a 40 gallon tank, and a tankless unit usually needs a larger line run back toward the meter, new stainless venting out a sidewall and a condensate drain. That is why a conversion runs two to three times a tank replacement. If you have the space, a high recovery tank is often the better value, and if you do go tankless, plan on descaling every year or two because the water here leaves scale in the heat exchanger.
Find your main shutoff first and make sure it turns, because a frozen section often starts leaking the moment it thaws. Open the faucet that line feeds so melting water has somewhere to go, then warm the area with a hair dryer or a space heater, working from the faucet back toward the cold spot. Never put a torch on a frozen line. Then deal with the cause, because in Bergen County it is almost always an uninsulated crawl space, a rim joist, a cape kneewall or a run inside an outside wall, and it will freeze again next January.
Both meet the New Jersey plumbing code and both go into Bergen County houses every week. PEX bends around framing, so it needs fewer holes in plaster walls, it costs less in labor, and it survives a freeze better than rigid copper. Type L copper costs more, takes heat and sunlight without trouble, and is what a lot of homeowners want on exposed basement runs. A common split is copper on the visible basement main and PEX for the branch lines fished up through the walls.
Tell us about the job and we will put you in front of local contractors who do this work. Free, and there is no obligation to hire.
