Your Local Plumber in
Palo Alto, CA
JetPipe Plumbing is based in Sunnyvale and serves homes across Palo Alto, handling water heaters, drain and sewer service, main water lines, gas lines, and whole house repiping. Licensed C-36, family owned, and open every day from seven in the morning until ten at night.
What We Fix in Palo Alto Homes
Palo Alto housing runs from 1890s cottages and Craftsman homes in the older neighborhoods to the Eichler tracts built in the 1950s. What goes wrong in a house depends a great deal on which of those it belongs to. Below is what we handle, grouped by the symptom rather than by the part.
No hot water, a tank weeping at the base, rusty water at the tap, or you are ready to move to tankless or a heat pump.
A kitchen line that backs up every few months, a tub that stands full, gurgling, or a smell you cannot trace.
Pressure that drops the moment someone opens another tap, rusty water after the house sits, or leaks appearing in new spots.
Backups that return no matter how often the line is cleared, wet ground in the yard, or roots you have cut more than once.
A wet patch in the lawn, a meter that keeps turning with every fixture off, or a service line older than the house.
A shutoff valve that has not turned in years, a pressure regulator that is failing, or a filter for the kitchen tap.
A new range, a dryer, a fireplace, or the smell of gas near an appliance.
A stain spreading across the ceiling, a warm spot underfoot on the slab, or a water bill that jumped with nothing else changed.
A faucet that will not stop dripping, a shower that runs cold, or a toilet that runs all night.
Same City, Very Different Plumbing
A repipe in Professorville and a repipe in Greenmeadow are not the same job, and anyone quoting both over the phone at the same number has not opened the walls in either one.
The oldest housing in the city. Galvanized and early copper supply lines that have closed up or worn thin, older drain lines, and original shutoff valves that seize the first time anyone turns them. Access can be tight, so we plan staging before the truck arrives.
Slab on grade with radiant heating tubing in the concrete, and pinhole leaks that show up as a warm spot on the floor or a bill that climbed for no reason anyone can name. Where the layout allows it we route new lines above the slab instead of breaking it.
Mid-century single-story homes where the original supply lines have been in the wall a long time. Some sit on a slab and some on a raised floor, and which one you have decides how we reach the pipe. We confirm that at the estimate instead of guessing over the phone.
Older underground lines do not always get replaced when the house above them does, so we camera the lateral before we quote. Many streets here mix everything above, which is why we do not quote this part of town sight unseen.
Licensed, Family-Owned, and
Accountable for Every Job
JetPipe Plumbing was founded by Anna Gurbanova-Muravyeva, and she and her husband still run it. That matters more than it sounds. When you call, you are reaching a small local company where the owners are accountable for the work, not a call center routing your job to whoever is available that afternoon.
We are a C-36 licensed plumbing contractor, license number 1139033, and we carry full liability insurance. Hydro jetting, pipe bursting, and trenchless installation are all done in house, with equipment we own and crews we trained.
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- We work on homes, not commercial buildings, and that focus is deliberate. Residential plumbing on the Peninsula has its own set of problems. Palo Alto water comes from the Hetch Hetchy system and is low in minerals, so the usual story here is age rather than scale. Homes built before the seventies still run galvanized supply pipe that is closing up from the inside, and older sewer laterals crack and let roots in. We see the same failures week after week across the Peninsula and South Bay, and we know what actually fixes them.
- That experience is why most of our work is the jobs other companies avoid. Whole house repiping in copper or PEX. Main water line replacement without tearing up the driveway. Sewer line repair and full sewer replacement. Water heater installation, including tankless units and heat pump systems. Switching from gas to a heat pump qualifies for a local rebate. Gas line installation for a new range or a backyard kitchen. If it runs water or gas through a house, we handle it.
- Every estimate starts with a free on-site assessment. You get a written price before any work begins, and that price is what you pay. No hourly billing, no invoice that grew while you were at work.
Jobs We Finished in Palo Alto
Photos from recent jobs: repipes, sewer replacements, water heater swaps, gas lines. No stock images.
The Permit and the Rebate Are Our Job, Not Yours
Palo Alto runs its own utilities. Electricity, gas, water and sewer all come from the city rather than from PG&E, which means the permit counter, the inspection and the rebate paperwork follow city rules that do not apply one town over. We work inside them often enough to know the order things happen in.
Our permit department runs the load calculation and checks whether your existing panel supports the new unit as it stands. That one question decides whether a heat pump water heater is straightforward or whether electrical work has to come first. We draw whatever plans the city asks for and pull the permit through the city’s online portal. When the inspector comes out, one of our people is there with the documentation, so you are not the one answering questions about work you did not perform.
Worth knowing before you plan your week. Palo Alto asks for a permit on a water heater replacement, and a swap of the same type in the same place is the simplest kind. Moving a unit, switching from gas to electric, or adding a gas appliance takes more review, and the city’s code also asks for electric readiness when a gas appliance is added or replaced. We confirm what applies to your house at the estimate.
The rebate comes from the city here too. Because Palo Alto runs its own electric and gas utility, the heat pump water heater rebate is paid by Palo Alto Utilities: up to $3,500 when a heat pump replaces a gas water heater, and $500 when it replaces an electric resistance one. The application goes in before the work starts, and the final paperwork includes the invoice and proof that the permit passed inspection, which is one more reason the permit and the rebate belong in the same hands. The city mails the rebate check after the final documents are approved. You pay the install cost upfront either way, we prepare the paperwork, and we confirm the current amounts at the estimate.
Financing through Synchrony with $0 down and 0% interest when you pay the full balance within 6, 9, 12, or 18 months. You pay exactly the amount on our invoice. Subject to credit approval.
400+ reviews from Bay Area homeowners
Neighborhoods We Cover in Palo Alto
We are based in Sunnyvale and serve Palo Alto homes, from the Eichler tracts to the older streets near
downtown. If your street is not
listed below, call anyway. One call tells you whether we can reach you.
The map shows where we work most weeks, not a fence. We are based in Sunnyvale and we regularly take jobs in Palo Alto. One call tells you whether we can reach you and when.
Do I need a permit to replace a water heater in Palo Alto?
Yes. Palo Alto requires a permit for a water heater replacement, and a straight swap in the same spot is the simplest kind to get. We pull it as part of the job. If you are moving from gas to a heat pump unit, the passed inspection also becomes part of the rebate file, so it is not paperwork worth skipping.
Who is responsible for the sewer lateral, me or the city?
Both, depending on where the problem sits. When there is a city cleanout, the city owns the line from the main in the street up to and including that cleanout, and you own the rest of the way to the house. Where there is no accessible cleanout the split is different, and Palo Alto Utilities determines responsibility, so call them about a problem on the street side. We put a camera down the lateral first so nobody is guessing about which side of that line the problem sits on.
My house sits on a slab. Can you repipe without breaking up the floor?
In most cases we can. Eichlers and other slab homes here often have radiant heating tubing in the concrete, so we do not cut into the floor. The new copper and PEX is routed above the slab, and the old lines are abandoned in the concrete. Opening the slab is a last resort, not a starting point.
How quickly can someone actually get here?
We are based in Sunnyvale and Palo Alto is a regular stop for us. We are open every day from seven in the morning until ten at night, and we hold same day slots for the problems that will not wait. Call and we will tell you what is open today.
Is the rebate something I have to chase down myself?
Not with us. The permit department prepares the paperwork alongside the permit, because Palo Alto Utilities asks for the invoice and proof that the permit passed inspection before it pays anything out. The application goes in before the work starts, you cover the install cost upfront, and the city mails the rebate to you afterward.
Can the water line from the meter be replaced without tearing up the yard?
In Palo Alto your responsibility starts at the water meter, so the line we replace runs from the meter to the house. We run our own pipe bursting and trenchless installation equipment, so the new line gets pulled through from a small pit at each end instead of along an open trench. Mature landscaping and a finished driveway are usually what make that worth doing. Where the old line runs under something we cannot work around, we will tell you before we start rather than after.
Fill out the form and we’ll call you back with a clear answer: what it usually turns out to be, what it takes to fix, and what it costs. No charge for the conversation.