Plumber in Royal Oak, MI

Royal Oak plumbing is old-house plumbing. Of the city's roughly 31,100 homes, about 18,800 were built before 1960, and more than 5,100 date to 1939 or earlier, so 1920s bungalows and 1940s and 1950s Cape Cods set the pattern on most streets. Royal Oak is one of 14 south Oakland communities in the George W. Kuhn drainage district, built around combined sewers that carry rain and sewage together. When the August 11, 2014 storm overwhelmed that system, police took hundreds of calls about flooded basements. We come over from our Warren office on I-696 for backups, worn-out water lines and downtown kitchens.

The buried Red Run and the August 2014 basement floods

The Red Run was mostly filled in or buried in drain pipe, and the landscaped median of Vinsetta Boulevard covers part of it. On August 11, 2014, Vinsetta near 12 Mile and Woodward stood under about two feet of water, and residents on that low stretch over the old river lost what was in their basements.

Downstream, the Kuhn basin holds 150 million gallons of combined flow, screens and disinfects it, and spills the excess to the Red Run Drain. About 2 billion gallons went that way in August 2014. Your basement connects to the street sewer, not the basin, so a backwater valve on the building drain is the house-side defense.

Prewar bungalows and 1950s Cape Cods on the same Royal Oak block

The 1950s were Royal Oak's biggest building decade, with 8,896 of today's homes, after 5,151 from 1939 or earlier and 4,795 from the 1940s. One block can hold a 1920s bungalow on fieldstone and a 1950s Cape Cod on poured concrete. Both usually have a cast iron stack and a clay or cast iron lateral, and the older one is likelier to keep its galvanized supply. With 83 percent of homes heating with utility gas, the furnace and water heater often share the old chimney flue.

Your cleanout, the city main and roots under old streets

The city is responsible only for its main line, and you own the cleanout up to and including the connection to it. Tree roots, disposable diapers and grease are the blockages it names, and each one pushes water back through floor drains and cracks in the floor. A backup that clears and comes back is worth a camera run after basement floor drain cleaning from the cleanout.

Lead service lines and SOCWA water in prewar homes

Royal Oak buys Great Lakes Water Authority water through the Southeastern Oakland County Water Authority at thirteen connection points. The city's November 2024 report to its water advisory council counted 267 lead or galvanized service lines replaced that year, with three replacement rounds a year aimed at finishing by 2033. Health questions go to the city and the state lead program. Inside the house, rusted galvanized steel is the daily problem, and galvanized pipe replacement can go room by room or all at once.

From Stephens Road to Royal Oak by Hoover and I-696

From our office we take Hoover Road up to I-696 and head west to the Woodward, Campbell or I-75 exits. We group Royal Oak visits on the west side of our area and call ahead. In a bungalow basement we start at the cleanout and floor drain, then the meter and main shutoff, then the water heater's chimney vent. If the job needs a permit, Building Inspection issues it and does the plumbing inspection, and we'll tell you up front.

Downtown is where the commercial work concentrates, with restaurants along Main and Washington sending grease into old laterals. The Farmers Market building is from the same decade as many of the bungalows around it. City Hall at 203 S. Troy Street houses Building Inspection, which takes permit and inspection requests online. The Department of Public Service on North Campbell is the office to call when a floor drain backs up in a storm. Its crews check the main and will tell you when the blockage is in your line.

See every city we serve around Warren · More Oakland County cities · What causes basement backups during big storms · How to tell if your house still has galvanized pipes

Last updated October 25, 2026