Plumber on Ventura's Westside and Ventura Avenue

We cover the Westside, from Main Street and the Simpson Tract north along the Ventura Avenue corridor. Licensed plumbers are available 24 hours a day.

An older neighborhood with older plumbing

The Westside, known locally as "the Avenue," grew with the Ventura Avenue oil field, which was discovered in the hills north of town in the 1910s and drew thousands of workers in the 1920s. The Simpson Tract was the city's first historic housing tract, and the city's historic resources survey lists Westside homes from about 1890 onward. Today about 14,000 people live in the subarea, according to the city's General Plan report.

Homes from that era often have:

• Galvanized steel water lines, rusted and narrowed inside after decades of hard water.
• Clay or cast-iron sewer laterals, sometimes running under alleys or shared yards.
• Older gas piping that may need replacement when a water heater, range or dryer is upgraded.
• Add-ons from later decades: converted garages, second units and remodeled bathrooms tied into original drains.

Common Westside plumbing jobs

Repiping galvanized homes

Low pressure at several taps, brown water first thing in the morning, and leaks at threaded joints all point to failing galvanized pipe. Spot repairs rarely keep up. A whole-house repipe with PEX replaces it all, with the City of Ventura permit.

Sewer laterals and drain backups

Clay laterals of this age crack, shift and admit roots. We clear the line, camera it, and offer spot repair, lining or replacement based on what the video shows.

Water heaters and gas lines

Many Westside water heaters sit in tight closets or old garages. We replace them to current code with two seismic straps and proper venting, and we upgrade gas lines when a new appliance needs more capacity.

Westside water

The Westside sits next to the Ventura River, and Ventura Water's river supply near Foster Park and its Lake Casitas supply mainly serve West and Midtown Ventura. Those sources average 26 and 15 grains per gallon of hardness, according to the utility's 2024 report: very hard, but softer than the groundwater serving East Ventura.

Adding a unit or bathroom

Second units and added bathrooms put new load on drains and laterals that were sized for one small house. Before you build, we can camera the existing lateral and check whether the water service and gas line can carry the new fixtures.

Westside plumbing questions