I'm leaving my La Pine place empty for the winter. What should I do with the plumbing?

A real winterization is more than shutting off the main. The water has to come out of the whole system: low-point drains under the house, the water heater, and every toilet tank. The toilet bowls get glycol, with a plastic seal over the rim so it does not evaporate over the winter and let sewer gas into the house. The shut-off gets tagged, and the power or propane to the heater goes off. We do all of this as one service visit, and we can turn everything back on in the spring. If you would rather do it yourself, call and we will walk you through the order.

My pipes froze while I was gone. What now?

Shut the water off at the main if you can get to it, then call us. Do not try to thaw lines with a torch or a space heater under the house. A frozen line almost always has more than one break, and none of them leak until the ice is gone, so we bring the system up to temperature safely, find every break, and repair them all in one visit.

My septic backed up. Do I need the tank pumped?

Maybe, but call a plumber first. Most "septic" backups are actually a clog or a break in the line between the house and the tank, and a pump-out does nothing for that. We run a camera down the line and show you where the problem is. If it is the tank, we tell you, and you have only paid for a camera inspection instead of a pump-out you did not need.

Why does my water smell like rotten eggs?

Sulfur, usually from the well, and sometimes from the anode rod in the water heater reacting with it. We can tell you which by testing at the hose bib versus the hot tap. If it is the well water, a filtration system handles it; if it is the heater, an anode change usually solves it.

Do you work on propane water heaters?

Yes. Most of La Pine is off the natural gas main, so a good share of the heaters we replace here are propane. We handle the connection and check the regulator and flex line on every visit.

Plumber in La Pine, OR

Cold-country plumbing for every kind of home, and everything on a well

Need a plumber in La Pine, OR? Mr. Rooter Plumbing of Central Oregon has been working the south county for more than 20 years, and owner Greg Muensterman has 46 years in the trade. La Pine is the coldest corner of our territory, most of it is on wells and septic, and the housing runs from custom homes to single-wides, so we send plumbers who have worked on all of it. Sewer camera on every van, price quoted before the work starts, and a plumber on call around the clock with no overtime charge.

Cold-country plumbing for every kind of home, and everything on a well

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Residential & Commercial Services

Plumbing services we provide in La Pine

La Pine sits at 4,229 feet in the valley of the Little Deschutes, 30 miles south of Bend, and it is routinely the coldest spot in Central Oregon. The ground is sandy, the water table is shallow, and most homes outside the town core are on a private well and a septic system that sits closer to groundwater than anywhere else we work. Most of the people we work for here live here year-round, in everything from custom homes along the river to single-wide trailers on an acre, with a share of cabins and second homes mixed in. We are in La Pine about once a week, and we have worked on every kind of house the south county has.

About us. Greg Muensterman started plumbing 46 years ago and has run the Mr. Rooter shop in Bend for more than 20 of them. Four licensed plumbers work out of our Peerless Court shop on the north side of Bend, every van carries a sewer camera, and the larger vans carry a gas and an electric water heater so a replacement does not wait for a second trip. We are a local, owner-run shop. The person who calls you back at night is a plumber.

A recent La Pine job. The water table down here is not a figure of speech. On one repair, an 18-inch-deep trench was filling with groundwater so fast that even with a trash pump running flat out, getting a clean, dry glue joint on the new line was a fight. We got it, but it is the kind of thing that only happens in La Pine, and it is why we bring the pump, the right fittings, and a plumber who has done it before. The water table moves with the season, so the same job in August and in March can be two different jobs.

Frozen pipes and winterization. This is the La Pine call. Lines through unheated crawl spaces, open stem wall vents, pump houses, and under manufactured homes freeze here before they freeze anywhere else. A frozen line cannot be properly repaired until it thaws, because there is almost never only one break. We help you get the system back up to temperature safely, find every leak, and repair them in one visit. Better yet, we winterize before it happens. If you are leaving a place empty for the season, we do a full winterization: shut the water off and tag the valve closed, open the low-point drains under the house, drain the water heater, shop-vac every toilet tank, put glycol in the bowl traps with a plastic seal over the rim so it does not evaporate and let sewer odor into the house, and shut off the power or propane to the heater. For homes that stay occupied, heat tape and insulation on the exposed runs and a check of the vents and skirting that let the cold in. See our pipe insulation page.

Septic-side plumbing. A backup in a La Pine home is often not the tank. It is a clog or a broken pipe between the house and the tank, and every one of our vans carries a sewer camera so we can find out which before anyone digs or calls for a pump-out. We clear the line and show you what we found on screen. We do not pump tanks, but we do inspect them, repair baffles on concrete tanks, clean out distribution boxes, and jet leach field lines with our HydroScrub equipment. When the camera shows a broken pipe, our trenchless sewer line repair options avoid digging up the yard. The south county's high water table means some homes here have more advanced treatment systems than a standard tank and drain field. We will tell you straight whether yours is one we service or one that needs a specialist. For homes in the part of town that is on city sewer, we handle the sewer lateral the same way.

Wells and water quality. Most of La Pine is on a private well, and the water here can carry iron and a rotten-egg smell from sulfur. We handle everything from the pressure tank into the house: pressure tanks, pressure-reducing valves, softeners, and filtration sized for your water. We check incoming pressure on every water heater call, because a pump running high shortens a heater's life and can void the warranty. The pump down in the well is a licensed well contractor's job, and we will tell you when that is what your symptoms point to. See our water softener and filtration service page.

Water heaters. A dead water heater in La Pine in January is not a wait-until-Monday problem. Our larger vans carry a 50-gallon gas and a 50-gallon electric Bradford White unit, and since most of La Pine is off the natural gas main, we handle propane connections and confirm the flex connector on every visit. Repairs most often come down to a thermocouple or an element and generally run $375 to $650, with a one-year warranty on every repair and installation. See our water heater repair and replacement page.

Drain cleaning. Slow drains and backups get the same treatment as everywhere else we work: cable or jetter to clear the line, then the camera so you see what caused it. Drain-only details for this area are on our drain cleaning in La Pine page.

Emergency plumbing. After 4 p.m. on weekdays and all weekend, our phones roll to a 24-hour answering service that texts the on-call plumber. He calls you back himself with an honest arrival window, and the flat-rate price is the same at midnight as at noon. See our emergency plumbing service page

Mr. Rooter Plumbing of Central Oregon

From La Pine we cover the whole south county: the neighborhoods along the Little Deschutes, the cabins out toward Newberry and Paulina Lake, Wickiup Junction, Three Rivers, Rosland, Finley Butte, and south to the county line. Our shop is on the north side of Bend, and we serve all of Deschutes, Jefferson, and Crook counties. If you are out past the pavement, call anyway; the on-call plumber will give you a real arrival window.

Areas We Serve

Ashwood
Bend
Black Butte Ranch
Brothers
Camp Sherman
Crescent
Culver
La Pine
Madras
Metolius
Paulina
Post
Prineville
Redmond
Sisters
Sunriver
Terrebonne
Tumalo
Warm Springs

Services We Provide

Every service below is available to La Pine homes, manufactured homes, cabins, and businesses, with the price quoted before we start, licensed Oregon CCB plumbers, and the Neighborly Done Right Promise. If the place sits empty part of the year, tell us; we can coordinate with a property manager or a neighbor with a key, and we will leave it the way we found it.

Residential
Commercial

Frequently Asked Questions

A real winterization is more than shutting off the main. The water has to come out of the whole system: low-point drains under the house, the water heater, and every toilet tank. The toilet bowls get glycol, with a plastic seal over the rim so it does not evaporate over the winter and let sewer gas into the house. The shut-off gets tagged, and the power or propane to the heater goes off. We do all of this as one service visit, and we can turn everything back on in the spring. If you would rather do it yourself, call and we will walk you through the order.
Shut the water off at the main if you can get to it, then call us. Do not try to thaw lines with a torch or a space heater under the house. A frozen line almost always has more than one break, and none of them leak until the ice is gone, so we bring the system up to temperature safely, find every break, and repair them all in one visit.
Maybe, but call a plumber first. Most "septic" backups are actually a clog or a break in the line between the house and the tank, and a pump-out does nothing for that. We run a camera down the line and show you where the problem is. If it is the tank, we tell you, and you have only paid for a camera inspection instead of a pump-out you did not need.
Sulfur, usually from the well, and sometimes from the anode rod in the water heater reacting with it. We can tell you which by testing at the hose bib versus the hot tap. If it is the well water, a filtration system handles it; if it is the heater, an anode change usually solves it.
Yes. Most of La Pine is off the natural gas main, so a good share of the heaters we replace here are propane. We handle the connection and check the regulator and flex line on every visit.

See All FAQs

Residential
Commercial