SAL PIPERThirty-One Years in the Trade
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Sal Piper · Residential Service Plumbing

Nine calls out of ten were the same twenty problems.

Thirty-one years under other people's houses taught me the ugly part: most of what you would pay me to come out and do is a six-dollar part, twenty minutes, and knowing the order to check things in. That order has never been written down for homeowners. So I wrote it down.

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159Pages
24Repairs
31Years in Service
Sal Piper, residential service plumber, in his workshop
Sal Piper · Thirty-One Years in Residential Service

"There is no money in a homeowner who knows what a fill valve is."

Why nobody in the trade taught you this
Section I · The Manual

A book about plumbing tells you how the system is designed. This one tells you what to do when the water is on the floor.

I spent thirty-one years in residential service. Not new construction, where the walls are open and the work is clean — service. The phone rings, somebody is upset, I drive over and crawl under their house. I have been under enough of them that I stopped counting somewhere in the second decade.

In all that time I kept noticing the same thing. Roughly nine calls out of ten were the same twenty or so problems, over and over, in different houses. A flapper. An aerator. A slip nut somebody had cross-threaded. A chain a half inch too long. Work I could have talked a homeowner through on the telephone in ten minutes, if the trade worked that way. It does not. I get paid to drive over.

"I have seen a burst washing-machine hose do four hundred dollars of damage because a man knew exactly where his main was and got to it in ninety seconds. I have seen an identical hose in an identical house do thirty-one thousand, because the family was at a wedding."

So here is the list. Twenty-four repairs, written in the order you will actually meet them, each chapter built the same way so that once you have read one you know where to find things in all the rest — because when water is running across a floor, you should not have to hunt.

Every chapter opens with a strip: how hard the job is, how long it takes, what the parts cost. Then the mechanism in plain words, because somebody who understands the mechanism can diagnose a problem I never anticipated. Then what you need. Then the fix, in numbered steps, written the way I would talk you through it standing at your elbow.

Then the two sections most books leave out, which I consider the most valuable pages in here. What this does not fix — the failures that look identical from the outside but have a different cause, so you do not spend Saturday on the wrong repair. And when to stop — the specific signs that the job has become somebody else's.

"A book that never tells you to stop is trying to sell you confidence, not skill."

Gas is one of those. Anything inside a wall is another. A sewer lateral is a third. When we get to them I say stop, and I mean stop. I included those chapters anyway — so you understand what is happening, what it should cost, and what a good contractor will do, and cannot be sold something you do not need.

Section II · The Difference

The skill was never the wrenching. It is the sequence.

Anybody can turn a nut. What thirty-one years buys you is knowing which thing to check first, and what it means when that was not it.

Searching it at eleven at night
  • You type the symptom into a search box and get nine confident answers that disagree.
  • You buy the expensive part first, because the video was filmed by somebody selling it.
  • You tighten it until it stops, and it fails again four days later.
  • You spend Saturday on a fixture that was never the cause.
  • You find out the job was beyond you halfway in, with the water off.
  • You pay $150 to $300 to have a six-dollar flapper changed.
  • Nobody ever tells you where the main shut-off is until the night it matters.
Working from the manual
  • The Symptom Index: what you are seeing or hearing, and the chapter that fixes it.
  • The causes of a running toilet, checked in the order they actually fail — cheapest first.
  • Hand tight, then a quarter turn. The commonest way an amateur repair fails, in one rule.
  • The mechanism explained first, so you can diagnose the version nobody filmed.
  • Every chapter names the exact point where you put the tools down and pick up the phone.
  • Parts cost to the dollar, next to what the same work costs when a truck comes out.
  • Chapter one is finding and tagging your shut-offs, tonight, while nothing is broken.
Section III · What's Inside

Twenty-four repairs. Six parts. One hundred and fifty-nine pages.

The full contents of the First Edition, illustrated throughout.

Part One

The First Ten Minutes

Three chapters to read tonight, while nothing is broken.

  1. Find Your Shut-Offs Tonight
  2. The Fifteen Dollar Shelf
  3. Reading the Symptom
Part Two

Toilets

The most common call in the trade, and the cheapest to fix.

  1. The Running Toilet, Fixed for Good
  2. Why Your Toilet Keeps Clogging
  3. The Phantom Flush and the Silent Leak
  4. The Weak Flush
  5. Replacing a Fill Valve
  6. The Toilet That Rocks, Sweats, or Smells
Part Three

Drains

What clears it, what never will, and the one sign you must not ignore.

  1. Never Pour These Down Your Drain
  2. The Slow Drain
  3. The Kitchen Sink That Backs Up Into Itself
  4. What an Auger Actually Does
  5. The Main Line: Signs You Cannot Ignore
Part Four

Leaks and Faucets

Including the one part in your house most likely to flood it.

  1. Finding a Leak You Cannot See
  2. The Dripping Faucet
  3. The Supply Line Nobody Checks
  4. Under the Sink
Part Five

Pressure, Heat, and Noise

Why it trickles, why it runs cold, and what the banging is.

  1. Low Water Pressure
  2. The Water Heater You Have Been Ignoring
  3. The Noises a House Makes
Part Six

The Things Nobody Tells You

The trade habits, and how the invoice is actually built.

  1. The Peroxide Question
  2. The Nine Tricks I Use Every Day
  3. How Plumbers Price Work

The Appendix — three sheets worth printing

  • The Symptom Index — what you are seeing or hearing, its likely cause, and the chapter number.
  • The Maintenance Calendar — everything worth doing before something goes wrong, arranged by how often.
  • A Last Word — the three things to take from all of it.
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Section IV · Reader Results

What people did with it.

★★★★★

"The toilet had been running for two years and I had stopped hearing it. Chapter four, twenty minutes, one flapper from the hardware store. The next water bill was forty-one dollars lower."

Ray M.Ohio
★★★★★

"I read chapter one the night I bought it and went and tagged the main. Three weeks later a supply line under the guest bath let go while we were home. Ninety seconds. One towel."

Denise K.Texas
★★★★★

"What I did not expect was the chapter on how plumbers price work. I got a quote, knew which questions to ask, and the second company came in two hundred under the first for the same job."

Walt H.Oregon
Section V · About

Who is telling you this.

Portrait of Sal Piper
Sal Piper

My name is Sal Piper. Thirty-one years in residential service plumbing, most of it on my back with a flashlight in my teeth. I did not do new construction. I did the other thing — the call at eleven at night from somebody standing in a flooding bathroom holding a towel, wondering why nobody ever taught them this.

I am going to be straight with you the whole way through, including the parts where being straight costs me the sale. I will tell you when a job is genuinely simple, and most of them are. I will tell you what it costs in parts, to the dollar, so you know before you get in the truck. I will tell you the order to check things in, because that is the actual skill — not the wrenching, the sequence.

And I will tell you, clearly and without hedging, when to put the tools down and pick up the phone. There are jobs in a house that will hurt you, flood you, or cost you ten times what a service call would have.

I will also tell you when something you have read on the internet is wrong, or half right, or right for the wrong reason. There is a great deal of confident nonsense out there, and some of it will cost you a ceiling.

The book is dedicated to every homeowner who stood in a flooding bathroom at eleven at night, holding a towel, wondering why nobody ever taught them this.

Sal Piper First Edition · 2026
First Edition · Illustrated

Before You Call a Plumber

The Veteran's Checklist for Diagnosing and Fixing 9 Out of 10 Household Plumbing Problems

Before You Call a Plumber by Sal Piper — First Edition
  • The complete 159-page First Edition, illustrated throughout — PDF, instant download
  • All 24 repair chapters across six parts — mechanism, tools, numbered steps, and what each fix does not cover
  • A difficulty, time and parts-cost strip on every chapter, so you know before you start
  • The Symptom Index — what you are seeing or hearing, and the chapter that fixes it
  • The Maintenance Calendar — everything worth doing before something breaks
  • The Fifteen Dollar Shelf — what to buy first, and the four tools to rent rather than own
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Section VII · Questions

Straight answers.

Is this an actual plumber, or a book about plumbing?

It is a working manual, written out of thirty-one years of residential service calls — the mechanism, the parts cost, the sequence, and the stopping point. It is not a code manual and it is not a substitute for a licensed plumber on the jobs where I tell you to call one. Where I say stop, I mean stop.

Your videos are free. Why would I buy this?

A video shows you one repair on one fixture. This is the whole list, in order, with the diagnosis in front of it — and the Symptom Index that takes you from what you are hearing to the right chapter without watching twenty minutes to find out it was not your problem. It also has the two things a video never has: what the fix does not cover, and when to stop.

Why only $27?

Because a diagnostic call alone runs $70 to $150 in most of the country before anybody touches a wrench, and the first chapter you use pays for the book several times over. I priced it where a homeowner would not have to think about it. $47 is where it goes when the launch promo ends.

What format is it, and can I read it on my phone?

A PDF, 159 pages, illustrated. It opens on a phone, a tablet, a laptop or a Kindle, and it prints — the Symptom Index and the Maintenance Calendar are laid out as sheets worth printing and taping inside a cabinet door. Instant download, yours forever.

I have never held a wrench. Is this over my head?

No. Every chapter is rated one of three ways — do it yourself, doable with care, or call a licensed plumber — and most of the book is the first. Those jobs need no experience: if you can follow a recipe you can do them, and nothing in them can flood the house or hurt you if you get it wrong.

What if the job turns out to be bigger than I thought?

Then you have lost nothing, which is the whole point of the ordering. Every chapter ends with when to stop: the specific signs the job has become somebody else's. Calling a plumber after you have eliminated four causes is not a defeat — it is the most efficient call he will take all week, and you will not be sold work you do not need.

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Sal Piper
Wait — one thing

Less than one trip fee.

A plumber's diagnostic charge runs $70 to $150 in most of the country before anybody touches a wrench. The whole manual — all twenty-four repairs, the Symptom Index, the parts costs to the dollar — is $27 during the launch promo.

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