We leave Port Orchard, take Highway 16 to 302, and follow the Key Peninsula Highway south. Key Center is about half an hour; Longbranch is closer to fifty minutes. The price is flat and quoted before the work starts, and the drive is on us.
Washington Plumbing & Drain is veteran-owned and family-run. More than 200 Google reviews at five stars, many from rural homeowners who needed somebody to actually show up, explain the problem, and fix it once.
Key Peninsula at a glance for plumbing
Water
Private wells and small community water systems. Peninsula Light Company operates water systems for thousands of members across the peninsula, and there are dozens of small association and private systems around the lakes and coves. The rest of the peninsula drinks from individual wells.
Sewer or septic
Septic from one end to the other. There is no public sewer on the Key Peninsula. The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department runs a septic inspection program here because of the shellfish beds in Vaughn Bay, Rocky Bay, Minter Bay and Filucy Bay.
Homes
Everything from 1920s Home and Longbranch cottages to 1970s lake cabins, manufactured homes on acreage, and 2000s custom houses on the waterfront. A large share of the housing is older and owner-built or owner-modified, which means surprises under the floor.
Ground and weather
A long finger of glacial till between Case Inlet and Carr Inlet, with hardpan close to the surface, dozens of small lakes, and steep banks down to the coves. Drainfields are shallow and winter groundwater is high over much of the peninsula. Rural, exposed and far from help, which is why a freeze matters here. December 2022 and January 2024 froze pump houses, crawlspaces and well lines across the peninsula, and winter storms knock out power long enough to stop well pumps and effluent pumps. Heavy rain saturates drainfields from November to April.
No water: the Key Peninsula well call
When a well home has no water, the cause is in one of four places: the power, the pressure switch, the pressure tank and check valve, or the pump down the well. We start at the pump house. A burned pressure switch, a waterlogged tank that let the pump short-cycle itself to death, or a tripped breaker after a storm covers most calls. We carry switches, Well-X-Trol and Amtrol tanks, gauges and check valves to fix it on the first trip.
If the pump itself has failed, that is a well pump company's job, and we will tell you so and help you get them scheduled rather than sell you a tank you do not need. Many peninsula homes also have very long runs from the well to the house, and a leak in that buried line shows up as a pump that runs all night with every faucet off.
Peninsula Light's community systems and the small association systems around the lakes have their own version of this problem: weak pressure at the far end of the line. A DAB booster pump at the house solves it without a meeting of the water association.
Septic pump chambers and the health department
Every Key Peninsula home is on septic, and the lots along Vaughn Bay, Filucy Bay, Mayo Cove and the lakes often need a pump to lift effluent to a field uphill. We service the pump chamber: effluent pump, floats, check valve, alarm panel. Liberty pumps are on the truck. When a pump fails, you have about a day before the tank backs up into the lowest drain, so we treat alarm calls as emergencies.
The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department runs a periodic septic inspection program on the peninsula to protect the shellfish beds. If an inspection flags a pump or alarm issue, that is work we do. Tank pumping, drainfield repair and system design are a septic company's work and we will tell you plainly when that is what you need.
Well water that stains, smells or scales
Peninsula wells pull from glacial aquifers that often carry iron, manganese and sometimes hydrogen sulfide. Orange stains in the tub, black sludge in the toilet tank, and a rotten-egg smell in the hot water are the usual complaints. The smell often comes from the water heater's anode reacting with sulfur in the water, and a different anode fixes it. The staining calls for an iron filter.
We install Cascadian and Halo whole-house filtration and A. O. Smith reverse osmosis for drinking water, sized to a water test, not a sales script. On tankless heaters fed by hard well water we descale on a schedule and add a filter ahead of the unit.
Freezes, outages and the cabin that nobody checked on
In December 2022 and January 2024, the pump houses on the Key Peninsula froze first. A plywood pump house with a bare pressure tank and a pressure switch is no match for a week in the teens. We repaired split tank tees, cracked switches and frozen lines across the peninsula, and we insulate and heat-tape pump houses every fall for people who do not want to do it twice.
Power outages here last. When the power goes, the well and the effluent pump both stop, and a house full of guests can fill a septic tank before the lights come back. A generator transfer for the pump circuits is an electrician's job; what we do is make sure the plumbing side, from the pressure tank to the pump chamber, is in shape to handle it.
Second homes and cabins at Lakebay, Herron and Longbranch sometimes sit empty through a freeze. We winterize them properly, and we install Flo by Moen shutoffs on homes with a water line that stays on so a split pipe closes the main instead of running for a week.
Older cabins and owner-built plumbing
A lot of the peninsula's housing was built or remodeled by the people who lived in it. We open crawlspaces and find galvanized tied to copper tied to PEX with the wrong fittings, drains with no vent, and water heaters sitting on dirt. None of that is a reason to tear a house apart. We fix what is failing, bring the venting and connections up to code where we touch them, and give you a plain list of what is fine and what is not.
For manufactured homes, which are common on peninsula acreage, we repair and replace the polybutylene and PEX lines underneath, add proper shutoffs and insulate the water line where it comes through the skirting, since that is where it freezes.
Plumbing problems we see most in Key Peninsula
Local patterns
- Well houses, pressure tanks and switches failing, often after a power outage
- Pump houses freezing solid in cold snaps
- Septic effluent pumps and alarms on waterfront and lakefront lots
- Iron, manganese and hydrogen sulfide in well water
- Long underground service lines from well to house leaking
- Owner-built plumbing in older cabins with bad venting and mixed materials
- Drainfields saturating in wet winters and backing up the house
Neighborhoods and areas in Key Peninsula we serve
We work throughout Key Peninsula, including Key Center, Vaughn and Vaughn Bay, Lakebay and Home, Longbranch and Filucy Bay, Glen Cove, Herron and Herron Island, Minter and Minter Creek, Palmer Lake and Lake Holiday and Rocky Bay and Mayo Cove, and around Penrose Point State Park, Joemma Beach State Park, Key Center, Home Bridge over Von Geldern Cove, Longbranch Marina, Key Peninsula Highway. Population is roughly 20,000 spread over a 16-mile peninsula with no incorporated town; ZIP codes include 98349, 98351, 98394, 98395, 98329.
Key Peninsula plumbing questions
How far down the Key Peninsula do you go?
All the way. Key Center and Vaughn are about 30 minutes from Port Orchard, Lakebay and Home around 40, and Longbranch closer to 50. No trip charge, same flat-rate pricing.
The well stopped producing water. Can you come out today?
Usually. No water is an emergency for us. Check the breaker first, then call. We carry pressure switches, tanks and check valves on the truck, and if the tests show the pump itself has failed we refer you to a well pump company and can coordinate the visit.
Who handles the septic alarm, you or a septic company?
If it is the effluent pump, floats, check valve or alarm, we do. If the tank needs pumping or the drainfield has failed, a septic company does. We will tell you which on the phone if we can.
Is there any public sewer or city water on the Key Peninsula?
No sewer anywhere on the peninsula. Water is private wells, Peninsula Light community systems and small association systems.
My well water smells like rotten eggs. Is it dangerous?
It is usually hydrogen sulfide reacting with the water heater's anode rod, and it is more unpleasant than dangerous. A different anode or a filter solves it. We test before recommending anything.
How do I keep my pump house from freezing again?
Insulate the walls and the lines, add heat tape on the exposed pipe and the pressure tank tee, and keep a small heat source in there during a cold snap. We do that work as a fall service.
Do you work on manufactured homes on the peninsula?
Yes. Underbelly repipes, shutoffs, frozen line repair at the skirting, water heater replacement and drain work are all routine for us.
