Washington Plumbing & Drain comes up Highway 3 and 104 from Port Orchard, usually with the day's North Kitsap calls grouped together so the truck arrives stocked for the job. Your plumber will text when he leaves the previous stop. We give four-hour arrival windows and mean them.
The price is flat and approved on your phone before any work starts. Our repairs carry a satisfaction guarantee and extended warranty, and our Google reviews, more than two hundred of them at a five-star average, include a few from Kingston homeowners who called us after another company told them something that did not sound right.
Kingston at a glance for plumbing
Water
Kitsap PUD supplies the village and much of the surrounding area through its Kingston system, which it has been connecting with Gamblewood and Hansville and supplementing with new wells. Properties farther out on the plateau and along the shoreline toward Eglon and Jefferson Beach often rely on private wells.
Sewer or septic
Kitsap County Sewer Utility runs a sewer system in Kingston with its own treatment plant, serving the village core, the ferry area and newer developments like Arborwood that were required to connect. The older plateau neighborhoods, Jefferson Beach, Eglon and most acreage lots are on septic.
Homes
Kingston's village has early-1900s and mid-century houses on the slopes above Appletree Cove, a lot of 1970s and 80s homes on the plateau, and several newer subdivisions, Arborwood among them, built in the last fifteen years. Waterfront homes along Jefferson Beach and toward Eglon include older cabins with pumped septic and long water lines. The retirement and commuter mix means plenty of houses where the owners are planning to stay a long time.
Ground and weather
Kingston sits on a glacial plateau that drops off in steep clay bluffs to Appletree Cove and Puget Sound. The village is at the bottom of a draw near sea level; most homes are on the plateau above it. The bluffs along Jefferson Beach move in wet winters and take buried lines with them. Groundwater sits on the clay close to the surface across the plateau. Exposed to the north and east, so Kingston catches wind off Admiralty Inlet in winter storms and loses power more often than central Kitsap. Those outages stop well pumps, sump pumps and septic pumps at the same time. The December 2022 freeze and the January 2024 cold snap caught uninsulated well houses and crawlspace lines across the plateau.
Your water comes from the PUD or from under your yard
Kitsap PUD supplies the village and a growing share of the plateau, and it has been tying Kingston's system together with Gamblewood and Hansville. If you get a PUD bill, your pressure problems are usually inside the house or at the pressure regulator. If you do not, you are on a private well, and the pump, pressure tank and switch are yours to keep running.
A well that surges and sags in the shower almost always has a waterlogged pressure tank or a failing switch, and both are quick repairs. A well that delivers nothing is either a tripped breaker, a burned switch, a frozen well house, or a problem down the well, and we can usually tell which from the pressure tank and the gauge. We install Well-X-Trol and Amtrol tanks, replace switches and check valves, insulate and heat well houses, and add DAB booster pumps for homes on the high ground where pressure runs out. When the pump itself is gone, we refer you to a well pump company.
North Kitsap well water tends toward iron, manganese and hardness. If the toilets stain orange or the tankless unit is losing output, a Cascadian or Halo whole-house filter sized to a water test fixes the cause instead of the symptom.
Septic pumps and sewer, depending on your street
The Kingston sewer system is small and specific: the village core, the ferry area, and newer developments like Arborwood that connected as a condition of being built. If you are on it, the side sewer from your house to the county main is yours, and in the older village homes above the cove it is often original clay that roots have gotten into. We scope it, clear it, and repair it with a proper cleanout.
Most of the Kingston address range is septic, and the bluff lots along Jefferson Beach and toward Eglon frequently need an effluent pump to lift treated water uphill to the drainfield. We replace those pumps, floats, check valves and alarm panels, and we take the alarm calls after hours. Tank pumping and drainfield work belong to a septic company; we say so when that is what you need.
The water line nobody can see
Kingston lots are long. The water line from the PUD meter or the well to the house can run a few hundred feet under gravel, roots and a driveway. Old black polyethylene and galvanized service lines from the 1970s fail in the middle of that run, and the only signs are a PUD bill that jumped, a pump that runs when nothing is on, or a soft green patch in the yard in August.
We locate the leak, and when the line is past saving we replace the whole run in new polyethylene or PEX rated for direct burial, with a new shutoff where you can reach it. That is a one or two day job that ends a problem that has often been quietly running for months.
Freezes, outages and what they do to plateau homes
Kingston's exposure to the north means wind-driven cold hits harder here than in Bremerton. The December 2022 freeze and the January 2024 cold snap split pipes in well houses, uninsulated crawlspaces and garage water heater closets across the plateau. We repair burst copper and PEX, replace frozen hose bibs with frost-free models, and insulate or reroute the lines that froze so it does not happen again.
Power outages compound it. When the power drops, the well, the sump pump and the septic pump all stop at once. We install battery backup for sump pumps and talk through generator circuits for the pumps that matter with homeowners who have been through a long outage.
Water heaters for a town that plans to stay
A lot of Kingston homeowners are retirees who intend to be in the house for the long haul, and that shapes what we recommend. A Bradford White or A. O. Smith tank sized correctly with an expansion tank and a drain pan is a sound choice for most of the plateau's 1970s and 80s homes. Propane Rinnai tankless units make sense where the family is larger or the old tank is taking up space a remodel wants. For well homes going tankless we add a sediment filter ahead of the unit and descale it yearly.
We also do a lot of walk-in tile showers with grab bars and comfort-height toilets for people adapting a house to age in place, handling the valve, drain and supply work and coordinating with the tile contractor.
Plumbing problems we see most in Kingston
Local patterns
- Private well houses, pressure tanks and pressure switches on the plateau and shoreline
- Septic effluent pumps on bluff lots where the drainfield sits above the house
- Long buried water lines under gravel driveways leaking without any surface sign
- Frozen well house and crawlspace lines during wind-driven cold snaps
- Side sewer roots and offsets in the older village homes above the cove
- Water heaters in the 1970s and 80s plateau homes at the end of their lives
- Hard, iron-bearing well water scaling tankless units and staining fixtures
Neighborhoods and areas in Kingston we serve
We work throughout Kingston, including Downtown Kingston and the ferry landing, Appletree Cove, Taree, Arborwood, Kingston Hills, Gamblewood, Jefferson Beach, White Horse and Eglon Road area, and around Kingston to Edmonds ferry terminal, Appletree Cove and the Port of Kingston marina, Mike Wallace Park, Kingston Village Green and community center, Kola Kole Park, North Kitsap Heritage Park. Population is about 2,500 in the village itself, with a much larger surrounding area that uses the Kingston address; ZIP codes include 98346.
Kingston plumbing questions
Do you really come all the way to Kingston from Port Orchard?
We do, most weeks. The drive is around an hour, so we schedule Kingston with other North Kitsap calls and give an honest four-hour window. There is no distance surcharge.
The septic alarm is going off and it is Saturday night. Is that a plumber call?
Yes, if it is the pump, float or alarm panel. Call (360) 812-1124; evening, weekend and after-hours emergency calls are answered. Run as little water as you can until someone arrives. If the tank itself is full, that part is a septic pumper's job and we will tell you.
My PUD bill doubled but I cannot find a leak anywhere. What now?
Check the meter with everything off; if it is still moving, the leak is between the meter and the house, likely in the buried service line. We locate it and either repair the section or replace the run if the pipe is old poly or galvanized.
Do you replace well pumps, or do I need someone else?
Pulling and replacing the pump, the drop pipe or the pitless adapter is a well pump company's job, and a collapsed or low-yield well belongs to a driller. We handle the pressure tank, switch, check valve, filtration and the well house itself, and we will tell you which of the three you need after checking the system.
Is my Kingston house on sewer?
Only if you are in the village core, near the ferry, or in a newer development like Arborwood that was required to connect. Most of the plateau and shoreline is septic. A sewer charge on your county bill confirms it either way.
Our well water stains everything orange. Is a water softener the answer?
Usually not by itself. Orange staining is iron, and an iron filter sized to the water test does more than a softener. We test first, then recommend a whole-house system, and we add reverse osmosis at the sink if you want cleaner drinking water on top of it.
Can you do a plumbing inspection on a house I am buying in Kingston from out of state?
Yes. We inspect the supply, drains, water heater, well or PUD connection, and pump chamber, scope the drain line to the tank or main, and send you a written report with photos and video so you can decide from wherever you are.
