Plumber in Chelmsford, Massachusetts.

Chelmsford built out earlier and denser than the towns to its west. The neighborhoods off Routes 4, 110, and 129, and up through North Chelmsford and Vinal Square, filled in through the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s with capes, ranches, garrisons, and split-levels. That makes Chelmsford plumbing remarkably consistent: original galvanized supply lines at or past the end of their life, cast iron drain stacks carrying sixty years of scale, copper that’s been soldered and re-soldered through generations of repairs, and heating systems on their second or third replacement cycle.

Consistency cuts both ways. It means the problems are predictable: low water pressure from closed-up galvanized pipe, slow drains from scaled cast iron, water heaters crammed into tight utility closets. It also means we can usually tell you what’s wrong before we open anything, because we’ve serviced the same vintage of house a few streets over.

Unlike the well-water towns we serve to the west, Chelmsford homes run almost entirely on municipal water through the town’s water districts. Municipal water removes the well headaches but not the hardness. Chelmsford water is still hard enough to scale up water heaters and fixtures, which is why hard-water wear shows up in so many of the town’s utility rooms.