The Homeowner'sPlumbing Book
How the water in your house gets in, gets hot, and gets out, and which jobs are yours to do
A free book, read here on the screen. 39 chapters, a glossary and an index. Revised November 2, 2026.
Before you start
This is a whole book about the plumbing in an American house, free to read from the first page to the last. A house has two water systems, one pushing clean water in under pressure and one letting used water fall out by gravity, and nearly everything that goes wrong makes sense once you can see which is which. Read it in order and you will know your house, or go straight to the page for what is dripping today.
Every chapter opens by answering its own question, says plainly which work is yours and which belongs to a licensed plumber, and ends with its sources. Rules differ from town to town, so where the book cannot speak for your town it tells you whom to ask.
If you smell gas or a carbon monoxide alarm is sounding, stop reading and leave first. Touch no switches and use no phone inside. Call 911, and for gas the gas utility too, from outside and well away.