I started Bayou Pipeworks because I got tired of seeing homeowners in Houston get burned by bad advice and worse plumbing. I have been a hydronics consultant for over fifteen years, and I have crawled under more slab foundations in this city than I care to count. The blog is for anyone who owns a house here, or is thinking about buying one, and wants to understand what is really going on with their pipes. Not the sales pitch from a contractor who wants to sell you a new water heater you do not need. The real story.
My team and I work the same way every time. We do the research first. That means pulling up city code, checking manufacturer specs, and calling the supply house to see what is actually on the shelf. We do not write from theory. We write from what we have seen work and what we have seen fail. If I tell you to use a brass ball valve instead of a gate valve, it is because I have replaced enough rusted gate valves to know better. The advice is practical, honest, and grounded in hands-on experience. No fluff. No pretending that a simple fix is always easy. Sometimes the right answer is "call a pro, " and I will say that straight.
The team is small, and that is on purpose. I do all the writing myself, with help from a couple of folks who know their stuff. There is me, Edmund Halvorsen. I have been in hydronics since I got out of trade school, and I have designed systems for everything from a two-bedroom bungalow in the Heights to a 10, 000-square-foot custom build out in Katy. I also have a guy named Marcus who handles the code research and the deep dives on local regulations. He used to work for the city permitting office, so he knows where the bodies are buried. And there is Lena, who does the field testing and the photography. She has been a plumber for eight years and can diagnose a slab leak faster than most people can find their keys. Between the three of us, we cover the ground.
That is it. No corporate mission statement. No promises we cannot keep. Just a blog about plumbing in Houston, written by people who actually do this work.