Who is this company for?
People who own or manage a house or a rental on the Oregon side of the metro and need a plumber who actually answers the phone, gives a straight number, and shows up when they say they will. That covers the homeowner with water coming from somewhere it shouldn't at 9pm, the landlord juggling three tenant calls a week, the couple replacing a water heater before it fails instead of after, and the builder who needs rough-in done on schedule so drywall can go up on time.
We're not the outfit for someone who wants a price quoted over the phone with no one looking at the pipe, the panel, or the crawlspace first. Portland's housing stock is mixed enough — knob-and-tube-era bungalows with galvanized supply lines, postwar ranches, 70s splits, new infill in Beaverton and Happy Valley — that the right fix depends on what's actually behind the wall, not just the symptom you're calling about.
How does a service call actually work?
You call, tell us what's happening, and we tell you honestly whether it's an emergency or something that can wait for a scheduled visit. Water actively coming into the house, no water at all, or sewage backing up jumps the line. A slow drain or a fixture that's due for replacement gets booked at a time that works for you.
Once we're on site, you get a price before work starts, not a surprise on the invoice. If a repair turns into something bigger once a wall or a floor comes up — old galvanized pipe rotted from the inside, a cast iron sewer line that's finally given out — we stop, show you what we found, and talk through the options before we keep going.
Why do Portland's pipes fail the way they do?
Because a lot of the metro's housing predates copper and PEX being standard, and because our water carries enough mineral content over decades to eat through galvanized steel from the inside out — you often can't tell it's failing until it does. Add heavy clay soils in a lot of the area, which shift with the wet winters and dry summers and put steady pressure on old sewer laterals, and you get the two calls we hear most: a pinhole leak nobody saw coming, and a sewer line that's been slowly closing off for years before it finally backs up.
That's also why repiping and sewer work here isn't optional maintenance — it's usually catching up with a house that was plumbed for a different era.
Do you pull permits?
Yes, when the work requires one — water heater replacements, repipes, sewer line work, and anything touching a remodel typically do, and the requirements differ a little by jurisdiction across Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas counties. Straightforward repairs — a fixture swap, clearing a drain, replacing a valve — usually don't need one. We'll tell you plainly which category your job is in rather than adding paperwork you don't need or skipping paperwork you do.
What should I expect once work starts?
A time window you can hold us to, a work area that's protected and cleaned up when we leave, and a person on the phone who isn't reading from a script. For remodel and new-construction rough-in, that means showing up when the builder's schedule says we show up, because a plumbing delay holds up every trade behind it.
At the end of a job you get a walkthrough — water on, fixtures tested, work explained — before anyone talks about the invoice.
Are you connected to SWAT Plumbing?
Sheltons Construction is the Oregon license, run by the same family that operates SWAT Plumbing on the Washington side of the river. Different state, different license, same standard for showing up and doing the work right. If your property is in Clark County or elsewhere in Southwest Washington, that's the company for you; if you're in the Portland metro, you're in the right place here.
What if I don't know what's actually wrong?
That's a normal way to start. "The water bill jumped," "there's a wet spot in the yard," and "the water heater's making noise" aren't diagnoses — they're the reason to call. We'll look, tell you what we think is happening, and lay out real options, including the cheaper fix now if a full replacement isn't actually necessary yet.