New Construction Plumbing That Passes the First Inspection.
Every drain in a new house gets exactly one cheap day: the day before concrete covers it. We rough in water, drain, and gas lines with the right fall and the right fittings, test everything while it can still be reached, and hand the inspector work that passes the first time — in Edmond, Oklahoma City, and the new neighborhoods going up around them. Call or text 405-519-1868. Oklahoma State License #190465.
Match the Symptom to the Corner That Got Cut
You don't have to be the builder to land here — plenty of readers just bought the house. The pipe doesn't lie. Find what you're seeing:
| Symptom | What it usually means | What we do |
|---|---|---|
| Master shower in a brand-new house backs up every few weeks | Drain line laid flat or back-sloped under the slab | Camera the line with a locator, measure the actual fall, open and re-slope the failed section |
| New toilet flushes weak while the tub gurgles | A vent that never got tied in before drywall | Smoke-test or camera the stack, find the dead vent, connect it the way the rough-in should have |
| Sewer smell in a house under a year old | A wrong fitting under the slab, or an unvented trap siphoning itself dry | Locate the fitting, correct it, get the trap holding water again |
| Island sink drains slow and burps air | No loop vent and no accessible air admittance valve | Re-vent it to code with the valve behind a panel a human can reach |
| Pipes bang inside new walls when a faucet shuts | Water lines never strapped; no hammer arrestors | Secure the runs, add arrestors at the offending fixtures |
| Rough-in failed inspection and the installing plumber stopped answering | Unpermitted, underbid, or abandoned work | Take over the job: correct it, re-test, and stand next to the inspector at the re-check |
Every Callback Starts as a Shortcut Somebody Buried
The mistake list we get hired to fix on new builds and flips, straight from our own job log: drains that were never sloped. Wrong fittings in the wrong places. Fittings buried under slabs where no wrench will ever reach them again. Leaks left behind for the next trade to find. Cheap parts. Bargain-site faucets that no manufacturer will warranty.
None of that comes from stupidity. It comes from speed — a low-bid plumber racing a pour date, gluing the last joint while the concrete truck idles at the curb.
The problem is physics. A drain line without its quarter inch of fall per foot doesn't carry waste; it stores it. Water creeps through the low spots, solids settle, and somewhere in the first year the brand-new master bath starts backing up on a schedule.
We once replaced 200 feet of commercial sewer line because the original run was sloped wrong and the building backed up weekly. That line worked fine the day it was glued. Slope mistakes always work on day one. That's what makes them expensive.
The Cover-Up Play: Skip a $79 Permit, Bury the Evidence
Direction one: the low bidder skips the permit so nobody official ever looks at the work. Code prohibits covering a drain-waste-vent system before it passes rough-in inspection for exactly one reason — concrete and drywall are where bad joints go to hide. No permit means no inspection, no record, and no proof of anything until the proof comes through a ceiling.
Direction two runs the same con in reverse. A contractor waves the code book and announces the city requires a couple thousand dollars in "mandatory upgrades" that don't exist. The permit stops being a checkpoint and becomes a profit center.
Both versions depend on you not knowing one boring number: the base plumbing permit fee published on Oklahoma City's own fee schedule is $79. We pull the permit, put the system under test, and get it signed off before anything covers it.
Rough-In to Trim-Out: Our Order of Operations
New construction plumbing happens in three passes, and every pass ends the same way: tested, inspected, then covered. Never covered first.
Underground — before the slab pours
Trenches get cut to grade so the pipe holds continuous fall: a quarter inch per foot on lines 3 inches and smaller, an eighth inch per foot on 4-inch and larger, per IPC Section 704. Oklahoma red clay is Type C soil — OSHA's category for ground that won't hold a vertical edge — so any trench 5 feet or deeper gets a trench shield or shoring, no exceptions. The pipe gets proper bedding, wyes and long-sweep fittings at direction changes, and cleanouts placed where a wrench can reach them. Then the whole system goes under water test and stays that way for the inspector.
Top-out — inside the walls
After framing, the drain-waste-vent system climbs through the structure: sanitary tees oriented with the flow, vents carried through the roof, nail plates guarding every line that passes through a stud. Water lines get strapped so they don't hammer, with PEX-A supply runs and copper stub-outs at the fixtures. Where an island sink needs an air admittance valve, the valve goes in threaded with Teflon tape — never solvent cement. Before drywall, the water lines sit under pressure with a gauge on them.
Trim-out — the parts you'll actually touch
The final pass sets what you see: faucets, toilets, the water heater, gas drops, the disposal. We put brass quarter-turn stops at the fixtures instead of the plastic ones that snap off in your hand the night you need them, and we set fixtures we can stand behind. The same crew runs all our construction and remodel plumbing — ground-up builds to gut renovations.
Your First-Year Clock Starts at Closing
- Walkthrough day. Find the main water shutoff and every cleanout. If you can't find a cleanout, write that down — the absence is itself a finding.
- First hard freeze. Hose bibs and any line in an exterior wall get their first real test.
- Month eleven. If your builder warranty runs a year, run a sewer camera through the main line before it expires.
- Any repeat clog. A new house that clogs twice at the same fixture doesn't have bad luck. It has a slope or venting defect.
Builders Keep Our Number on Purpose
"Gage and his team are so thorough and great communicators. We have used them for new construction, remodels, hot water heaters and plumbing service work. Great work and fast response!"
"I've had this company come out to all of my remodeling jobs have been on time great smiling faces not the old school grumpy plumbers. And they're 24 hour turnaround is great thank you guys. Keep rocking."
FAQ
What's the difference between a plumbing rough-in and trim-out?
Rough-in is everything that gets hidden; trim-out is everything you can see. Rough-in covers the underground drains before the slab and the water, waste, and vent lines inside the walls — installed, tested, and inspected before concrete or drywall closes over them. Trim-out comes after paint: faucets, toilets, angle stops, the water heater, gas connections.
How much slope do drain lines need under a slab?
A quarter inch of fall per foot for pipe 3 inches and smaller, and an eighth inch per foot for 4-inch and larger — that's IPC Section 704. Less than that and the water can't carry solids.
Can the builder pour the slab before the plumbing is inspected?
No. Covering a drain-waste-vent system before it passes rough-in inspection is a code violation, not a scheduling choice. The inspection exists because concrete hides everything. On our jobs, the pour waits for the green tag.
What happens if the rough-in fails inspection?
The flagged work gets corrected and re-inspected. Edmond's published fee schedule lists $50 for the first re-inspection and $100 for repeat failures on the same violation — and the fee is the cheap part. The expensive part is every trade behind the plumber standing still.
Is it legal to bury plumbing fittings under a concrete slab?
Drainage joints, yes — solvent-welded Schedule 40 DWV fittings are built to live under a slab. What doesn't belong under concrete is anything that might ever need a wrench: unions, valves, serviceable connections, and cleanouts that should have been brought up to grade.
Can an air admittance valve be hidden inside a wall?
Not sealed inside one. An AAV is a mechanical part with a service life — it has to breathe and it has to be replaceable, so code requires permanent access with free airflow, a louvered panel at minimum.
How do I know if the plumbing in my new house was done right?
Start with paper, then run a camera. The permit record at the city shows whether rough-in and final inspections actually passed. A sewer camera with a locator reads the real story underground: the as-built slope, bellies holding water, construction debris left in the line.
Call Before the Concrete Pours
Builder with a pour date, flipper with a failed inspection, homeowner whose brand-new bathroom already smells wrong — the conversation starts the same way. Call or text 405-519-1868 and tell us where the project stands. Ultimate Plumbing — Edmond, OK. License #190465.