If your OOB property sits empty through the winter, winterization is the one job that decides whether you open in April to a working cottage or a flooded one. We do a full drain-down of the supply system, antifreeze in every trap, water heater shutdown and drain, outdoor shower and hose bibb protection, and a documented record of every shutoff. Spring commissioning available. Book before mid-October to beat the freeze and the rush.

Outdoor showers are practically required equipment on a beach property, and most southern Maine plumbers won’t install them right because Maine’s freeze cycle makes it genuinely difficult. Done wrong, you get a burst supply line every February. Done right — freeze-protected supply, an isolation valve inside the heated envelope, frost-free hose bibbs, drainage that handles heavy rain — an outdoor shower runs 30 years on annual winterization alone. Hot-and-cold beachfront installs, cold-only rinse stations, freestanding setups. Every job includes the winterization walkthrough.

The reverse of winterization. We restore water service, refill slowly to avoid hammer on older pipes, refill water heaters and check elements, test every shutoff, run every fixture, and check for leaks that developed over winter. Most calls run 2-3 hours with a written report. If something failed, you get a fixed price before we touch it.

Ocean Park’s pre-1939 cottages and OOB’s older downtown homes share house traps in the main drain line that haven’t been to code in decades, cast iron drainage at the end of its serviceable life, and galvanized supply lines with internal corrosion you can’t see until the pressure drops. Most southern Maine plumbers refer this work out. We don’t. We remove the trap, install code-compliant cleanouts, replace deteriorated cast iron with PVC, and swap galvanized for copper or PEX.

Tank and electric water heater installations for year-round homes, seasonal cottages, and rental properties — same-week on most jobs. For seasonal cottages, we’ll talk through whether a smaller unit fits winter mode and walk you through the drain-down procedure so the tank isn’t standing in stagnant water from October to May. Rental properties get sized to peak guest occupancy, not yearly average.

Full rough-in through finish in OOB properties. We handle the older-cottage situations that come up regularly: drain reconfiguration when the old layout no longer works, supply line replacement in walls last opened in 1962, shower valve upgrades from pressure-balancing to modern thermostatic, and fixture relocation that respects older framing.

OOB’s beachfront and near-beach housing includes a meaningful share of high-end homes where the plumbing should match the finish. Rain shower systems, body sprays, thermostatic valves, freestanding tub fillers, wall-mounted faucets, curbless showers, designer fixtures from Kohler, Grohe, Hansgrohe, Brizo, and Rohl. Custom luxury bath work is A.T’s strongest service area.

Running toilets, flange repair, wax-ring replacement, comfort-height upgrades, full replacement — usually a single visit. In seasonal cottages with old toilets used hard and stored cold for decades, the wax ring is often the actual issue — a slow leak rotting the subfloor through the off-season, even when the toilet seems to flush fine.

Faucet and fixture work in older OOB homes is more involved than newer construction — older sinks weren’t built to today’s hole spacing, older angle stops often won’t close when you ask them to, and supply stubs from 1965 need replacement before a modern fixture goes in. We tell you what the job actually requires before we start.

Drain line repair, leak detection, water line repair, and cast iron drainage work. OOB has municipal sewer service, but the lateral from house to street is your responsibility — in older neighborhoods that’s often cast iron of unknown vintage. We assess actual condition, repair what’s serviceable, and replace what isn’t.

When pipes freeze in an OOB home — mid-January through early February most years — what you do in the first hour decides the damage. Shut off the main, find the affected line if you can, and call. We respond fast for existing customers and referrals. If you opened the cottage in April and discovered the consequences of a missed winterization, we handle that too — fixed price after we assess.