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Toilet Repair in Gloucester, MA
In Gloucester, 84% of the housing was built before 1990. About 63% of households own their home and 37% rent, so this page has two readers.
Short version
Tenure in Gloucester is close to even, at 63% owner-occupied and 37% rented. Where a home is rented the fixture is usually the landlord's to repair, so the lease decides who arranges the work and who is billed for it. Housing there is 84% pre-1990, which dates the house rather than the fixture.
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, tables B25003 and B25034.
Who this page is for in Gloucester
Tenure in Gloucester is genuinely mixed — 37% of its 13,180 households rent. That matters more than it sounds: it decides whether the next step is calling a contractor or writing to a landlord.
| Occupied homes in Gloucester | Share | Homes |
|---|---|---|
| Owner-occupied | 63% | 8,347 |
| Rented | 37% | 4,833 |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25003 (tenure), 2023 release. Universe: 13,180 occupied housing units.
What the age of Gloucester’s housing suggests
84% of Gloucester’s housing predates 1990 and 48% predates 1940. That makes the pre-standard fixture the base case here rather than the exception.
It is a statement about the housing stock. A house built in 1935 has had ninety years in which somebody could have replaced the toilet, and many have.
| Housing in Gloucester | Share |
|---|---|
| Built before 1940 | 48% |
| Built 1940 to 1989 | 35% |
| Built 1990 onwards | 16% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25034 (year structure built), 2023 release. Universe: 14,630 housing units, including vacant ones — a different universe from the tenure table above. Flush volumes: US EPA WaterSense, tank-type toilet supporting statement
What is actually wrong with it
Most calls are one of five things, and the useful first step is deciding which. Three of them — running, a weak flush and no flush at all — live inside the tank. The other two, a leak at the base and a rocking fixture, are underneath it and are related to each other.
Two questions are worth asking whoever comes: which part they tested before reaching a conclusion, and whether anything under the fixture needs attention. The second one is what separates a repair that lasts from one that repeats.
Other Massachusetts towns we route in
- East Boston 29% owner-occupied · 79% built before 1990
- Melrose 68% owner-occupied · 89% built before 1990
- Haverhill 61% owner-occupied · 80% built before 1990
- Weymouth 61% owner-occupied · 83% built before 1990
- Winchester 83% owner-occupied · 84% built before 1990
Checking a plumber in Massachusetts
Checking a credential in Massachusetts
Massachusetts licenses are issued by the Massachusetts Board of State Examiners of Plumbers and Gas Fitters, which publishes a public search you can use before work begins.
If the dye test pointed at the flapper, that is a part, not a fixture.Worth saying on the call, because it changes what somebody arrives with. We connect you to a contractor covering your area and you are never charged. Toilets are one subject; we serve Gloucester on all the others too.
Call (888) 525-3450