Can you buy your own toilet or faucet and have a plumber install it? (The honest answer)

This is one of the most common questions we get, right up there with “how much will this cost.” Somebody found a faucet they love, or a toilet on sale, or a water heater a buddy is selling them a good deal on, and they want to know if we’ll just put it in. Short answer: yes, all day long, and we don’t mind one bit. The longer, honest answer is that there’s a real trade-off buried in “sure, bring it over,” and we’d rather you know it going in than find out about it after the fact.

Yes, we’ll install what you bring us

Toilets, faucets, kitchen sinks, garbage disposals, dishwashers, sump pumps, even a water heater from Lowe’s, Home Depot, or a contractor friend: we install customer-supplied fixtures on Louisville job sites every week. It’s a normal Tuesday for us, not a special favor or a hassle we tolerate. If you found a deal, fell for a specific finish, or already researched the exact model you want, buy it and we’ll put it in.

What labor-only pricing looks like

Here’s what it runs when you supply the fixture and we handle the connections, the mounting, and the leak test:

• Toilet New wax seal, fresh mounting hardware, supply line and shutoff verified, full flush test. Runs $300–$400.
• Kitchen or laundry faucet Fresh supply connections and a sprayer hose tie-in where it applies, full leak test. Runs $300–$400.
• Lav, bar, or widespread bathroom faucet Same approach, sized to a smaller fixture. Runs $200–$400.
• Kitchen sink Drop-in or undermount, with the supply and drain connections plus the disposal tie-in handled in one visit. Runs $600–$700.
• Garbage disposal or dishwasher Mounting hardware, electrical hookup, and drain tie-in for a disposal runs $300–$400; the plumbing side of a dishwasher install runs $400–$500 (electrical hookup is quoted separately by a licensed electrician).
• Tub or shower faucet trim kit vs. a full valve Swapping trim on an existing valve runs $500–$600. A full customer-supplied valve replacement, which usually means opening the wall, runs $800–$900.
• Water heater, gas or electric, up to 50 gallons Proper connections to your existing water, gas or electrical, and venting. Runs $800–$1,000 in labor, plus Kentucky’s $50 water-heater permit fee on top, same as it would if we supplied the tank.

The real trade-off: two different warranties

When we sell and install a fixture, the whole job is ours: the part and the labor both carry our warranty, and if something’s wrong with the fixture itself, that’s on us to make right. When you supply the fixture, we still stand behind every bit of our own work the same way, the connections, the seal, the mounting, all backed by our standard one-year workmanship warranty. What we can’t warranty is the fixture itself, because we didn’t sell it to you and we don’t control what’s inside the box. If the cartridge fails in year two or the finish starts pitting, that’s a conversation with the manufacturer or wherever you bought it, not with us.

That’s not us dodging responsibility. It’s the same deal you’d get from any honest contractor, and it’s worth knowing before the fixture ships rather than after it fails. Most manufacturers back their own products for a year or more, some faucet lines carry a limited lifetime warranty on the finish, so read what’s actually printed on the box before you decide the trade-off is worth it.

The two gotchas that actually trip people up

• Wrong size or missing parts This is the number one reason a customer-supplied install turns into two visits instead of one. A toilet rough-in that’s 10 inches instead of 12, a faucet with the wrong number of holes for your sink, a box missing the mounting hardware because a return got resealed: any of these means we pause instead of forcing it. Bring the box, the manual, and every included part to the job, and if you’re not sure something fits, a standard diagnostic visit, $89, is a cheap way to find out before you buy.
• “Pro grade” isn’t always the same grade Some big-box lines share a brand name with what a plumbing supply house carries but aren’t built the same way underneath, sometimes plastic where the supply-house version uses brass. Not always, and not universally, but it’s real often enough that we’ll tell you honestly if what you bought looks like the lighter-duty version of the name on the box.

The Kentucky permit wrinkle on water heaters

One detail that surprises people: Kentucky requires a plumbing permit for a water heater replacement, gas or electric, even when it’s a straight swap and even when you supplied the tank yourself. The fee is a flat $50 under state code, and it’s the same whether we supplied the unit or you did. A simple repair, like a thermocouple or a heating element, doesn’t need one. A full replacement does. Most other customer-supplied swaps, a toilet, a faucet, a disposal going back into the same spot, don’t trigger a permit at all. See our full breakdown of Louisville plumbing permits if you want the whole picture before you start a project.

Louisville’s tap water runs moderately hard, around 7 grains per gallon, which wears on cartridges and valve seats over time no matter who supplied the fixture or who installed it. That’s a reason to think about a water softener down the road, not a reason to pick one fixture over another today.

Not sure whether your project is a good candidate for bringing your own, or whether it’s smarter to let us source the part? Ask Goldie can walk you through both prices in a couple of minutes, no phone call required.

Common questions we get

Reviewed by Spencer Gardner, Owner · William Riley, KY Master Plumber, Lic. #6590. Prices last verified August 13, 2026.