TDT Plumbing’s story begins with midnight baby feedings in Gary Gould’s Garden Oaks home.
By way of introduction, prior to his moving to Houston and with a degree from Southwest Texas State (now Texas State), Gary performed drug testing in the Bexar County Crime Lab and worked on early AIDS research in the pharmacology department at UTSA Health Science Center in San Antonio.
In the early 90’s Gary moved to Houston where he found employment at Hoffman LaRoche and Waters Corporation, an analytical instrumentation company. A few years later Gary married Kelly and the two soon welcomed a newborn.
On the road to investigative plumbing
Work had him making a three-days-a-week commute from Houston to San Antonio. It was on one of these drives he chanced upon the plumber he hired to tunnel under his home—an uncommon thing back in the early 90’s—to perform repairs.
As the two drove side-by-side on I-10 around Luling, Gary learned the plumber was launching an investigative plumbing business. Gary, being Gary, helped him out with contacts in the insurance business. Not long after, those contacts reached out for Gary’s help translating the plumber’s technical reports into useful documents to the tune of $100 per report. To a young dad looking for supplemental income, this seemed a good deal.
So, each night, after handling his third infant daughter’s midnight feeding, he would work till around 3 AM typing out and faxing reports to insurance companies. Then, catch a couple hours sleep before getting up again to leave at 6 AM for work. As time went by, though, Gary was earning as much doing reports as he was doing his day jobs. He decided it was time for a change—and not the kind he’d been doing around midnight.
Texas Drain Technologies is born
Gary joined Patrick Lucia to form Texas Drain Technologies. Investigative plumbing has always been the company’s core business. Back in 1998, it was a competency in high demand. Homeowners and businesses alike needed help finding and repairing an increasing number of under slab leaks.
The company quickly grew from seven employees to 80—most of whom were digging holes and tunneling. During the go-go 90’s and 2000’s, that wasn’t a big concern. However, as the economy slowed and insurance coverages changed, the cost of tunneling became more prohibitive. Texas Drain Technologies needed another solution.
Texas Drain Technologies becomes TDT
Given his background in polymers, Gary was excited to discover ACE Dura-Flo’s in-place pipe repair system. Using proprietary technology, their ePIPE system cleaned clogged and rusting pipes from the inside before adding an epoxy inner-coating. The system not only sealed leaks and extended the useful life of plumbing by 75+ years, it did so without cutting into walls.
Using this technology, TDT pioneered Cured In Place Pipe repair, also known as CIPP, for drain lines. TDT plumbers access pipes from either end, clear them out, then insert a felt liner impregnated with an epoxy resin, a bladder is inserted inside the felt liner. The liner is position inside the drain pipe and the bladder inflated, and pressers the felt liner against the walls of the pipe. Once the epoxy cures in place, the bladder is removed and the pipes are better than new—without the need for extensive digging.
TDT Plumbing goes big
Over the years, TDT has worked nationwide, bringing ePIPE and CIPP solutions to high-rise buildings, hotels, hospitals, factories, and even off-shore oil platforms, working for such companies as Shell, Exxon Mobil, BP, BHP, and Huntsman. Of course, TDT has also performed thousands of repairs in homes all across Texas.
TDT addresses a new threat: lead
As aging pipes degrade due to increasingly aggressive water, zinc coating within is eaten away allowing lead and copper to leach into our drinking water—a threat to everyone drinking it. That’s why TDT became the first plumbing company in Texas to earn LeadSmart Water Testing certification. In fact, the City of Houston called upon TDT to sanitize all the domestic water lines in both City Hall and the City Hall Annex. Now, TDT is making this same LeadSmart Water Testing available to businesses and homes.
Innovation is deep in TDT’s DNA
Given Gary’s analytical nature and entrepreneurial drive, he is forever looking at new ways to move investigative plumbing and alternative repairs forward. For example, TDT has been on the forefront of Trenchless Sewer Pipe Repair for years.
If there’s a better way to make your plumbing safe and reliable, TDT Plumbing will find and perfect it first—even if Gary isn’t still getting up for midnight feedings.