Solving Typical Plumbing Challenges: Best Practices
Solving Typical Plumbing Challenges: Best Practices
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MOST COMMON PLUMBING PROBLEMS IN OLDER HOMES
Galvanized Pipes
The galvanic process means coating an iron pipe with molten zinc to prevent the iron from corroding. The zinc lasts a while, but not forever. As the zinc erodes, the exposed iron begins to rust. This can cause pipes to fail, but the warning signal is easy to spot: Your water will become discolored from the rust in it.
The answer is to have galvanized pipes professionally replaced by modern alternatives, such as copper or PEX (Cross-Linked Polyethylene). A well-trained plumber and assistant can perform this work in relatively short time, ensuring a constant water pressure, no odd taste or color to your water and no leaks.
Pipe Bellies
As your Phoenix home rises and falls in its surrounding soil, the pipes leading into your home will rise and fall, too. When they buckle or bow, they form a pipe belly, a low spot that defies gravity’s pull on sewage. While this settling occurs slowly, you will eventually notice poor drainage, slow-flushing toilets and, ultimately, a clogged sewer line.
Similar to pipe bellies are pipe channeling, where hard water carves its own channel in the bottom of a sewer pipe, rendering it very weak.
Polybutylene Pipe
Once thought of as a great water pipe product, polybutylene pipe (PB) was used from the late ’70s into the early ’90s because of its low cost and easy installation. It breaks down with exposure to water and water’s dissolved solids, so it is not acceptable anymore. As time goes on, homeowners experience more and more polybutylene pipe problems.
If you have an entire house piped in PB, you need the services of an experienced local plumber to replace every run, every elbow and tee, and every connection to fixtures throughout your house. Otherwise a leak could destroy furniture, furnishings, flooring and more.
Sewer Lines
Sewers and sewer lines are definitely at the top of a lot of people’s old house plumbing problems. Sewer lines take your home’s gray and black water from drains to the sewer main, where it travels on to a municipal treatment plant. Sewer lines are always wet, so they attract tree roots. Cast iron pipes are particularly susceptible to cracking and intrusion by tree roots, which can completely clog a line.
Professional plumbers can send a camera into your home’s sewer pipe to diagnose channeling and bellies, and they can find and fix tree roots that clog your pipe. This is a much more affordable option than the disgusting and expensive issues created by a sewer backing up.
Drains
Fifty years of draining water, soap scum, sewage and shampoo can take a toll on your older Phoenix home’s drains. Clogs develop in pipes in all drains, but toilet, kitchen, and bathroom sink drains are particularly prone to clogs.
Toilets are infamous targets for children, fascinated by the disappearing act. While you may never know a small action figure or toy car went down the toilet, you will know a backed-up toilet when it strikes. A small item could start a very slow-building clog.
Kitchen sink drains also tend to accept things that should not go down the drain, like kitchen fats, bits of food that should go through a sink strainer and even bone. You can do your part, of course, by keeping waste out of the kitchen sink or having a garbage disposal installed, but in an older home you will not know what others have stuffed down there before you.
Original Fixtures
While some original fixtures are notably sturdier and of better quality than their corresponding modern fixtures, many older ones simply wear out with time. Washers and valves degrade and cause leaks. Stems and handles break. If your home still has its original spigots, faucets, handles and valves, you may not notice the tiny leaks that lead to higher water bills and unpleasant smells.
A worry spot in any home is the shut-off valve for a toilet. This little-used valve attaches where the rigid pipe exits the wall, down below the tank, and a flexible metal and plastic tube connects the water supply to the tank. That shut-off valve can get stuck in its typical, open position, so any attempt to close it may actually cause it to leak. A trained plumber can replace not only the flexible tube to the toilet tank, but the antiquated or stuck shut-off valve. This means you never have to worry about turning off the water to the toilet should a bowl clog cause your toilet to back up.
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5 Typical Household Plumbing Issues and How You Can Fix Them
As a homeowner, you will encounter various plumbing issues that periodically make a nuisance. Some plumbing issues are extra usual and also can be easily dealt with. Doing the repair services yourselves on these straightforward plumbing troubles can save you lots of money. Have a look at 5 of one of the most common ones below:
Slow Draining Sink
This is one of the most typical complaint of homeowners, with the sink collecting a great deal of hair, grease, particles, and various other substance in time. The only method to obtain a smooth flowing drainpipe again is to remove the debris. First, you can utilize a plumbing tool for angling out the particles. From there, you can make use of a store-bought drain cleaner to cleanse the lines.
Sluggish Tub Drain
Simply like the sink drainpipe, hair, soap residue, dead skin cells, and also other cruds pool in the drainpipe frequently. After using the claw, you can put drainpipe cleaner to freshen the drainpipe lines.
Low Tide Pressure
Is someone from your house grumbling that there's low water pressure from the sink? If indeed, then the trouble is the aerator within the sink which may have a lot of sedimentation resulting in low water stress.
Running Toilet
You might have experienced a running commode, which can be fairly aggravating due to the fact that the tank will not fill. At the same time, leaving it alone relates to wasting water as well as surging up your water expenses. For beginners, find out what's triggering it to run. You may require to change any one of the adhering to commode devices:
Commode fill shutoff
Dripping flush shutoff
Commode flapper
Malfunctioning Garbage Disposal System
This aggravating issue is additionally high on the checklist of common plumbing issues. Your device will certainly feature a great trick to unjam your equipment. If you lose it, you will need an Allen wrench to take care of the issue. You have to go under the sink and look for the spot where you can put the key. When you find it, utilize your wrench to turn the maker to free the motor. When working on your garbage disposal system to protect against horrible mishaps, don't forget to turn off the system and also reduced the circuit breaker.
You can constantly call in a plumber to get professional support if all of these sound tiresome for you. Seeking specialist aid implies saving effort and time. You may also wind up conserving money in the future since you can feel confident that your simple plumbing problem will certainly not escalate. Because you will certainly be welcoming complete strangers in your residence, simply make certain you call a respectable firm with accreditations and also licenses. Naturally, you need to ensure that you collaborate with somebody you can trust.
As a house owner, you will certainly run into many various plumbing problems that occasionally make an annoyance. Some plumbing concerns are extra typical and can be easily fixed. Doing the repair work yourselves on these straightforward plumbing troubles can save you heaps of money. You can use a plumbing tool for fishing out the particles. You might even finish up saving cash in the lengthy run since you can rest ensured that your straightforward plumbing issue will certainly not intensify.
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