How to Handle Frequent Plumbing Challenges: Pro Tips
How to Handle Frequent Plumbing Challenges: Pro Tips
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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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Just How to Fix Common Household Plumbing Issues
Doing the repair work yourselves on these simple plumbing issues can conserve you loads of cash. As a home owner, you will run into many different plumbing problems that occasionally make an annoyance.
Low Water Pressure
Is somebody from your family whining that there's low tide stress from the sink? Inspect if this problem influences both the warm as well as cool water lines. The issue is the aerator within the sink which may have a whole lot of sedimentation resulting in low water stress if yes. This is really simple to take care of as you simply require to take it out and also scrub away the mineral deposits.
Running Toilet
You may have experienced a running commode, which can be rather annoying because the storage tank will not load up. At the exact same time, leaving it alone corresponds to squandering water and also spiking up your water costs.
Toilet fill valve
Dripping flush valve
Commode flapper
Malfunctioning Garbage Disposal System
This frustrating trouble is additionally high up on the list of common plumbing concerns. Your device will come with a great key to unjam your equipment. However if you lose it, you will certainly need an Allen wrench to deal with the issue. You have to go under the sink and also seek the area where you can insert the key. As soon as you find it, utilize your wrench to transform the device to release the electric motor. Don't neglect to shut off the system and reduced the circuit breaker when servicing your garbage disposal system to stop nasty crashes.
Slow Draining Sink
You can use a plumbing tool for angling out the particles. From there, you can utilize a store-bought drain cleaner to clean the lines.
Sluggish Tub Drain
This is one more pesky annoyance because the bathtub is just one of the most previously owned fixtures in your washroom. Much like the sink drainpipe, hair, soap scum, dead skin cells, and also various other gunk pool in the drainpipe often. You need to pop open the drain cover and make use of a bathtub claw to remove the particles. Do this ASAP before the drain congests completely. After utilizing the claw, you can pour drain cleaner to revitalize the drainpipe lines.
If every one of these sound laborious for you, you can always call in a plumber to get specialist assistance. Seeking expert assistance means conserving effort and time. Because you can relax assured that your basic plumbing issue will not escalate, you may even finish up saving cash in the lengthy run. Since you will be inviting complete strangers in your home, simply make certain you call a trustworthy company with licenses and also qualifications. Naturally, you have to make certain that you collaborate with somebody you can trust.
Some plumbing problems are more typical as well as can be quickly repaired. Doing the fixings yourselves on these basic plumbing problems can conserve you loads of money. As a house owner, you will certainly encounter several various plumbing issues that occasionally make an annoyance. You can make use of a plumbing device for fishing out the debris. You may also end up conserving money in the long run because you can rest ensured that your easy plumbing problem will certainly not escalate.
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