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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How to Fix Common Household Plumbing Issues
Some plumbing issues are a lot more common and can be conveniently taken care of. Doing the repairs yourselves on these easy plumbing troubles can save you tons of cash. As a property owner, you will certainly experience various plumbing issues that sometimes make a nuisance. Take a look at 5 of one of the most common ones below:
Low Tide Pressure
Is a person from your family whining that there's reduced water pressure from the sink? If of course, after that the problem is the aerator within the sink which might have a whole lot of sedimentation resulting in low water pressure.
Running Toilet
You might have experienced a running toilet, which can be rather aggravating because the container won't load up. At the very same time, leaving it alone relates to throwing away water as well as increasing up your water bills.
Bathroom fill shutoff
Leaking flush shutoff
Commode flapper
Malfunctioning Garbage Disposal System
This frustrating issue is also high on the checklist of typical plumbing concerns. If you lose it, you will require an Allen wrench to fix the trouble. You have to go under the sink and look for the place where you can insert the secret.
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 cleanse the lines.
Sluggish Tub Drain
This is another pesky nuisance since the bathtub is just one of the most secondhand fixtures in your bathroom. Just like the sink drainpipe, hair, soap residue, dead skin cells, and various other substances pool in the drain commonly. You need to pop open the drain cover and also use a tub claw to remove the particles. Do this ASAP prior to the drainpipe clogs up entirely. After using the claw, you can put drainpipe cleaner to revitalize the drainpipe lines.
You can always call in a plumber to get specialist help if all of these sound laborious for you. Seeking professional help indicates conserving time and effort. Since you can rest assured that your straightforward plumbing trouble will certainly not intensify, you might also finish up saving cash in the lengthy run. Just make certain you call a credible company with licenses as well as certifications due to the fact that you will be welcoming unfamiliar people in your house. Of course, you have to make certain that you collaborate with a person you can rely on.
Some plumbing problems are more usual and can be conveniently repaired. Doing the fixings yourselves on these easy plumbing issues can conserve you heaps of cash. As a property owner, you will certainly encounter several various plumbing issues that sometimes make a problem. You can use a plumbing tool for angling out the particles. You may even finish up conserving money in the long run because you can rest ensured that your basic plumbing trouble will certainly not escalate.
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