What to Handle Frequent Plumbing Challenges: Expert Advice
What to Handle Frequent Plumbing Challenges: Expert Advice
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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 as well as How You Can Fix Them
As a homeowner, you will run into many different plumbing troubles that sometimes make a problem. Some plumbing concerns are more common and also can be conveniently fixed. Doing the fixings yourselves on these straightforward plumbing troubles can conserve you tons of money. Have a look at 5 of the most typical ones below:
Slow Draining Sink
This is the most typical grievance of homeowners, with the sink gathering a lot of hair, grease, particles, and also other crud with time. Sadly, the only means to obtain a smooth flowing drainpipe once again is to clear the debris. You can utilize a plumbing device for angling out the debris. From there, you can make use of a store-bought drainpipe cleaner to clean the lines.
Slow Tub Drain
This is another pesky annoyance considering that the bathtub is one of one of the most pre-owned components in your shower room. Similar to the sink drainpipe, hair, soap scum, dead skin cells, and other substances swimming pool in the drain usually. You should stand out open the drainpipe cover and use a bathtub claw to remove the particles. Do this ASAP before the drain clogs up completely. After using the claw, you can pour drainpipe cleaner to refresh the drainpipe lines.
Low Tide Pressure
Is a person from your house whining that there's reduced water stress from the sink? If indeed, then the issue is the aerator within the sink which may have a lot of sedimentation resulting in low water pressure.
Running Toilet
You might have experienced a running bathroom, which can be rather bothersome due to the fact that the container will not fill up. At the same time, leaving it alone corresponds to squandering water as well as surging up your water expenses.
Toilet fill valve
Dripping flush valve
Bathroom flapper
Malfunctioning Garbage Disposal System
This frustrating issue is also high on the list of usual plumbing concerns. Your system will come with a nifty trick to unjam your maker. Yet if you lose it, you will require an Allen wrench to deal with the trouble. You have to go under the sink and also seek the spot where you can insert the key. Use your wrench to transform the maker to free the electric motor when you detect it. When functioning on your trash disposal system to stop awful crashes, do not forget to turn off the system as well as cut the circuit breaker.
You may also finish up conserving cash in the lengthy run since you can relax ensured that your straightforward plumbing problem will not intensify. Just make sure you call a reliable firm with licenses and accreditations due to the fact that you will certainly be welcoming strangers in your house.
As a homeowner, you will certainly run into numerous different plumbing issues that periodically make an annoyance. Some plumbing concerns are extra typical and also can be quickly repaired. Doing the repair work yourselves on these easy plumbing troubles can conserve you bunches of money. You can use a plumbing tool for angling out the particles. You might also finish up conserving money in the lengthy run because you can rest guaranteed that your straightforward plumbing problem will not intensify.
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