How to Resolve Frequent Plumbing Issues: Important Tips
How to Resolve Frequent Plumbing Issues: Important 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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Exactly How to Fix Common Household Plumbing Issues
Doing the repair work yourselves on these simple plumbing troubles can conserve you lots of cash. As a property owner, you will certainly experience many different plumbing troubles that occasionally make an annoyance.
Low Water Pressure
Is somebody from your home grumbling that there's reduced water stress from the sink? If indeed, after that the trouble is the aerator within the sink which may have a whole lot of sedimentation resulting in reduced water pressure.
Running Toilet
You might have experienced a running toilet, which can be quite frustrating because the tank will not fill up. At the same time, leaving it alone equates to throwing away water and also surging up your water costs.
Bathroom fill valve
Dripping flush shutoff
Bathroom flapper
Malfunctioning Garbage Disposal System
This annoying problem is additionally high on the list of common plumbing issues. Your unit will certainly feature an awesome secret to unjam your device. However if you lose it, you will certainly need an Allen wrench to repair the problem. You have to go under the sink as well as search for the area where you can insert the secret. Utilize your wrench to transform the machine to free the electric motor as soon as you find it. When working on your trash disposal system to protect against nasty crashes, don't fail to remember to turn off the system and also reduced the circuit breaker.
Slow Draining Sink
You can utilize a plumbing device for angling out the particles. From there, you can make use of a store-bought drainpipe cleaner to cleanse the lines.
Sluggish Tub Drain
This is another pesky hassle considering that the bathtub is just one of one of the most secondhand fixtures in your bathroom. Much like the sink drainpipe, hair, soap residue, dead skin cells, and also other gunk swimming pool in the drainpipe frequently. You have to pop open the drain cover and also use a bathtub claw to get rid of the particles. Do this ASAP before the drainpipe blocks totally. After making use of the claw, you can pour drainpipe cleaner to refresh the drain lines.
If all of these sound tedious for you, you can constantly hire a plumber to obtain expert support. Seeking professional help indicates conserving time and effort. Due to the fact that you can relax ensured that your easy plumbing trouble will not escalate, you may even finish up conserving cash in the lengthy run. Just make sure you call a trusted firm with licenses and certifications due to the fact that you will be welcoming unfamiliar people in your home. Of course, you have to see to it that you collaborate with a person you can trust.
Some plumbing issues are more usual as well as can be easily repaired. Doing the repair services yourselves on these easy plumbing problems can conserve you loads of cash. As a house owner, you will encounter numerous different plumbing issues that sometimes make a problem. You can use a plumbing tool for fishing out the particles. You might even end up conserving money in the lengthy run since you can rest assured that your simple plumbing issue will not intensify.
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