Common Plumbing Problems Demystified: What Every Homeowner Must Understand
Common Plumbing Problems Demystified: What Every Homeowner Must Understand
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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 also How You Can Fix Them
As a homeowner, you will experience various plumbing issues that sometimes make a hassle. Some plumbing concerns are a lot more usual and also can be conveniently repaired. Doing the repair services yourselves on these easy plumbing issues can save you lots of money. Have a look at 5 of the most typical ones below:
Slow Draining Sink
You can make use of a plumbing tool for fishing out the debris. From there, you can utilize a store-bought drain cleaner to cleanse the lines.
Slow Tub Drain
Simply like the sink drain, hair, soap scum, dead skin cells, as well as various other cruds pool in the drain commonly. After using the claw, you can put drainpipe cleaner to revitalize the drainpipe lines.
Low Tide Pressure
Is someone from your home grumbling that there's low water pressure from the sink? First, check if this issue affects both the cold and hot water lines. The issue is the aerator within the sink which might have a whole lot of sedimentation resulting in low water pressure if indeed. This is extremely easy to take care of as you simply require to take it out and scrub away the mineral deposits.
Running Toilet
You may have experienced a running bathroom, which can be rather irritating due to the fact that the container will not fill out. At the same time, leaving it alone equates to drainage as well as spiking up your water expenses. For beginners, find out what's causing it to run. You may need to replace any one of the complying with toilet systems:
Commode fill valve
Dripping flush shutoff
Bathroom flapper
Malfunctioning Garbage Disposal System
This aggravating problem is likewise high on the list of usual plumbing concerns. Your unit will certainly come with a nifty trick to unjam your device. If you lose it, you will certainly need an Allen wrench to deal with the issue. You need to go under the sink and seek the area where you can put the key. Utilize your wrench to turn the equipment to release the motor once you spot it. When functioning on your rubbish disposal system to avoid nasty accidents, do not forget to turn off the system as well as cut the circuit breaker.
If all of these sound tiresome for you, you can always employ a plumber to get expert help. Seeking professional assistance suggests conserving time and effort. You may even end up conserving money in the future since you can feel confident that your basic plumbing issue will not escalate. Just make certain you call a reliable company with licenses and also certifications because you will certainly rate unfamiliar people in your house. Certainly, you have to make certain that you collaborate with somebody you can rely on.
As a house owner, you will encounter several different plumbing troubles that periodically make an annoyance. Some plumbing issues are extra typical and can be conveniently repaired. Doing the repairs yourselves on these straightforward plumbing problems can conserve you lots of money. You can utilize a plumbing tool for angling out the particles. You may also finish up saving cash in the long run since you can relax guaranteed that your simple plumbing trouble will not rise.
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