Common Plumbing Issues: What Every Homeowner Must Know
Common Plumbing Issues: What Every Homeowner Must Know
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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 property owner, you will come across lots of different plumbing troubles that sometimes make an annoyance. Doing the repair work yourselves on these simple plumbing problems can save you lots of cash.
Slow Draining Sink
This is one of the most usual grievance of property owners, with the sink collecting a lot of hair, grease, debris, and also other crud with time. The only method to obtain a smooth flowing drainpipe again is to get rid of the particles. You can make use of a plumbing tool for fishing out the debris. From there, you can make use of a store-bought drainpipe cleaner to cleanse the lines.
Slow Tub Drain
Simply like the sink drainpipe, hair, soap residue, dead skin cells, as well as various other substances pool in the drainpipe commonly. After utilizing the claw, you can pour drainpipe cleaner to freshen the drain lines.
Low Tide Pressure
Is someone from your household whining that there's low water pressure from the sink? Initially, check if this concern impacts both the cold as well as hot water lines. If of course, after that the problem is the aerator within the sink which might have a lot of sedimentation causing low water pressure. This is extremely simple to deal with as you just require to take it out and also scrub away the natural resource.
Running Toilet
You might have experienced a running toilet, which can be quite frustrating due to the fact that the tank won't fill up. At the same time, leaving it alone equates to wasting water as well as surging up your water costs. For starters, identify what's creating it to run. You may need to replace any of the complying with bathroom devices:
Commode fill valve
Dripping flush shutoff
Bathroom flapper
Malfunctioning Garbage Disposal System
This frustrating problem is likewise high up on the listing of usual plumbing issues. Your system will certainly come with a cool key to unjam your maker. If you shed it, you will certainly require an Allen wrench to take care of the issue. You have to go under the sink and try to find the spot where you can insert the trick. Utilize your wrench to turn the device to release the electric motor as soon as you spot it. When functioning on your trash disposal system to stop nasty mishaps, don't fail to remember to transform off the system and reduced the circuit breaker.
You might also end up saving cash in the lengthy run because you can relax guaranteed that your basic plumbing problem will certainly not escalate. Just make sure you call a credible company with licenses and accreditations due to the fact that you will certainly be inviting complete strangers in your house.
As a property owner, you will run into numerous various plumbing issues that periodically make an annoyance. Some plumbing concerns are a lot more typical as well as can be quickly fixed. Doing the repairs yourselves on these simple plumbing issues can save you lots of money. You can make use of a plumbing device for fishing out the debris. You may even finish up conserving money in the lengthy run since you can rest ensured that your straightforward plumbing trouble will not escalate.
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