Typical Plumbing Concerns: A Look at Frequent Issues
Typical Plumbing Concerns: A Look at Frequent Issues
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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 certainly experience lots of various plumbing troubles that sometimes make an annoyance. Doing the repairs yourselves on these straightforward plumbing troubles can conserve you lots of cash.
Slow Draining Sink
This is one of the most common issue of property owners, with the sink gathering a lot of hair, grease, debris, and various other crud in time. However, the only means to get a smooth moving drain once again is to clear the particles. First, 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 one more pesky nuisance because the bathtub is among one of the most previously owned fixtures in your shower room. Much like the sink drainpipe, hair, soap residue, dead skin cells, as well as various other gunk swimming pool in the drain commonly. You must pop open the drain cover as well as use a bathtub claw to get rid of the particles. Do this ASAP prior to the drainpipe congests completely. After using the claw, you can pour drainpipe cleaner to freshen the drain lines.
Low Tide Pressure
Is someone from your household grumbling that there's low water pressure from the sink? If yes, then the problem is the aerator within the sink which may have a whole lot of sedimentation resulting in reduced water stress.
Running Toilet
You may have experienced a running commode, which can be fairly aggravating since the storage tank will not load up. At the exact same time, leaving it alone corresponds to throwing away water and surging up your water expenses.
Bathroom fill shutoff
Dripping flush shutoff
Bathroom flapper
Malfunctioning Garbage Disposal System
This irritating issue is additionally high up on the listing of common plumbing issues. Your system will include a clever key to unjam your machine. Yet if you lose it, you will certainly require an Allen wrench to repair the trouble. You need to go under the sink as well as search for the place where you can insert the key. Once you spot it, use your wrench to turn the equipment to free the motor. When working on your waste disposal system to stop awful crashes, don't neglect to turn off the system and also cut the circuit breaker.
If all of these audio tedious for you, you can constantly contact a plumber to get professional aid. Seeking professional help suggests saving time and effort. You might also end up conserving money in the future because you can feel confident that your basic plumbing issue will not rise. Just make certain you call a credible company with licenses and also accreditations because you will certainly be welcoming strangers in your home. Naturally, you need to make certain that you work with somebody you can rely on.
As a home owner, you will certainly come across lots of various plumbing problems that sometimes make a nuisance. Some plumbing problems are more usual as well as can be easily dealt with. Doing the repairs yourselves on these straightforward plumbing troubles can conserve you bunches of cash. You can make use of a plumbing device for fishing out the debris. You might even finish up saving cash in the long run since you can rest ensured that your easy plumbing problem will not escalate.
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