Common Plumbing Concerns: Insights into Frequent Challenges
Common Plumbing Concerns: Insights into Frequent Challenges
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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 come across many different plumbing issues that periodically make a problem. Some plumbing concerns are extra typical and also can be easily fixed. Doing the repair services yourselves on these simple plumbing problems can save you lots of cash. Take a look at 5 of the most common ones listed below:
Slow Draining Sink
This is the most common complaint of property owners, with the sink collecting a great deal of hair, oil, particles, and other gunk in time. The only way to obtain a smooth moving drain once more is to get rid of the particles. Initially, you can make use of a plumbing device for angling out the debris. From there, you can make use of a store-bought drain cleaner to clean the lines.
Slow Tub Drain
Just like the sink drain, hair, soap residue, dead skin cells, and also other substances swimming pool in the drainpipe often. After utilizing the claw, you can pour drain cleaner to revitalize the drainpipe lines.
Low Water Pressure
Is a person from your home whining that there's low water pressure from the sink? If of course, then the problem is the aerator within the sink which may have a lot of sedimentation resulting in reduced water stress.
Running Toilet
You might have experienced a running toilet, which can be rather bothersome due to the fact that the storage tank won't load up. At the very same time, leaving it alone corresponds to wasting water as well as surging up your water expenses.
Bathroom fill shutoff
Leaking flush shutoff
Commode flapper
Malfunctioning Garbage Disposal System
This irritating issue is additionally high up on the listing of typical plumbing issues. Your device will include an awesome key to unjam your machine. If you shed it, you will require an Allen wrench to take care of the problem. You have to go under the sink and search for the spot where you can place the key. Once you find it, utilize your wrench to turn the device to free the motor. When working on your trash disposal system to avoid awful crashes, do not forget to turn off the system and also cut the circuit breaker.
If every one of these sound laborious for you, you can constantly contact a plumber to get specialist aid. Seeking expert help means saving effort and time. Since you can rest assured that your simple plumbing issue will certainly not intensify, you might even finish up conserving cash in the lengthy run. Just make sure you call a trustworthy firm with licenses as well as certifications because you will be welcoming strangers in your house. Naturally, you need to make sure that you collaborate with somebody you can rely on.
As a property owner, you will certainly experience several various plumbing problems that sometimes make a nuisance. Some plumbing problems are extra typical as well as can be easily repaired. Doing the fixings yourselves on these basic plumbing problems can save you lots of money. You can make use of a plumbing tool for angling out the debris. You may also end up saving money in the lengthy run because you can rest ensured that your basic plumbing issue will certainly not escalate.
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