Typical Plumbing Issues Demystified: What Every Homeowner Must Know
Typical Plumbing Issues Demystified: What Every Homeowner Must Know
Blog Article
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.
https://www.acehomeaz.com/blog/common-plumbing-problems-older-homes/
Exactly How to Fix Common Household Plumbing Issues
Some plumbing problems are extra typical and can be quickly repaired. Doing the repair work yourselves on these straightforward plumbing troubles can conserve you lots of money. As a property owner, you will come across various plumbing troubles that sometimes make a hassle. Have a look at 5 of one of the most usual ones below:
Low Water Pressure
Is someone from your household whining that there's low water stress from the sink? First, examine if this issue affects both the cool and also hot water lines. The issue is the aerator within the sink which may have a lot of sedimentation resulting in reduced water pressure if yes. This is extremely easy to fix as you simply need to take it out and scrub away the natural resource.
Running Toilet
You may have experienced a running commode, which can be rather annoying since the container will not fill out. At the same time, leaving it alone equates to drainage and surging up your water bills. For beginners, figure out what's creating it to run. You may require to change any of the adhering to commode devices:
Commode fill valve
Dripping flush shutoff
Bathroom flapper
Malfunctioning Garbage Disposal System
This irritating problem is likewise high up on the list of typical plumbing concerns. Your device will certainly come with a nifty key to unjam your maker. If you lose it, you will certainly require an Allen wrench to take care of the trouble. You need to go under the sink and search for the spot where you can place the trick. Utilize your wrench to transform the machine to free the electric motor when you detect it. When functioning on your waste disposal system to prevent unpleasant mishaps, don't fail to remember to transform off the system as well as reduced the circuit breaker.
Slow Draining Sink
This is the most common problem of homeowners, with the sink accumulating a great deal of hair, oil, particles, and also various other gunk over time. Unfortunately, the only method to get a smooth moving drain once again is to remove the debris. You can use a plumbing tool for fishing out the particles. From there, you can make use of a store-bought drainpipe cleaner to cleanse the lines.
Slow-moving Tub Drain
This is one more pesky annoyance because the tub is one of one of the most secondhand fixtures in your restroom. Similar to the sink drain, hair, soap residue, dead skin cells, and various other cruds swimming pool in the drain commonly. You should pop open the drainpipe cover as well as use a tub claw to remove the debris. Do this ASAP before the drainpipe clogs up completely. After making use of the claw, you can pour drainpipe cleaner to refresh the drainpipe lines.
If all of these audio laborious for you, you can constantly employ a plumber to get professional help. Looking for expert aid implies conserving effort and time. Since you can relax guaranteed that your straightforward plumbing problem will certainly not escalate, you may even finish up conserving cash in the lengthy run. Due to the fact that you will certainly be inviting strangers in your house, simply make sure you call a reputable company with accreditations as well as licenses. Obviously, you have to make certain that you deal with a person you can rely on.
Some plumbing issues are much more common as well as can be quickly taken care of. Doing the repair work yourselves on these easy plumbing issues can conserve you heaps of cash. As a home owner, you will experience many different plumbing issues that periodically make a problem. You can use a plumbing tool for fishing out the debris. You may even end up conserving money in the lengthy run due to the fact that you can rest guaranteed that your basic plumbing problem will not escalate.
Do you appreciate more info about Fixing Typical Household Plumbing Problems? Try to leave a remark down the page. We'd be delighted to know your ideas about this blog post. In hopes that you come back again soon. If you appreciated our post if you please remember to pass it around. Thanks a lot for your time spent reading it.
Book Your Appointment Report this page