Common Plumbing Issues Demystified: What You Should Understand
Common Plumbing Issues Demystified: What You Should 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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How to Fix Common Household Plumbing Issues
Doing the fixings yourselves on these simple plumbing troubles can conserve you heaps of money. As a homeowner, you will come across lots of different plumbing troubles that periodically make a hassle.
Low Tide Pressure
Is somebody from your house grumbling that there's reduced water pressure from the sink? If indeed, after that the problem is the aerator within the sink which might have a great deal of sedimentation resulting in low water pressure.
Running Toilet
You may have experienced a running commode, which can be fairly irritating due to the fact that the tank won't fill out. At the same time, leaving it alone relates to wasting water as well as spiking up your water expenses. For beginners, find out what's causing it to run. You might require to replace any one of the complying with bathroom mechanisms:
Toilet fill valve
Dripping flush shutoff
Bathroom flapper
Malfunctioning Garbage Disposal System
This bothersome issue is additionally high on the checklist of typical plumbing concerns. If you lose it, you will certainly require an Allen wrench to take care of the problem. You have to go under the sink and look for the area where you can place the key.
Slow Draining Sink
This is the most usual problem of property owners, with the sink gathering a great deal of hair, grease, particles, and various other crud in time. Unfortunately, the only means to obtain a smooth moving drain 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 use a store-bought drainpipe cleaner to cleanse the lines.
Slow Tub Drain
Just like the sink drain, hair, soap scum, dead skin cells, and also other cruds swimming pool in the drain usually. After making use of the claw, you can pour drain cleaner to refresh the drain lines.
You can constantly call in a plumber to get professional help if all of these audio tiresome for you. Looking for expert aid means saving time and effort. Because you can relax ensured that your straightforward plumbing problem will certainly not escalate, you may also end up saving cash in the long run. Simply make sure you call a trustworthy company with licenses and also accreditations because you will rate strangers in your home. Of course, you have to make certain that you deal with someone you can rely on.
Some plumbing concerns are a lot more typical and can be quickly repaired. Doing the fixings yourselves on these basic plumbing issues can conserve you lots of money. As a homeowner, you will encounter lots of different plumbing troubles that occasionally make a hassle. You can use a plumbing device for angling out the debris. You may also finish up saving money in the long run because you can rest ensured that your simple plumbing issue will not escalate.
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