Wisler Plumbing and Air

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How Our Maintenance Program Saves Homeowners Money Throughout the Year

Diamond Club

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I think most of us recognize the importance of maintenance, and one of the items we commonly associate with maintenance is our car. Everyone who drives a car should know that it occasionally needs its oil changed (along with the oil filter). A properly-maintained car is going to continue to work well. But most of us don’t think about the systems in our homes that need maintenance. Our HVAC systems run all the time, constantly keeping our homes warm or cool. In our plumbing systems, the water heater is running 24/7. They will give out on us if we don’t take care of them.

The bottom line is, maintenance can prevent premature breakdowns. It’s never fun when our water heater goes out and gives us a cold shower. It’s also no picnic when our HVAC system goes out and our house becomes unbearably hot or cold. We want to be comfortable in our homes and we want the systems in our homes to work properly. If you can get someone to keep an eye on them every once in a while, it allows you to plan for a potential upgrade or replacement. Otherwise, a lot of times you’ll just need to replace the item whenever it breaks down. It’s much, much harder to make the best decision during those kinds of urgent emergencies. Just taking a proactive instead of a reactive approach can place us in a much better situation.

If your HVAC system is located in a dusty environment, in the laundry room, or a home with pets, it’s going to have to work much harder. The area doesn’t even have to be very dirty, either—it’s just that air is constantly moving in a high volume and any pet hair or dust will be sucked up into the unit. It’s kind of like putting your hand tightly over your mouth and trying to breathe. If the HVAC system is working hard in this manner, it’s probably going to break down much sooner, especially without someone keeping an eye on it during occasional maintenance. You can save money just by being proactive.

The Diamond Club program includes two HVAC checks a year (one for the heating system, one for the cooling system) and a plumbing check once a year at no additional charge over the membership. You do have to call in to get the plumbing check, if it’s something you want to have. (There’s not quite as much to maintain in the plumbing system, and some people get more value out of it than others.) If there’s any work that you choose to have done, or any cleaning/maintenance items that need to be performed, it would be an additional charge. However, we go over those charges before any work is done and you have the option to agree or decline.

Customers can call in and request a plumbing maintenance visit. We generally reach out to our customers to schedule the heating or air visit, depending on whether we’re in the heating or cooling season. This might also be a good reminder to change your air filters, too, However, sometimes filters might need to be changed more frequently than every 6 months, depending on the type of system you have, the type of environment, and the type of filter used. For any questions, contact us online or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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The most important thing for us to do as a company is make sure the right person goes to the right call. Everyone loses when that doesn’t happen. If we send a technician who doesn’t have the relevant competency out to someone’s home, they will be frustrated because they struggled to complete the task. The client is going to be very frustrated, too, because their concern was not efficiently resolved. Time is very important to everyone, so if we have to go back to do something twice, it’s absolutely no fun for anybody involved. We’re very much keyed-in to trying to get the right tech on the right job so these things don’t end up happening.

It can be very challenging to pull this off sometimes, though, because we may not fully understand the issue that we’re sending someone out for. Sometimes we’re making educated guesses about what potentially could be going on, so we have to compensate when we’re assigning the job to a technician. We also have a lot of technicians who specialize in a certain area. For instance, our plumbing technicians don’t cross over to HVAC and vice-versa. Our maintenance technicians specialize in maintenance and are not service technicians.

We always look at the skill level of the technician and the skill level required for the actual task being requested and try to match them up. That way we can divvy out jobs and tasks to the individuals who are specialized in those areas. If they do a specific kind of task day in and day out, they’re going to be much better at it than someone who might run three HVAC calls, four plumbing calls, and a couple of water treatment calls every week. If a technician was constantly doing different tasks, they’d never find a groove. We think the best strategy is to have specialties within our techs so we can field the right person for the job.

We also look at the priority of the call. For instance, no-heat calls and no-water calls are very important and generally are given a higher priority over a dripping sink faucet. We also give priority to our Diamond Club family members as one of the benefits of the program. When one of our Diamond Club family members calls in for service or maintenance, we try to give them priority over someone who isn’t a Diamond Club family member.

We have a role in our company that is entirely dedicated to dispatching technicians. Kresta is our dispatcher here, and she has a couple of people who back her up while she’s away. (She’s been with us for about 7 or 8 years now.) She’s very capable of getting a handle of any situation and knowing how to match a technician’s skillset with the task. The dispatcher’s role is ultimately to get the right call to the right tech as the calls come in.

If you have any questions, reach out to us today by giving us a call at 540-483-9382. You can also request an appointment online if you’d like to get a technician out to your home for plumbing or HVAC maintenance or repair.

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Plumbing failures are definitely not fun. We depend on our toilets, showers, kitchen sinks, and laundry so much every day, but we tend to take them for granted. It’s complete havoc if they stop working, but it’s probably even more catastrophic if the plumbing in a home ruptures or breaks completely. (Parts of your home are generally made out of materials like wood and paper, and contact with water can lead to mold or other serious issues.) Now that winter is coming up, here are a few easy things you can do to make sure your home is prepared.

An Ounce of Prevention

We see outside hose connections that have frozen and burst more frequently than any other kind of plumbing failure during the wintertime. Generally speaking, what happens is people leave their hoses hooked up to the hose bib. Any water in the hose bib will freeze and expand, causing it to burst. Of course, you can prevent this from ever happening by simply disconnecting the hose. But someone might decide to use the water hose on a day when it’s not very cold (maybe to wash the car). A couple of days later, freezing temperatures come and you realize that the hose is still connected. Just try to be extra diligent throughout the winter to keep those hoses unhooked, because it’s an easy way to prevent major damage. (If you just have a hose bib, you’ll also need to find its shutoff valve and turn it off. For frost-free wall hydrants, on the other hand, you can generally just disconnect the hose.)

Winterize

Some homes have plumbing like an outdoor kitchen or outdoor shower. Maybe it’s a dock down at the lake with freshwater. These fixtures need to be properly winterized—just turning the water off isn’t good enough. The pipe can burst if it hasn’t been drained completely. (Air is sometimes used to blow any water out of the faucet.) Ice makers, refrigerators, or other similar appliances might also be on the outside patio. They need to be blown out so that they don’t freeze.

Close off the Airflow

One area that easily gets skipped over is the crawlspace. When a weeklong cold spell arrives with below-freezing weather and wind, it’s very common for all the plumbing inside a crawlspace to get frozen solid. You can prevent that by simply making sure the crawlspace door and vents are all shut securely. Heat from the house will be able to keep the space conditioned enough that the plumbing won’t freeze.

Check You Insulation

In more rural communities we regularly see wellheads, well houses, and well pits where the insulation was wet, unmaintained, or removed during the summer while maintenance was being performed. You’ll need to check the insulation in all of these areas to make sure it’s properly installed and doing its job.

Don’t Forget the HVAC

People with lake houses often turn the heat down low enough to still keep the space conditioned. In that case, it might be a good idea to make sure the HVAC system is working properly. Otherwise, we do offer a winterization service that’s only a call away. If you have any questions about preparing your home for the upcoming winter, contact us today or give us a call at

540-483-9382.

 

 

 

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Most of us probably don’t think about routine maintenance very often. We wouldn’t want to either, because maintenance can be a pain. It costs money and it takes time out of our schedule. But I think we’d all agree that if we didn’t change our car’s oil, we’d have to buy a new one much sooner. Maintenance isn’t very fun, but it’s even less fun to buy an expensive replacement earlier than we’d have to otherwise. So do people really need to maintain their plumbing systems and heating and air systems? It’s absolutely in everyone’s best interest, just like maintaining the yard, painting the walls, or changing a car’s oil.

Sometimes it’s harder to see the benefits of HVAC or plumbing maintenance because it’s not tangible or immediately visible to our eyes. The quality of the air we breathe inside our homes is invisible but incredibly important. All the air in our home travels through the HVAC system’s heat exchanger or condenser. If the system isn’t maintained, the air is going to pick up contaminants, dust particles, and allergens and get dispersed throughout the home. There are very real health benefits to maintaining your water source, too, primarily because our drinking water often comes from the plumbing system. How well it’s maintained (especially the water heater or well) will determine the level of contaminants in your water.

Maintenance also allows systems to reach their full potential. Just like you’ll get more mileage out of a car if you perform regular oil changes, your HVAC and plumbing systems will last much longer with regular maintenance. You can do some of the maintenance yourself, like changing the air filter or connecting a hose to the bottom of the water heater to flush it out. But other maintenance requires a professional, like cleaning the internal parts of the HVAC system or changing the anode rod in the water heater’s tank. Anything you do in terms of maintenance will increase the potential lifespan of that particular system.

One of the things that nobody ever likes is overpayment. Whenever a heating & air system or water heater isn’t maintained, I can almost guarantee that it’s causing you overpayment when it comes to the electric or gas bill. In this sense, HVAC and plumbing maintenance has a return on investment because the increased efficiency will reduce your utility payments every month. Yes, it might be a little costly to have that maintenance done upfront, but it’ll definitely pay you back dividends.

Wisler Plumbing & Air doesn’t change the oil in people’s cars, sadly. But the good news is that we have an awesome program called the Diamond Club. Included in the club is plumbing maintenance, water heater flushing, and water heater inspection once per year. It also includes two yearly heating & air visits: one for the hot season and one for the cool season. During these visits, we check the system to make sure it’s working properly. (Cleaning, part replacement, or component maintenance isn’t included.) For one reasonable price, we get all of this done as part of the Diamond Club program. If you have questions, just contact us today or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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There are times when you need to call a plumber and discuss what’s wrong with your plumbing.  That discussion may include terms specific to the plumbing trade and those terms can be confusing if you have never heard them before. The trades use very technical language, and plumbing in particular has a lot of weird names for things. Here are some of the most common terms that you might not already know.

 

Stop valve – You’ll find these under the cabinets or under the toilet. Right where water comes out of the wall or floor, there’s a little valve you can use to turn the water on or off before it gets to the fixture. Anytime someone mentions a ‘stop’, ‘stop valve’, ‘emergency shutoff valve’, or ‘emergency stop’, they are referring to this shutoff valve located right at the fixture.

 

P-trap – This is generally found underneath the sink (kitchen sink, bathroom sink, etc.). It’s the funny looking pipe segment right under the drain. Plumbers will say something like, “I need to take the p-trap off to get the object that got stuck in there.” It gets its name because it looks like a P if you take it apart and stand it up on its end. The p-trap’s job is to hold water in order to prevent sewer gas from coming back into your home.

 

Drain cleaning – This is a term that’s frequently taken for granted. Drain cleaning is not simply unstopping a drain. If you have a stopped-up drain, yes, putting a cable down will unstop it. However, as the name indicates, drain cleaning is where the pipe or drain is actually cleaned. This can be done with a cable or with high-pressure jetting. Remember, when a plumber references drain cleaning, they’re actually referring to something other than just unstopping the drain.

 

Ball valve – A ball valve is generally a shutoff valve. It has a lever, and is frequently found where the main water comes into your home. When someone refers to the ball valve, they may be talking about that main water shutoff—but not necessarily.

 

Gate valve – You can differentiate a gate valve from a ball valve by checking whether it uses a lever or a round handle. A ball valve uses a lever, whereas a gate valve will have a round handle.

 

Fill valve – A fill valve is a component in the back of the toilet tank. The water connects to it, and it’s what fills up the toilet tank so you can flush it.

 

Flapper – Most people probably know what a flapper is, but there are some who don’t. A flapper is a component located in the back of the toilet tank. When you push down on the toilet handle, the flapper lifts up to allow water to flush the toilet. Sometimes you’ll hear a plumber say, “The flapper is leaking,” or “The flapper went bad.” That means the rubber component in the toilet tank needs to be replaced.

 

Wall hydrant, hose bib – These devices are located on the outside of your home (generally speaking), where a hose is attached. A wall hydrant is different from a hose bib, because wall hydrants are designed to be frost-free or freezeproof. In other words, they don’t need to be winterized. Wall hydrants go into the home and the water is shut off, preventing ice that would cause the pipe to burst. Hose bibs are much simpler devices that do need to be winterized.

 

Supply line – A supply line is the water tube that goes from the stop valve at a fixture up to the actual faucet, toilet, or even washing machine. (The lines that go to washing machines are often just called washer hoses.)

 

Cleanout – This is basically an access point to your drains. Sometimes you might see a plug or cap that can be unscrewed somewhere in your basement, or maybe a crawlspace under your sink. The cleanout is used to allow cables or cameras down the drain.

 

Water meter – Normally located on the street, a water meter is what the municipality uses to measure how much water you use during a curtain period of time in order to regulate your water bill.

 

Now that you know these commonly-used plumbing terms, you’ll be able to decipher the Greek language that plumbers use. Hopefully this knowledge comes in handy next time you’re getting service or talking about what’s going on in your home. If you have any questions, contact us or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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Plumbing failures are definitely not fun. We depend on our toilets, showers, kitchen sinks, and laundry so much every day, but we tend to take them for granted. It’s complete havoc if they stop working, but it’s probably even more catastrophic if the plumbing in a home ruptures or breaks completely. (Parts of your home are generally made out of materials like wood and paper, and contact with water can lead to mold or other serious issues.) Now that winter is coming up, here are a few easy things you can do to make sure your home is prepared.

An Ounce of Prevention

We see outside hose connections that have frozen and burst more frequently than any other kind of plumbing failure during the wintertime. Generally speaking, what happens is people leave their hoses hooked up to the hose bib. Any water in the hose bib will freeze and expand, causing it to burst. Of course, you can prevent this from ever happening by simply disconnecting the hose. But someone might decide to use the water hose on a day when it’s not very cold (maybe to wash the car). A couple of days later, freezing temperatures come and you realize that the hose is still connected. Just try to be extra diligent throughout the winter to keep those hoses unhooked, because it’s an easy way to prevent major damage. (If you just have a hose bib, you’ll also need to find its shutoff valve and cut it off. For frost-free wall hydrants, on the other hand, you can generally just disconnect the hose.)

Winterize

Some homes have plumbing like an outdoor kitchen or outdoor shower. Maybe it’s a dock down at the lake with freshwater. These fixtures need to be properly winterized—just turning the water off isn’t good enough. The pipe can burst if it hasn’t been drained completely. (Air is sometimes used to blow any water out of the faucet.) Ice makers, refrigerators, or other similar appliances might also be on the outside patio. They need to be blown out so that they don’t freeze.

Close off the Airflow

One area that easily gets skipped over is the crawlspace. When a weeklong cold spell arrives with below-freezing weather and wind, it’s very common for all the plumbing inside a crawlspace to get frozen solid. You can prevent that by simply making sure the crawlspace door and vents are all shut securely. Heat from the house will be able to keep the space conditioned enough that the plumbing won’t freeze.

Check You Insulation

In more rural communities we regularly see wellheads, well houses, and well pits where the insulation was wet, unmaintained, or removed during the summer while maintenance was being performed. You’ll need to check the insulation in all of these areas to make sure it’s properly installed and doing its job.

Don’t Forget the HVAC

People with lake houses often turn the heat down low enough to still keep the space conditioned. In that case, it might be a good idea to make sure the HVAC system is working properly. Otherwise, we do offer a winterization service that’s only a call away. If you have any questions about preparing your home for the upcoming winter, contact us today or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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