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- By James Wisler
- Customer Service Plumbing Tips
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When it comes to regularly checking your plumbing system, there are a few things you can do yourself. However, there are also things that you should leave to a qualified professional. Here’s what to keep in mind in order to make sure your plumbing maintenance is well taken care of.
Professional Inspection
When we do a maintenance safety inspection of a home as part of our Diamond Club membership, it’s very comprehensive. We turn all the valves, check all the drainpipes, inspect all the faucets and fixtures, dye test toilets, verify all rubber components, check hose faucets, look for dripping faucets, and pull items out of the water heater to check them as per the manufacturer’s instructions. We also look for any potential safety concerns that are in the home and make sure your water is safe to drink and use.
Overall, there are about 300 items on our inspection checklist. It takes a skilled and knowledgable professional to complete the inspection. The comprehensive check is definitely valuable because it prevents sudden emergencies from occurring. It also lets you know the age of all the different components in your systems. You’ll have the opportunity to save or budget for upcoming expenses since you know what will need to be replaced.
If you don’t have a professional check your home’s plumbing system, you’ll be surprised when something inevitably fails.
Do It Yourself
If you choose to do things yourself, you can test the valves underneath each sink and toilet, at the water heater, and at the hose faucets. If you never work these valves, they could become frozen/stuck and you won’t be able to use them once needed.
You can also pay attention to water heater maintenance. You can only do one of the four steps we perform during our inspection: flushing the water heater. You flush the water heater by hooking a hose to the bottom, draining it out, and then removing any debris that may have collected. That will prevent the water heater from failing prematurely. Remember, this needs to be done on an annual basis.
Check your drains by running water and pulling the stopper. See how quickly the water goes down. If it’s slow, you know that there’s a problem. If you have a slow drain in your home, that means it is very likely it will become completely stopped up. Slow drains lead to stopped up drains, which are never fun to deal with. It’s kind of like when someone doesn’t have circulation in one of their limbs. That means you’ve probably got a partially blocked vein or artery.
The last thing you can do is pay attention to an area that’s most commonly overlooked: crawlspaces. They aren’t very much fun to go into, but they are a way to see if there are any dripping pipes. (Of course, we do this as part of our inspection.) Leaky pipes can cause damage to the wood members in your home. Make sure that there are no signs of water and everything around the pipes is dry.
If you want peace of mind, you can sit back and relax with a feeling of confidence that your plumbing system is well taken care of. All it takes is hiring a skilled professional to come into your home. A comprehensive check of your plumbing system will help save you money in the future.
To learn about our maintenance safety inspection, contact us online or give us a call at (540) 483-9382.
