Wisler Plumbing and Air

Serving Roanoke and surrounding areas.

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4 Simple Winterization Tips

Plumbing Repair

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It’s easier to ignore or postpone plumbing maintenance even though it’ll probably result in significant damage in the long run. Here are four simple winterization plumbing tips that are sure to save you some major headaches later:

1. Winterize outdoor fixtures.

Outdoor plumbing such as a barbecue sinks, outdoor kitchens, aboveground hose faucets, and lake dock fixtures need to be winterized. Depending on the system, this is usually as simple as turning the water off, opening up the valve, and draining the fixture of water. Gravity will cause the pipes to drain by themselves if the fixtures are installed correctly.

If the fixtures are installed improperly they will not drain as described above. Instead, you will need to drain it by using an air compressor, making sure the water is turned off before you do so, to push out any remaining water. Remember: water expands as it freezes, and this can cause pipes to burst.

If you have a source of standing water, such as a outdoor sink or drain, you can use some RV antifreeze to prevent the water from freezing and causing a burst pipe. (For safety, make sure to follow all indications on the bottle. Antifreeze should never enter fresh water supplies or be placed in an area accessible to animals/pets.)

2. Disconnect all hoses from faucets.

Whether your hydrant is in the yard or attached to the wall on the side of your house, you must absolutely make sure that the hose is completely disconnected. You should never leave hoses connected to any hydrant if there is potential for freezing temperatures.

3. Close crawlspace vents.

There are crawlspaces in many homes in the local area. It is important to close off any vents to the crawlspace to prevent freezing air from entering. Access doors or hinged doors, if not properly sealed, can allow those freezing temperatures to penetrate the crawlspace and expose the plumbing and pipes to the cold temperatures.

4. Remove debris from drainage.

Leaves, acorns, and other debris can be a hassle during the fall. Make sure to keep all floor and ground drains cleared of debris so that they can work properly and effectively. Its very important to keep the area around the drains clear, even if this means sweeping everyday. If we were to get a heavy downpour of rain, the drains need to be at full working potential so that water doesn’t flood up to your door.

 

If you’re confident enough to do these maintenance tips on your own, we highly encourage it. Otherwise, we would be more than happy to do them during our maintenance visit to your home. If you do not know where your faucet cutoffs are, or you need to use an air compressor to winterize a system, give us a call at (540) 352-4262. We look forward to assisting you.

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Part of the communication training that we conduct at Wisler Plumbing and Air involves the importance of a thorough diagnosis. This diagnosis comprised of three questions: What is the problem, what caused the problem, and what are we going to do to prevent the problem from happening in the future?

While it’s possible to put a bandage on a plumbing issue, that makes it likely for the problem to resurface in the future. Instead, we must first properly diagnose the root of the problem. We have found that there are five common causes to plumbing issues: The age of the system, water pressure, water quality, improper installation, or lack of maintenance. We investigate those five main potential causes to make sure we give a thorough diagnosis.

First, is the equipment simply failing due to old age? Second, is there excessive water pressure in the lines? The high pressure could be causing damage to the fixtures. Third, is the water of poor quality? There can be high amounts of chlorine, iron, or minerals that led to component failure. Fourth, were any components installed improperly? Finally, was there a lack of proper maintenance, leading to a problem that could have been prevented?

A common example of plumbing symptoms indicating an underlying problem is a backed up drain. In the main drain line leaving the house, there could be a blockage caused by tree roots that grew into the pipe. The usual bandage fix is to send a snake or cable down the drain to open up the pipe. This does not address the actual problem (the tree root). As the roots continue to grow again in six months to a year, the problem will resurface.

At Wisler Plumbing and Air, we want to minimize callbacks. If we can fix the problem the first time around, customers won’t have to call us to bandage the same problem repeatedly. This is why we prefer to properly diagnose the underlying problem. Obviously, we don’t expect our clients to be able to know all the answers when they call our phone support. The best thing to do is to set up an appointment for a qualified technician to come to your home.

If you would like to have us take care of your plumbing’s underlying issue instead of just making a bandage fix, give us a call at (540) 352-4262 or contact us here.

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At Wisler Plumbing and Air, we go out of our way to provide outstanding phone service 24/7 with a live person on the line. If you encounter a plumbing issue in the middle of the night, on a holiday, or on a Sunday evening, we are a phone call away. You won’t get an automated answering machine prompting you to press endless buttons—there is someone on the line that can provide immediate help.

Plumbing problems don’t occur at convenient times. If a plumbing-related emergency occurs, the last thing anyone wants to do is record a message with a complicated automated service. Our trained staff will ask callers relevant questions in order to gain an understanding of the problem at hand, allowing them to classify it by priority. If clients are club members, they will obtain priority service and get their problem addressed even sooner. These issues are urgent, and it is comforting to be able to call someone that can respond to your needs as soon as possible.

Sometimes our clients might not have emergency situations, but they have important questions about their plumbing systems that need to be answered. When you call our phone support, we normally try to answer your questions on the same day (depending on complexity). Simple questions can be answered immediately by the staff answering the phone, but more complicated questions will be fielded by our experienced plumbers. We always try to make sure that all questions are answered professionally, quickly, and accurately.

We decided to provide 24/7 phone support to differentiate ourselves from other organizations in the plumbing industry. We wanted to go above and beyond for clients who have a plumbing issue, and we realized that this would be done by having phone support available at all times. Wisler Plumbing and Air has offered 24/7 phone support for around ten years, allowing us to streamline our service to make sure it meets our clients’ needs.

If you have any questions or would like to experience our phone support first-hand, call us at (540) 352-4262.

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There are five main reasons why plumbing fails. By being proactive, you can make sure your home’s plumbing will run smoothly and reliably.

1. Age

Put simply, most people think that their toilet is going to last forever. However, it’s just like your refrigerator, microwave, coffeemaker, or other appliances in your home. These fixtures have components that do wear out over time. If you’ve got a plumbing fixture in your home that is very old, you can be sure that it will fail at some point. Being proactive will definitely save you from having water getting into your home and damaging its structure.

2. Excessive Water Pressure

Another reason that we find plumbing systems fail is simply because the water pressure coming into the home is too high. Water pressure should not exceed 80 psi. If the pressure is any higher than 80 psi, it will cause excessive wear and tear damage to your faucets, eventually causing them to start dripping. It will also cause more damage to your water heater, due to the increased expansion and contraction. If you notice that your garden hose swells up with bubbles during the summer, this can be another indicator that you have very high pressure. Making sure that you don’t have water pressure that exceeds 80 psi is an often overlooked way to be proactive with your plumbing. It can end up preventing a major problem from occurring in the future. Next time you have a professional in your home, ask them to check your water pressure. It’s something that we do during our diagnosis, because it definitely affects the plumbing.

3. Poor Water Quality

Another issue that needs to be addressed is water quality. There is calcium, acidity, iron, and other particulates in water that can be very harmful to your components (such as faucets, toilets, the water heater, or anything in your home that comes in contact with water). The quality of a home’s water supply is extremely important. If we’re in your home, doing a water analysis is an important step during diagnosis. Again, this can prevent you from experiencing future breakdowns.

4. Lack of Proactive Maintenance

Proper plumbing maintenance is something that also needs to be addressed. If you proactively maintain the plumbing system, you will definitely extend the life of all the fixtures in your home. Maintenance is a lot less expensive than waiting until a major problem occurs and then having to replace or repair components. It can end up being very costly to neglect proper maintenance.

5. Not Fixing Breakdowns in a Timely Fashion

The entire home’s plumbing system is interconnected, and small issues can be a signal that something larger needs to be addressed. For instance, if you have a drippy faucet, it affects your sewage, among other areas. When something is going on with a toilet, it can be causing problems in another area of the plumbing system. If you have a water heater that fails and bursts, or if you have a water main that breaks, it will end up causing your water bill to go up. If you have a septic system, a toilet that is running constantly when not in use can cause major damage. Not fixing it in a timely manner can cause larger problems to arise. If you have a well

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The biggest difference between an installation company and a service company really comes down to how customer-oriented the company is. Installation companies are simply designed to get the job done as quickly and cheaply as possible. Sometimes this means not having the customer’s best interest in mind. Everything we do as a service company involves asking ourselves if we are benefitting our clients in some way.

Whenever our customers have a plumbing problem, we realize that their issue is urgent and it needs to be addressed immediately. Therefore, staffing our phones is very important. Even though it adds cost to the service, customers don’t want to have to leave a message with a plumbing company and wonder when they will get a call back. A service company is always going to have someone live answering their phones.

The next important difference is time efficiency. Installation companies will usually come to your home in a pickup truck to inspect your problem. Next thing you know, they are taking off to the supply house and taking more than an hour in the process to get the necessary parts. With a service company, it’s about making sure that we respect our customers’ time. It’s important for us to come prepared in a well-stocked truck. Again, this adds cost, but it provides a large benefit to our clients. A well-stocked truck means valuable time is saved. If customers have taken time off from work to be at home during that service visit, we want to make sure we do everything possible to respect their time and get them back to work quicker.

There are many clients who forget to mention other plumbing problems that may have occurred throughout the home. If we didn’t come prepared with a well-stocked truck, we wouldn’t be able to address any surprises that may arise. We usually have toilets, water heaters, faucets, and plumbing commodities on our truck just in case. This allows us to take care of situations in a very efficient manner and prevents us from running around unproductively.

Another difference is, it’s important with a service company to make sure you have very competent people. There’s a big difference between just going to a new house to install plumbing pipes and going to an existing house where there’s a symptom of a problem that needs to be properly diagnosed. Having trained technicians who can ask relevant questions to the client and who are trained to interpret those answers to formulate an accurate diagnosis makes a big difference. Otherwise, they would be attempting to fix the problem without even being sure what the problem is. They would either be throwing darts blindly or using a process of elimination. That’s not a very effective way to handle plumbing issues. With a service company, you’re definitely going to have people that are trained in the appropriate areas to make sure they are diagnosing things properly.

It’s important that we have the ability, the equipment, and the resources to take care of our customers’ needs. The job can be done properly without waiting for us to rent equipment or call a subcontractor. Those things would cause the project to become unnecessarily expensive and time-consuming.

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There are three factors to consider when deciding whether to replace or repair a plumbing fixture. First of all, the fixture’s age needs to be taken into consideration. If we were to come into a house and notice that the water heater has an average age of 8 to 10 years, we would evaluate that (along with other information) in order to make a recommendation to possibly replace the item, since it’s probably past the prime of its life. Age is definitely a large component in making sure that you’re not putting money into something that will continue to nickel and dime you in the future.

Another thing to consider is the cost of the repair. There are obviously temporary bandages that can be applied to problems, but repairing fixtures correctly can sometimes be very expensive compared to the cost of just putting in a new item. The benefits associated with purchasing a new item should be weighed against the cost of repairing the existing item. Sometimes, it might cost way less to repair a fixture instead of just replacing it completely. But then, if you’re going to have to do that same repair multiple times in the future, the cost will add up. In hindsight, you might end up looking back and realizing it cost more to keep repairing the same old fixture instead of just replacing it to begin with. Being open-minded to that can definitely be advantageous.

The great thing about Wisler Plumbing and Air’s customer service is that we will give you options. There will likely be a repair option and a replacement option available, and we will make the advantages of both clear to you. You’ll be able to see those options side by side and make an informed decision. Our recommendation to repair or replace the fixture will depend on the fixture’s age and cost. The beauty of it is, you can take our professional recommendation or weigh the consequences yourself. The power is left in the hands of the customer to decide.

When considering available options, we would never want a customer to wish they would have known about an option after the job is done. We make sure that customers know about the products we offer, and also other products that are out on the market. Many customers do their research ahead of time and show up knowing that they want an item replaced with a certain brand or type. We want to make sure that we can help the client navigate through the decision, so when they do make the investment to replace an item, they are sure the product meets their specific needs and criteria. It’s important that customers know the products that we offer, but also the other products on the market that we choose not to offer.

When we determine what products we’re going to use, we do a lot of research and consider many different criteria about the product. When you do buy a replacement item, you want to be sure that you’re replacing it with a product that just doesn’t look good, but is also high quality.

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