As a homeowner, there are a few areas where you will need to be responsible. Anything that goes wrong will be your expense, so you need to run through a few maintenance schedules and stick to them. These schedules include things like roof maintenance, painting, as well as plumbing.
Maintaining your plumbing won’t prevent you from needing a plumber from time to time, but it will make their lives and yours a lot easier when things do go wrong.
Here are ten useful tips for maintaining the plumbing in your home -feel free to follow as many of them as you like.
1. Fix Drips
Check your home for water stains and drips regularly; these are often the precursors to much bigger plumbing problems. Check as many areas as you can but pay close attention to your kitchen and bathrooms – these are common problem areas.
By fixing drips before they turn into something far more problematic can save you time and money. Even the smallest leaks can waste a lot of water and inflate your water bill.
2. Unclog Drains
If you’ve noticed that one of your drains is taking longer to clear than normal, that can be a sign that your drain is blocked with soap scum or hair. Before your drain gets completely blocked, and nothing moves through it, there are a few things you can do at home to prevent a plumbing problem.
Sometimes all you need is a simple mix of vinegar, water, and baking soda. That mixture should help to clear any unwanted blockages and allow your drain to flow freely once again.
3. Fix Leaking Toilets
If your toilet tank is leaking into the bowl, that can be a sign of a bigger problem. You can test this by putting a few drops of brightly colored food coloring into the tank and waiting for about half an hour to an hour. If the food coloring has leaked into the bowl then you need to replace the tank ball in your toilet tank.
This simple step can help to save you water and reduce your water bill. If that tip doesn’t work then you can always search for plumbers near me and find one to come out to assist you.
4. Clean Your Showerhead
Keeping your showerhead clean will extend its life and save you on your water bill. With regular use, your shower head will get clogged up with mineral deposits that are found in water. This clogging will stop the showerhead from working effectively. If you don’t do anything about it, then it will ultimately end up becoming blocked.
Soak your showerhead in a bag of water and vinegar for a few hours and then give it a good rinse before you refit it.
5. Be Careful With What Your Flush
Toilets can be very temperamental so you need to be careful what you choose to flush down them. The only thing you should be flushing down a toilet is your own waste and toilet paper. Even then, you need to be careful with how much toilet paper you use – particularly if it is the two-ply variety.
Your toilet bowl is not a trash can, things like cotton swabs and sanitary products can create severe blockages and leave you with a blocked toilet that is completely unusable.
6. Flush Your Water Heater
The same mineral sediments and deposits that accumulate on your shower head can also accumulate on the bottom of your water heater. For this reason, you need to flush your water heater at least once a year.
Your water heater should last you a long time, as long you take care of it properly. If you want to be extra good about it, then you should also change the anode rod every three to five years as well – this simple maintenance tip will add years of life to your water heater.
7. Install Drain Covers
Mesh drain covers are perfect for keeping bigger pieces of soap and other debris from falling into your drains. These inexpensive covers can be attached to your sinks, showers, and baths to prevent you from having to clear your drains every other week.
If you do need to clear your drains, try to stay away from drain cleaners that rely on heavy chemicals to work – these chemicals can strip down your drains and the pipes leading into them.
8. Create A Schedule
Create a quick and easy maintenance schedule for your plumbing. That way you will never forget to check an area or inspect a problem location. Some maintenance checks only need to be done once or twice a year, so having a schedule can help you remember the less common ones.
9. Check Your Water Pressure
Install a water pressure gauge to keep an eye on your water pressure. You should check this gauge at least once a week to make sure there have not been any major fluctuations that you should be aware of.
Any sudden or abnormal fluctuations in water pressure can be a sign of a much bigger problem. That is particularly important to monitor during the colder months, where you could be at risk of developing frozen water pipes.
10. Don’t Ignore Problems
The majority of the massive plumbing problems that homeowners will encounter in their lives often start as much smaller issues. The problem comes in when these smaller, less significant issues are left to fester and develop into far more serious issues.
From time to time, something major will go wrong – like a burst water heater. Those types of problems can be fixed fairly quickly if they are caught early enough.
In Conclusion
Don’t be afraid to call a plumber if you are in over your head, but there are also several smaller problems that they can sort out for you too. If you don’t have a lot of time to check the items on your list, the least you can do is to make sure that someone else is keeping an eye on them for you.
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