Common Issues You Should Leave to a Plumber

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Posted April 12, 2019

Does one of the bathrooms in your home have a toilet that’s clogged? More often than not, you’ll be able to fix a problem like this on your own without the assistance of a professional plumber. The only thing you’ll need to get the job done is a trusty plunger. But there are lots of other times when you’re not going to know where to start when you’re experiencing plumbing issues. In these cases, it’s best to call on plumbing technicians in your area to supply you with the plumbing services you need. Just make sure you do your homework and bring the right plumbing pros on board to lend a hand with your problem. It’ll help you avoid making the issue even worse than it already is.

Here are 15 common plumbing issues you should leave to professional plumbing services.

1. Clogged Drains

Does it take forever for water to drain out of one of the sinks in your home? Many times, homeowners will have slow-draining sinks in their kitchens and bathrooms because the pipes attached to those sinks are clogged up with food particles, hair, and other gunk.

There are all kinds of products that you can buy that are designed to clean drains. But some of them can do damage to your drains if you’re not careful. They could even cause your drains to back up more.

A plumber can provide you with the drain cleaning services you need to clear your drains out. They’ll rely on tools like plumbing snakes to find and eliminate clogs in your plumbing system.

2. Leaky Pipes

As long as plumbing pipes are installed properly when a home is first built, they’ll last for years and years to come. But over time, pipes can start to wear down and even leak in some cases.

There are some signs of leaky pipes that are rather obvious. For example, if you see a huge wet spot forming on a ceiling in your home, it often means that a plumbing pipe that sits right on top of it has a leak in it.

But there are also less obvious signs you should look out for at all times. They include:

• A series of high water bills
• Mold and mildew growing in bathrooms
• A water meter that is almost always running
• Musty smells in bathrooms and basements
• Cracks in a home’s foundation

If you suspect you have leaky plumbing pipes in your home, it’s a good idea to hire a plumber to come out and inspect your home. They can identify leaks and figure out a way to fix them.

3. Leaky Faucets

Leaky faucets are some of the most common plumbing problems on the planet. If you own a home long enough, you’re eventually going to find that at least one of your faucets will start leaking.

It’s important to fix leaky faucets as fast as you can because they can waste a lot of water otherwise. Faucets that drip a single drop of water every second can run through more than 3,000 gallons of water every year.

Some people assume that leaky faucets must be simple enough to fix. But there are a number of things that can cause a faulty faucet, including:

• Worn-out O-ring
• Bad valve seat/washer
• Old cartridge

In some instances, a plumber can fix a specific part on a faucet to make it stop leaking. But in others, they’ll need to replace the faucet altogether to prevent a homeowner from wasting water.

4. Burst Pipes

The temperature doesn’t fall below freezing too often in Nashville, TN and the surrounding areas. But the mercury does dip under 32 degrees Fahrenheit every now and then, and it could put your home’s plumbing pipes at risk when it does.

When it’s freezing cold outside in the wintertime, there is a chance that your plumbing pipes could freeze up and burst. And if they ever do, they can cause massive amounts of water damage to your home.

There are some steps you can take to prevent your plumbing pipes from freezing in the winter. You can:

• Let your faucets drip on cold days and nights to keep water flowing through your pipes
• Repair any cracks that exist in your plumbing pipes
• Make sure your plumbing pipes are insulated if they run through a cold part of your house
• Open up cabinets that have pipes in them to allow them to get access to heat
• Keep the heat in your home turned up to a comfortable level at all times during the winter

By doing these things, you can usually stop plumbing pipes from bursting. But if you ever experience burst plumbing pipes, you’ll have an emergency situation on your hands. It’ll be imperative for you to seek plumbing services right away.

5. Pipe Replacement

No matter how hard you work to maintain and repair your home’s plumbing system, the plumbing pipes inside your house aren’t going to last forever.

You’ll get about 20 to 50 years of life out of galvanized steel supply lines, 50 years out of copper supply lines, and 40 to 70 years out of brass supply lines. Cast iron drain lines, meanwhile, will give you about 75 to 100 years of service.

Once your plumbing pipes start to wear down on you, you’ll need to have them replaced with new ones. And rather than trying to do it on your own, you should call on a professional plumber who knows how to replace pipes quickly without making a huge mess.

6. New Plumbing Installation

Are you in the process of building your dream home? If so, you’ve spent hours coming up with the right layout for the home and thinking about what each room inside of it is going to look like.

But before you get too carried away picking out paint colors and choosing hardwood flooring, you should make sure the bones of the home are strong. That includes installing a plumbing system that will be capable of supplying your whole home with water and draining water away.

A plumbing company that specializes in new plumbing installation can make the job easier for you. They can also speak with you about what’s possible as far as adding special sinks, showers, toilets, and more to your home’s bathrooms.

7. Pipe Relocation

If you’re currently remodeling a kitchen or bathroom, you might want to take a sink, a toilet, or even a bathtub and relocate it to a different part of the room. It’s possible to do this—but it’s not always easy.

In order to change the location of a plumbing fixture, you need to relocate all the plumbing pipes that go along with it. This often means you need to remove flooring and subfloors and reroute plumbing pipes throughout a room.

This is most definitely not a job for an amateur that doesn’t know what they’re doing. You’ll want a professional plumber by your side providing you with plumbing services before you begin moving things around in a kitchen or bathroom.

8. Refrigerator Water Line Installation

Did you just put a new refrigerator into your kitchen with an ice and water dispenser in it?

If your last refrigerator had a dispenser, you can hook your fridge up to the same water line that you used for that. But if you’ve never had a dispenser before, you’ll need a plumber to come out and do refrigerator water line installation for you to get your new fridge up and running.

9. Leaky Water Heater

Have you noticed that there is water pooling around the outside of your home’s hot water heater? This might mean that your water heater has failed on you.

However, this also could be an indication of a problem with one of the parts inside your hot water heater. If, for example, you have too much pressure built up inside your water heater’s tank, it can cause your temperature and pressure relief valve to stay open and leak water.

A plumber can take a closer look at a leaky water heater to see if it needs to be repaired or replaced. This can help you avoid the inevitable water damage that will come along with your water heater leaking in the slightest.

10. Water Heater Installation

The average hot water heater is only designed to last for somewhere between 8 and 12 years. Once it gets to be that age, it will eventually fail and stop producing hot water for your home.

When your hot water heater fails, you’ll have a tough time taking showers, washing dishes, running your washing machine, and even just washing your hands. You’ll want to do hot water heater installation as soon as you can to start sending hot water back through your home again.

Reputable plumbers can show you the different water heaters that are available today. They can also take care of installing the one you want so that it’ll last you for a long time.

11. Sump Pump Failure

Homes with basements are often equipped with sump pumps that stop water from collecting in them. To keep your sump pump functioning properly, you should install, maintain, and repair it the right way.

Most homeowners don’t have the faintest clue how to care for a sump pump to keep it going. If you fall into this category, a plumber can show you the ins and outs of your sump pump and prevent it from falling into a state of disrepair.

12. Low Water Pressure

If you just turned on a faucet to wash your hands or went to take a shower and realized there is almost no water pressure in your home, it could be because of an issue with your town’s water supply. Something like a water main break can temporarily reduce water pressure.

But if it feels like your home always has low water pressure, there could be an issue with your plumbing system. Some common causes of low water pressure include:

• Your water meter valve is closed
• Your water shut-off valve is closed
• You have a blockage somewhere in your plumbing system

Whatever the case might be, you’ll need to hire a plumber to find the source of your low water pressure problem and fix it.

13. Hard Water

Hard water is water that’s filled with minerals like calcium and magnesium carbonates. It can leave spots on your glasses when you wash them, dry out your skin and hair, and do damage to your entire plumbing system.

You’ll need to lean on a plumber to fix any damage done to your plumbing system if you ever discover you have hard water. You may also want to consider installing a water softener to prevent hard water from doing additional damage in the future.

14. Water Line Break

There is a water line that runs underground from the street out in front of your house into your home. It’s responsible for supplying your home with all the water that it needs.

But since water lines are out of sight and, therefore, out of mind, it’s not all that uncommon for them to break as they wear down over the years. And water lines are highly pressurized, which means even the tiniest leak in one can cause a lot of wasted water.

If the water pressure in your home ever drops suddenly or if you ever see water pooling in your front yard out of nowhere, contact a plumber to see if you have a water line break. It’s best to spring into action quickly to stop it from taking a huge toll on your home and the rest of your property.

15. Sewer Line Backup

Of all the issues listed here, a sewer line backup is easily the worst of the bunch. If your sewer line ever clogs up on you, it can send disgusting sewage that’s filled with bacteria back into your home.

Outside of being gross, a sewer line backup can also cause extensive damage and even put your health in jeopardy. Work with a plumber to get this problem under control right away so that you don’t have to worry about dealing with sewage for any longer than you have to.

Schedule Plumbing Services Today

Are you dealing with any of the issues found here at the moment?

Instead of trying to tackle them on your own, let a plumber provide you with the professional plumbing services you need to take care of the problem. Whether you have a clogged drain, a leaky faucet, or burst pipes, we can come to your home and make things right.

Contact us today to schedule plumbing services in your home.

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