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When it comes to your plumbing, it’s highly likely that you’re going to end up needing a plumbing service at some point in your life. Even if you do everything right, your pipes are only meant to last for about two to three decades, so if you live in the same house in Tampa, FL for many years, you’re almost certainly going to have to worry about calling a service once or twice over the years.
But if you don’t take care of your plumbing, you’re probably going to need to worry about your plumbing a lot more than once a decade. Unfortunately, not taking care of your plumbing doesn’t just mean proper maintenance. It also means making sure not to make simple mistakes that can really wreck your plumbing. These are the things that you really don’t want to do to your plumbing — unless you want your next call to be to a plumbing service!
Pouring Grease Down The Drain
Have you ever heard the claim that you need to put grease in the freezer and throw it away? It’s not an old-wives tale by any stretch of the imagination. If you pour liquid grease down your drain, it’s eventually going to come to room temperature and congeal.
When that occurs, it can block your pipes and cause serious issues with your drains. Either of those can lead to a slow-flowing drain, a stopped drain or even a burst pipe, all of which would require you to call for a Plumbing Service to visit your home right away. Be smart and toss any used cooking grease in the trash can and not the sink. Even the garbage disposal isn’t going to work on grease; it’s still going to wind up blocking your drain if you pour enough down.
Using Corrosive Drain Cleaners
Liquid drain cleaner is really not a great product to use on your clogs. That’s because it can cause some real damage to your pipes, regardless of what kind you have. Let’s say you’ve got copper pipes, one of the most common choices. Over time, liquid cleaners can eat into the metal and cause tears in your pipes. What about PVC, which won’t corrode? Liquid cleaners can still eat at the glue that holds your pipes together, which would necessitate a plumbing service visit.
When it comes to cleaning your drains, the one thing that’s safe to use is a drain snake. If you can’t get a clog clear with a drain snake, don’t mess with it any longer. Instead, call for the experts at your local plumbing service so that you don’t do any unwanted damage to your Tampa, FL home.
Doing A Diy Plumbing Repair
One of the worst things that a plumber can hear about a job is that the homeowner already tried to fix it themselves, because that almost always means that the job has gotten harder than it otherwise would have been. The reality is that in almost all cases, plumbing is not a DIY job, and if you try to fit the pipes together on your own, you’re going to end up causing more damage than a professional plumbing service would have.
That’s a real problem for two reasons. First, if you make the job harder for a professional plumber, you can expect that the bill will reflect the cost of the extra work. Second, you don’t carry the same insurance that a plumber does. If a plumber causes extra damage to your home during the course of your repair, their insurance company will cover the cost of repairing the damage, so you won’t have to worry about any extra costs. If you caused the damage yourself, however, you’re on the hook for the repairs as well as for the plumbing issue.
Unless you were specifically trained as a plumber by a professional, be smart and leave repair jobs to the experts. Not only will you get the peace of mind of knowing that the job has been done right the first time, but you also won’t have to take time out of your schedule to try to do the job on your own.
Failing To Make Necessary Replacements
Your water heater is going to last you around 10 years if you take proper care of it, which means you need to keep track of when you had it installed and when it’s time to think about a new one. One of the easiest things you can do is pay attention to the hot water in your home and recognize when your water heater is telling you that it’s time to call for a plumbing service.
For example, if you’ve suddenly noticed that your home’s water pressure has dropped when you’re taking a shower, there’s a good chance that you’ve got an issue with your water heater. If you’ve got an older washing machine and its hoses have a weird texture, it might be time to get new hoses for the appliance.
Even if you haven’t noticed any real problems in the home with your appliances, it’s still a good idea to have a plumbing service perform regular inspections to ensure that everything is alright. They might notice something that you’ve missed and catch a problem that you didn’t notice. Remember, it’s always better to know about an issue before it becomes a problem than learn about it on the day that it causes a crisis.
What happens if you’ve already made one of these critical errors? Don’t panic. At Drain Flo Plumbing, we’ll be happy to help with all plumbing needs, whenever and however they arise. Whether it’s a burst pipe caused by something improperly flushed down the toilet or a leaking water heater that’s reached the end of its life span, our plumbing service has the knowledge and experience necessary to fix all plumbing problems at your home. When something’s wrong with your drains or pipes, all you have to do is give us a call.
