Questions About Plumbing? This Should Help You!
Nowadays the need for effective home plumbing is on the rise. The demand for products and equipment leads to some very innovative techniques that you can do yourself. Now is your chance to find something that works for your plumbing system. Here are some tips that you can use to get you started with doing your own plumbing.
If your pipes are making a racket, there is a simple way to quiet them down. You simply have to securely fasten any pipes that are exposed. Call a plumber to help with pipes that require you to cut a hole in a wall, ceiling or floor.
To avoid having your outdoor faucets freeze up in the winter, detach all hoses before the first freeze. Also, close the shutoff valve that leads to the outdoor faucets, then turn on the outdoor faucets to let any remaining water in the lines drain. Once temperatures warm up in the spring, you can reverse the process.
Make sure that you disconnect all hoses outside your house when the fall season hits. This is important to reduce the chance of freezing, which can cause damage to the connecting pipes. Disconnect all of your water hoses and store them safely to put your family in the best position for the fall.
DIY plumbing jobs will require that you understand how to solder copper for the lines for the water supply. You can practice this skill so that you will be able to run your lines without worrying about it leaking. Search online for video tutorials that can help you get a handle on how to go about soldering.
Cover pipes that are outside or in cool areas. Use heat tape to make sure that the pipes are completely covered and insulated. This will prevent frozen pipes in the winter, which can be an expensive problem. Check outdoor website pipes for other problems such as leaks and cracks which are better to catch early.
Make sure that any exposed pipes in your home are insulated, especially those found in crawl spaces on the outside walls of your home. This will help keep them from freezing and causing you tons of problems. Frozen pipes can often be devastating and leave you with problems that are expensive to fix and no water in the middle of winter.
As you have read, there are many different ways to deal with and maintain your own plumbing. You need to find the treatment that works for you. There is a ton of information that can help you get started. By following these tips, you are well on your way to doing your own plumbing like a pro.
Texas weather: New Jersey plumber offers a helping hand
From halfway across America, one plumber has answered the pleas of Texans still grappling with the aftermath of a devastating winter storm.
As the coldest temperatures in over 30 years swept through Texas in early February, pipes burst in homes across the south-western state, leaving thousands of families with flooded homes and no water.
Plumber Andrew Mitchell and his family drove 22 hours from Morristown, New Jersey to the Houston area in a truck loaded up with around $2,000 (£1,418) worth of materials to offer a helping hand.
Since their arrival on Saturday, Mr Mitchell and his brother-in-law-turned-apprentice, Isiah Pinnock, have worked from morning until night to fix pipes and repair other damage in the storm-ravaged region.
"It's really a blessing to be a blessing to other people and Andrew truly enjoys the work," Mr Mitchell's wife, Kisha Pinnock, told the BBC. "Plumbing is his passion."
Why is it so cold in Texas?
How to stay safe in freezing weather
Texas families 'trying to keep warm' with no power
Last week, Mr Mitchell noticed "a call for help" from Texan plumbers on Facebook, who said they were being overwhelmed by 150 to 200 calls each day.
Aware that supplies were largely sold out across Texas, America's second-most populous state, Mr Mitchell went down to his local store and purchased "as much material as he could afford at the time".
With their two-year-old son Blake and Isiah - a college senior - in tow, the couple made the 1,500 mile (2,400km) drive down to help out their first client: Ms Pinnock's sister in Humble, Texas.
Since then, Ms Pinnock says, her husband has been working "nonstop", locating the damage in collapsed ceilings, frozen walls and - in one harrowing episode - working beside snake eggshells in a crawl space.