Everything important in your life gets regular care and maintenance — your car, your lawn, your body — why should your plumbing be any different? Like most other aspects of your house, the function and lifespan of your plumbing system benefits from regular checks and tuneups. Many people do well to keep their fixtures clean, but full plumbing maintenance goes beyond cleaning the parts we sit on, bathe in, or use to wash our hands.
Our staff of licensed and certified plumbers at Apex Plumbing Solutions in Danville can help you with some of the less common, but equally important, maintenance tasks for your plumbing. Call for a free quote! Here are three of the most overlooked plumbing maintenance tasks to keep your home’s system running smoothly.
Drain Cleaning and Flushing
Regularly cleaning the drains around your home is an excellent way to prevent clogs from developing within your system. There are multiple ways you can go about this, including some that require help from a plumber and some you can do yourself.
Perhaps the best thing you can do is to have a plumber flush out your entire system once a year, regardless of whether or not you have clogs. It may sound like an unnecessary expense, but it’s kind of like your plumbing’s equivalent of going to the dentist: the preventative cleaning keeps nastiness from building up, lowering the chance of a more serious (and expensive) issue developing later on.
You can also take on specific clogs or drains yourself for some targeted cleaning. Drain snakes, which are long, flexible plastic or metal rods lined with sharp edges, can be found at your local hardware store and are great at pulling hair out of the drain. Shop vacuums are useful for taking on more powerful clogs (and recovering jewelry). You can also replace chemical drain cleaners, which can be harmful to your plumbing, with a homemade mixture of baking soda and salt to achieve the same effect. Using any or all of these methods periodically will keep the drains of your home clear and running at full capacity.
Toilet Leak Testing
While most people disinfect their toilets regularly, less attention is often paid to its actual functionality until a clog develops. Toilets account for up to 30 percent of the water usage in most homes, and a running toilet can waste up to two gallons of water a minute, so it is imperative to your plumbing (and your wallet) that you test your toilets for leaks periodically.
An easy, cheap way to test your toilet for leaks involves food coloring. Simply add a couple drops of a noticeable color to your toilet’s tank, leave the toilet unused for 20 to 30 minutes, then check the water in the toilet bowl. If you see any coloring in the bowl, that means you’ve got a leak you’ll need to address. Luckily, Apex Plumbing Solutions in Danville has plumbers available 24 hours a day, so we’ll be able to help stop any leaks you find, no matter the time of day.
Routine Inspections
There are some parts of your plumbing that are too complicated for the average person to monitor on their own, your septic tank being perhaps the best example. For these parts of your system, you should get one of our Danville plumbers out for an inspection at least once a year.
Septic tanks are particularly crucial because your kitchen, baths, toilets, and laundry all drain into it. Bacteria in the tank will break down much of the waste that enters the tank, but some solid waste will inevitably settle and begin to accumulate in the bottom of the tank. If left unattended, the waste could eventually build up to the point that it clogs the tank and its drain field, which could create extremely expensive problems in your plumbing and house, while also threatening groundwater in your area.
Getting your septic tank inspected annually will prevent any problems like these from occurring, as the septic technician will be able to monitor waste levels in the tank, as well as check the nearby drain field for any unusual odors, wet spots, or unusual vegetation growth that would indicate an issue.
While septic tanks are the most important element of your plumbing to have checked regularly, a good rule of thumb is to get an inspection for any part of your plumbing you don’t understand or any issue you come across. It’s better to be safe than sorry, and with Apex Plumbing Solutions, we can offer you a free quote on any plumbing services and repairs.
