You may already know that your heating and cooling equipment needs annual HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning) maintenance, but did you realize that you also should have an expert perform your annual plumbing maintenance? Roy Inch & Sons Service Experts offers the Plumbing PLUS™ Maintenance Agreement for London homeowners to help them discover issues before they become big problems. While you should always call for plumbing problems and schedule your plumbing maintenance annually, here are three ways to get your home in ideal plumbing shape for spring.
- Verify any plumbing leaks
Look at all your faucets and toilets for any leaks. Confirm there is no water dripping out of or around the connections when you shut off your faucets. If there is, installing new fixtures or repairing the leak could help enhance the faucet’s performance and may even reduce your water bill.
Once you’ve checked the faucets, examine any accessible pipes for signs of leaks. You can usually access visible pipes below sinks and down in the basement. In extreme weather pipes can freeze and crack, so springtime is great to make sure the winter weather didn’t damage anything that could cause plumbing problems.
- Give your drains some seriously overdue love
Check your toilet for any cracks or leaks in the bowl and the tank. If it seems to be in good working order, go ahead and add about six drops of food dye into the water in the tank. Wait 30 minutes and then check the bowl. If the bowl water is not colored with the dye, you’re fine. If the color appears in the bowl, you could have a leak and will want to call a plumbing expert.
- Remember your water heater maintenance
If a stench seems to be drifting up through any of the drains in your home, it be evidence that plumbing maintenance is required. A properly functioning drain shouldn’t release odors into the air. Confirm there are strains placed in all your drains to prevent hair and other waste from spoiling in the pipes and causing them to clog. Once you’ve treated them with a common drain cleaner, pour a gallon of water down drains that are not used regularly. This will fill the trap and help to stop odors from seeping in and smelling up your home.
Your water heater takes excellent care of you so be sure you’re returning the kindness. Don’t forget that newer water heaters have more energy efficiency, so if yours is more than 15 years old, it may be about time to start looking into a new one in order to ensure you don’t have that sudden burst of cold water for a week. Whether or not you plan on investing in a new water heater, there are some things you can do to help keep it operating properly.
Check the temperature setting on the water heater and make sure it’s not higher than 120°F. This will help reduce your energy use (and help reduce your bills) while also evading scalding. For the purpose of safety, you will want to remove any items from around the water heater. Your yearly Plumbing PLUS Maintenance program includes a water heater maintenance; and it could even help your water heater run more efficiently and avoid plumbing problems from happening.
These are just a couple ways of how you can help get your plumbing ready for spring, but if you are not confident performing any of these tasks, please call Roy Inch & Sons Service Experts and we can come out and perform your seasonal plumbing maintenance and fix (or help prevent) any plumbing problems.