How to Deal With Common Plumbing Mistakes to Prevent Future Breaks

Moving into a new house or apartment is not the easiest task, but if you perform several checks you will know whether this is the right place for you. You don’t have to be an expert in plumbing to be able to see a few important telling signs and understand if the home is ready or if there needs some work to be done. In order to learn more about what is important to know when trying to understand the basics of plumbing I talked to OneStop Plumbers. Here’s what I learned:

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Know Your Valves

You never know when you might need to shut everything down in order to prevent the water from flowing if something breaks. When you move into a new home the first thing you want to find are the main water valves. They are usually placed outside if it's a house, and sometimes apartments are built without access directly from inside and you’d have to find it in the building.

It is also important to know where sewer line access points are if you decide to conduct occasional cleaning. Even though you are not expected to work on them in any capacity, it can still be very useful to the plumbers if you can tell them outright where to look.

Think Before Flushing

The easiest way to get rid of a number of nasty objects is just to throw them into the toilet and move on with your life. By doing so you might do more harm than good because a toilet only works with a very limited amount of different objects it can ‘digest’ and if you decide to throw whatever, then you might deal with frequent clogging going forward.

As with many things in life it is best to prevent the accident from happening and limit what you flush to only toilet paper or tissues only. Otherwise, you may find yourself looking for an emergency plumber in the middle of the night.

Kitchen Sink Is Not a Garbage Can

Similar to your toilet your kitchen sink shouldn’t be taken for granted as it will not be able to swallow everything you decide to throw either when you do dishes or just have a nasty habit of throwing stuff there instead of the trash bin. Coffee, grease, peels from vegetables or fruit should not be cast into the sink because it will clog eventually.

Fix Leaks

Annoying as they are the amount of money they waste if ignored is much bigger. You shouldn’t turn your head and expect them to go away. There is some problem and it needs to be fixed by a professional. If you leave a leaking sink unattended it might waste around 10 gallons of water per day which is basically burning money.

Use Plumber’s Tape

It’s a white tape made of Teflon made to prevent leaks when connecting joints. Since you are not supposed to tighten joints too hard as they might work as intended, you need to make sure there’s no space where water might go through and this is where the tape comes in handy. Wrapping it three times around threads will suffice.

Job Is Done if There Are No Leaks

Water has the tendency to find even the smallest of spaces and slowly work its way through and create a problem later on while you are sure everything is ok.

Professionals might also miss something while working and that’s why it is important to perform a thorough checkup after the job is done to ensure there are no leaks. Let the water run through for a few minutes, close and open valves, and pay close attention because even a few drops here and there show a potential leak in the making.