Maintaining free-flowing drains is one of the essential do-it-yourself tasks a homeowner can perform. By keeping troublesome clogs from blocking the drain and sewer pipes, you can extend your existing plumbing life by decades. The residue from everything we put into our drains builds up over time, leaving grease and soap clinging to your pipes’…
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The idea of performing your own plumbing maintenance, minor repairs, or even installation of new fixtures, like faucets and garbage disposals, is an attractive one. Completing a home improvement project on your own can seem like a daunting task, but the sense of accomplishment you feel after it’s done far outweighs the dread. One of…
Our kitchens are full of convenient appliances to help get us through our daily cooking and cleaning tasks. Microwave ovens, electric can openers, and food processors are just a few of the tools used every day, and we tend to take them for granted. For the mechanically inclined homeowner, replacing a kitchen sink sprayer is…
Dealing with drain clogs is much more about being proactive than reactive, in that it is much easier to prevent a clog than it is to clear one. Most drain clogs are confined to a single sink or tub and are simple for the homeowner to remove without needing a call to a plumbing company.…
As we’re spending more and more time at home these days, now is a great time for the “do-it-yourselfers” to truly shine. One of the most common causes for a slow drain in a kitchen or bathroom sink is a dirty P-trap pipe. What is a P-Trap? Take a look underneath your kitchen or bathroom…
When the typical homeowner thinks about who’s responsible for repairing and replacing their sewer lines, it is often assumed that said responsibility falls on your city or municipality. Unfortunately, this is not the case in the greater Houston area (or in most areas, for that matter). The city’s responsibility for your sewer line ends where…
Out of sight and out of mind. Unfortunately, that is the approach most homeowners take toward the maintenance and upkeep of their sewer lines. It’s only natural that we pay little to no attention to our sewer lines condition until signs of sewer line trouble appear. Symptoms of sewer drain issues include gurgling sounds from…
If your home is built atop a concrete slab, you will want to read this. More and more homes in the greater Houston area are being built on top of concrete slabs. These foundations often have the home’s plumbing lines run underneath the slab. This is a bad idea for several reasons. The first…
There’s an old saying in the plumbing industry, “every drain will someday clog.” Actually, it’s not a saying; I just made that up. But there is truth to this bold claim, and this blog will help the homeowner answer the question, “when should you call a plumber for a clogged drain”? Toilets, sinks, showers, bathtubs,…
The plumbing system in your home is a marvel of ingenuity, developed over the last five-thousand years starting in ancient Greece. In the Roman era, the ability to bring water into Rome from the remote mountains was a significant engineering feat. Plumbing, as we know it today, began to take shape in the early 1800s…
