What are the common points of failure in plumbing, and how do I proactively replace them?

We all know when something big goes wrong with plumbing, but what common fixes and replacements should we check for before they end in catastrophe? In this episode, Jordan and Todd respond to a question from Jen, a loyal listener seeking advice on common plumbing issues and proactive replacements. Discover how to spot signs of trouble, DIY fixes, and learn when it's time to call in the pros. From leaky faucets to water pressure concerns, Jordan and Todd share practical tips to keep your home's plumbing in good condition.

Get in touch with us! If you have a question you'd like us to answer, email us at thetradepros@doneritesvcs.com  or leave us a voicemail at 1-833-805-0167 and we may feature your question in a future episode. 

Need to call in a trade pro? At Done Rite Services, we can help you with your HVAC, plumbing, and electrical needs in Tucson, Arizona. Find out more at www.doneritesvcs.com.

This episode was produced by Rachel Simpson Media. Learn more at www.rachelsimpson.media.

Transcript

Jordan: [00:00:00] Hi everybody, and welcome back to Ask the Trade Pros, your show where a couple of trade guys are talking about trade stuff. As always, we're here to answer your questions about HVAC, electrical, plumbing, and any other home system you have a question about, and help keep your home running smoothly. I'm Jordan.

Todd: And I'm Todd.

Jordan: Today we have a question from a loyal listener, Jen. She writes, what are some common things that fail in plumbing? Should you proactively replace them, and if so, when? 

Todd: Thank you for the question, Jen, and I'm glad you're thinking ahead about your plumbing. Let's go through some of the most common points of failure we see in home plumbing.

What are the signs of failure and what to watch for, how you can replace them.

Jordan: I'm going to start with faucets. You know, a drippy faucet, the best thing to [00:01:00] listen to as you're trying to fall asleep. Faucets fail often. They can fail due to hard water, they can fail due to age. Worn out faucet might drip, it might not get all the proper water through the hot or cold side, so you can't mix the water properly.

Inside the faucet, there's going to be a stem or a cartridge, and oftentimes the seals on these wear out. This is generally the most common failure you will have with your faucet. Some newer faucets, some less expensive faucets can't be fixed, they can just be replaced, but some older faucets can be repaired.

Todd: Well, now that Jordan took the easy one, let's see, uh Toilets. That's a good one. Let's talk about toilets. 

Jordan: Nobody has a toilet problem. 

Todd: Toilet problems often involve leaks, running water, constant refilling of the tank. A toilet that frequently needs plunging or has weak flushing can also indicate a problem.

Jordan: What kind of problem would that be? 

Todd: Which part? 

Jordan: The weak flushing. 

Todd: Weak flushing could be buildup in the P trap, could just be due to age. A lot [00:02:00] of different issues. The most common one is, you know, the toilet's constantly running. That's typically a sign of your flapper being bad or a fill valve. 

Jordan: I had a customer the other day that the toilet room constantly smelled, even though the toilet was empty and appeared to be running properly.

Todd: Well, smell's a different subject. More than likely, that could be a crack in your vent pipe, a shower, or, or a fixture that hasn't been used for a while. The P trap's gonna dry out, and then you'll, you'll get sewer gas smell. Could be a wax ring, a bad wax ring. Normally, if it is a bad wax ring, you would hope that you would see water seeping out under the toilet.

Unless, of course, it's caulked in, which I completely disagree with, but a lot of people seem to like the look of it. 

Jordan: Would that be something they generally want to call a pro out to inspect, or how could they take care of that themselves? 

Todd: Yeah, so most, most of the problems with the toilet can often be fixed by the homeowner themselves. If it's something simple like a flapper, that's a [00:03:00] few minute job and anybody can do that. Most homeowners can even replace the fill valve. Anything with the toilet is typically fairly straightforward to repair. 

Jordan: Just make sure that your shutoff valve works on your water before you do that, or you're going to have quite a mess.

Todd: Yeah. And if it doesn't give us a call, we'll be happy to come over and replace. 

Jordan: All right. Well, let's talk a little bit about water heaters. I know we covered this in a prior episode. So for those of you who are loyal listeners, you already know everything you need to know about water heaters. But for those of you who aren't, water heaters are quite a common problem in a house.

Problems you can have with your water heater are lack of hot water, leaking water, failure to heat the water, fluctuating water temperatures, et cetera. From a customer point of view, there's not a lot you could do on inspecting a water heater. Look for leaks or corrosions around the bottom of the water heater, signs that water has been coming out.

Also look for corrosion or buildup on the supply lines where the hot and cold enter or exit the water heater for signs of leakage there. If it's a gas water heater, you can make sure that the pilot's lit [00:04:00] and make sure that the water heater turns on. When you have a demand for hot water, that is, you turn a faucet or fixture or the shower or something on, you'll hear the flame kick on, on the water heater.

Generally in water heaters, it's just a visual inspection. Most of the stuff is inside and you can't test it. Now, if you're really worried about it, you could always call a pro to come out. Keep track of the age of your water heater, too. They generally only have an expected lifespan of about 10 years.

Todd: What about when a water heater's making a crackling sound? Sounds like it's making popcorn. 

Jordan: It's about to explode on you. No, just kidding. It's generally the scale buildup inside the water heater. Now, if you haven't flushed your water heater in years, it's probably not a good idea to flush it because the scale actually peels lining off the interior of the tank.

But if you, if you flush it regularly, you should have less issues with buildup inside the water heater. 

Todd: That was a lot of good information, Jordan. Let's talk about another good one. Your hot and cold water supply pipes coming into your house. Damaged or deteriorating pipes can cause issues. Obviously, leaks, water discoloration [00:05:00] if you have galvanized piping, or any other type of piping, reduced water pressure.

Indoor water stains on the wall, ceilings, floors, etc. Most commonly, at least here in this area, a lot of the older houses still have galvanized pipe. So, doing a repair on galvanized pipe can be difficult. 

Jordan: Do not touch it. 

Todd: That's a good recommendation. I don't even like touching them. Most of the time with galvanized, since everything is threaded, you're going to find a pinhole leak spraying water, and unfortunately You just don't want to repair those.

They do make pipe repair clamps that you could put on it. But if you're going to replace a section of pipe, being that it's threaded, you're going to have to disconnect the piping from point A all the way to point B, just to get to that repair. Most of the time, if you have galvanized piping, you're going to really want to consider doing a complete house repipe.

Jordan: I've seen many instances where the guys go out and they touch one piece of the galvanized pipe and it's so brittle. It just keeps breaking down the line, like a stack of dominoes. 

Todd: That is correct. [00:06:00] Last one I remember doing, it was an underground leak at an apartment complex. And we dug the pipe up. They didn't want to do a whole main water line, so we dug the pipe up.

Repaired that section of pipe. It was completely rusted through. Turned the water back on. Had a leak two feet over. Fixed that leak. Another leak popped up. So yeah, absolutely. Galvanized pipes, they are not fun to play with. 

Jordan: Okay, well thank you for that, Todd. I'm going to bring up another common problem is garbage disposals. What should you do with a dysfunctioning garbage disposal? So the first thing you want to do on your garbage disposals is not stick your hand into it. That, that is not the way to clean out a garbage disposal, unless you're absolutely sure that there's no power going to it. So go under the sink. Unplug the garbage disposal, make sure the power is disconnected.

Now if your garbage disposal isn't working, you may want to check the power first to make sure that you haven't popped a breaker or something of that nature. Second, all garbage disposals are going to have a unlock feature underneath them. You're [00:07:00] going to stick an allen wrench in there. Sometimes they have a button, sometimes they do not, where you can manually turn it to free up the mechanism inside that.

You want to try that first, then plug it into an outlet that has power and see if it starts up again. 

Todd: Well, that would be an easy one. It seems like every time I go to pull a garbage disposal or have an issue, there's always rocks or marbles. Most of the time they have kids, and who knows what they put in there.

Jordan: Some people still think these old myths about sharpening the blades with rocks or hard objects is the way to go, but most modern garbage disposals don't really need that. 

Todd: It reminds me of a good one. Yeah, you're right. I went to a customer's house a few Thanksgivings ago and the whole pipes were full of eggshells. It was packed in there like concrete. Somebody had told her that that's how you clean the blades on the disposals, by putting eggshells in there. 

Jordan: Well, hopefully she had one heck of an omelet with all those eggs.

Todd: I don't know. It was a nightmare for me. Hopefully I'll never come across that again. Last but not least, I think another [00:08:00] one that we should touch briefly on is a water pressure regulator, or a PRV as it's known in the field.

So, what a water regulator does is it adjusts the pressure coming into your house. Typically, you want to see pressure between 45 and 65 PSI. A lot of people like higher PSI, but you got to remember the higher the pressure you go, you have the risk of damaging pipes. Depending on what type of pipes you have, I wouldn't recommend ever going above 80 PSI.

Now normally when these fail, you're gonna have unusually high or low water pressure. You may start to hear pipes vibrating in the house. We call that water hammer. That's normally a sign of a water flow issue. You could also have leaks at the regulator. That you would need to monitor and that may require calling a professional to come out and do a thorough inspection, test your water pressure, and see what's going on with it.

Jordan: So with any of these problems, regular maintenance and inspections can [00:09:00] also help identify potential issues before they arise. As a homeowner, it's a good idea for you to regularly inspect all the items we talked about in your house to see the current status of them. 

Todd: And if you have any need of help or have any questions at all about your plumbing, don't hesitate to contact your local trusted trade pro.

Jordan: Thank you for joining us. As always, we release new episodes every other Tuesday, so subscribe and get all your future Ask the Trade Pros advice. 

Todd: You can also leave us a voicemail or send an email with your questions, and we may feature them in future episodes. That information is in the show notes. 

Jordan: And as always, thank you to Done Rite Services for sponsoring this podcast.