Plum Delusional Podcast Episode 5: Uncovering Plumbing Realities with Chattanooga Home Inspectors

In this episode of the Plum Delusional Podcast, host Daniel Mitchell of Mitchell's Plumbing is joined by Joseph from Chattanooga Home Inspectors to delve into the nitty-gritty of plumbing inspections and home maintenance. Tune in as Joseph shares insights from his experience inspecting homes across Tennessee, discussing the ins and outs of plumbing systems, the importance of thorough inspections, and the common issues that often go unnoticed until it's too late.

From the significance of checking sewer laterals and water heaters to the challenges of dealing with outdated plumbing materials like clay and cast iron, this episode covers it all. Daniel and Joseph also debunk common plumbing myths, offering practical advice on maintenance and preventive measures to keep your home’s plumbing in top condition.

Whether you're a homeowner, potential buyer, or just curious about the hidden complexities of plumbing, this episode provides valuable knowledge and tips to help you navigate the world of home inspections and plumbing maintenance. Plus, discover why plumbing is more than just pipes and wrenches—it's about ensuring comfort, safety, and peace of mind in your home.

Don't miss this engaging and informative discussion, and remember, Mitchell's Plumbing is here to help when you need it most. Tune in now!

Welcome to Plumb Delusional, the podcast where Daniel Mitchell, owner of Mitchell's Plumbing in Lafayette, Georgia, takes you on a journey through the pipes and problems of modern plumbing.

Each episode dives into the nitty-gritty of the plumbing world—addressing common issues, uncovering surprising myths, and sharing memorable stories from decades of experience in the trade.

https://www.mitchellsplumbingga.com/
Phone: (706) 523-3201
Address: 206 N Duke St, LaFayette, GA 30728

Transcript

Hey everybody it's Daniel Mitchell with Mitchell's Plumbing here with Plum Delusional Podcast episode number five. Today we've got a special guest in here from Chattanooga Home Inspectors. Joseph, if you want to say a couple words and introduce yourself and talk about your company a little bit. Sure thing. We are home inspectors here in Chattanooga. We cover, we like to say we'll go anywhere that our agents will go. So we cover anywhere from Lofat down where y'all are at, here in the Chattanooga area, all through Tennessee we'll head up to Monnegal, all that kind of stuff. We do home inspections for real estate transactions. We also do home inspections for just seasonal checkups on people's homes. We do commercial, do anything that people need inspected, we'll help them out. So I'm sure you do a lot of work for real estate companies, stuff like that for new homes and everything like that. What's the number one thing you're looking for on new home when you go in? Plumbing wise or just in general? Plumbing, plumbing, plumbing but in general. In general, plumbing wise, I'm looking at materials. What's it looking like down in the crawl space? I always, first time I take a lap around the house, I always open the crawl space door, take a little peek under there just to see, see what we're working with, see if it's old galvanized, even older copper. Just so I know, gives me a clue when I'm running all the fixtures inside the home, flushing the toilets and all that. Just gives me a couple clues on. What might be going on. So yeah, materials, that's one of the first things I'm looking at. And then second, water heater. People are always, always interested in how old the water heater is, how hot the water is and whether or not it's working. So water heater is a big one for folks. And then other than that, one of the things, one of the most important things that I can't always see with my eyes, we all carry sewer scope cameras with us, is the lateral that goes from the home, either to the main or to the subject tank. So that's one that I think is really important to get checked out before you buy a home, because if something goes wrong with it, you could be looking at six, eight, ten thousand dollars getting replaced. Yeah, we get a lot of calls even after the home inspector has been out. And y'all probably tell them that. So we go out, actually, we offer a service, we go out and dig the tank up, look in the tank and see if we can tell how long the absorption lines are and stuff like that. Just a preliminary inspection, kind of like what you're talking about. But yeah, you move into a house and go buy a septank, you've got a big amount of money you've got to spend. And then we like to see, on the sewer service, PVC is what you want to see, but we see a lot of cast iron and there's still a lot of clay pipe out there. Especially over in St. Elmo, we see a lot of that clay pipe over there. I live in St. Elmo, I've got a hundred foot long clay sewer lateral on my home. That's miraculously still in decent condition. Well, that type of material held up pretty good. And they had the stuff that was called Orangeburg, it was the paper pipe. I'm sure you've seen it, it looks like rolled tire pipe. And it lasted, for what it done, I feel like it done good because they started putting it in in 42 when we had the metal shortage because of the roar. And then they made that out of that rolled paper. Well, it lasted 20, 30 years before it started giving trouble. So that's pretty good. Pretty impressive for what it's made out of. So when I look at laterals, when I do get that sewer camera out and check them out, one of the most common issues I run into is a little bit of a dip in the line. So when you go out to inspect somebody's sewer lateral and you see the same thing, minor dip in the line, maybe the camera goes underwater, but the hole pipe's not full. What's the fix for that? Is that something that they need to get fixed? Or is it something that, what do you recommend? Well, when you've got a dip, the only way to get the dip out of it is to raise it up. And the only way to raise it up is probably replace the line. I mean, once you start patching a line, you're better off just to kind of, it's one of them things, go ahead and get it all at one time. And what it is, is back around that time, there wasn't a lot of inspections. So they was able just to put a D in it, dip. Well, now when we put in a sewer service, we have to put the sewer, we have to dig it and we have to bed it with some aggregate, at least a half inch in size to bed it all. And that's to keep it from doing that. A lot of people get aggravated with inspections, but I tell my guys, I know inspections sometimes slow us down, but they're there for a reason. They're in place to make sure that everybody does what they're supposed to do. But to answer your question, the shortest to replace it and bring it up with a new section of pipe. Yeah, so when people run into that and maybe they can't afford to replace the whole thing, it's something you can kind of live with for a while, but eventually, it'll probably cause some issues. Yeah, and I tell people, if it's got a dip in it and you ain't ready to make that financial leap and get it fixed, the less amount of paper that you can use, that'll help. And I tell people this anyway, if you're on a circuit tank, don't put nothing down until it doesn't start with a P. P, poo per paper. But if you've got a swell, that's a good number one to live by too. And if you've got a service line going to the city sewer or something like that. So the less paper you want to use and the more water you flush through it. If you got something like that, you might want to take and fill your tub up halfway and let it out, that way it'll flush all them solids. What it does is the solids get tongue in that like a P trap. And then it builds up and it blocks it up. So if you can wash it out, it'll last a lot longer. Yeah, okay. That's good. Get information to have for me, for my clients when they're asking me questions about it because I always recommend get it corrected. But in a perfect world, that's what you would do. But like you said, a lot of times, especially now with the cost of homes, I mean, people are buying over homes and you're going to see more stuff like that. Another one I run into all the time is kind of similar issue, but I'll scope a lateral that's going out to the septic tank. And then right there, right where the lateral hits the tank itself, there'll be a little pool of water, maybe with a little bit of solids in it. Why does that happen? I see it really frequently on the septic tank. Okay, well that is the inlet baffle of the septic tank. And the inlet baffle of that septic tank should be four inches above the water. So you shouldn't, if everything's working correctly, you shouldn't see it. But what it is, is that tank is ready for a pumping. Ready to get pumped. Right. Okay. So it's starting to get more solid in it than it needs. So it's pushing the water up in the solid side and it's an older home. They were one compartment septic tanks. So it just kind of eases up. Well, if you're late in the 99, early 2000s, they implemented some new septic regulations and we have to put the filters in them. If you're in one that's prior to 2000, more than likely it's ready to clean the filter, get it pumped. But you could settle water on that inlet side. And if they didn't get the tank exactly level, it'll do it. I mean, if you got down there and couldn't see the bottom, I mean, if you're seeing an inch or two, it wouldn't concern me as bad as if you get down there and you got two or three inches. Right. Then you know something's going on or it's got a complete, a clips. Yeah. Lots of sellers for whatever reason, they don't seem too eager to provide the records of the maintenance on the tank. Well, that's one reason we like doing this podcast is to be able to get people the information and the thing about it is it's public record. You can go down to the local DHP and pull it. A lot of times if they give you the records on it, it might not look that good. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of house flippers and not all of them don't give it. I don't want to let them, they lipstick a pig as I call it. They make a house look real good. Yeah. But the sewer lines, the material under the house and stuff like, we see it all the time. People buy a new house or new to them house. Then they call us, why I ain't got no pressure in my tub. I ain't got no hot water. My toilets and my showers are gargling. Yeah. Yeah. I inspected a flipped house recently that one of the electric on demand water heater units was in it, fuse was blown. So no hot water in the whole house. The tub when you turned it onto the sprayer, it was old cast iron claw foot tub and the spigot worked fine. But when you turned to the sprayer, it sprayed straight up out of the tub and just into the ceiling. And then they said they got a new lateral put in from the home all the way to the main. Come to find out because this is a very savvy buyer who asked me to get my sewer scope out to check it out. Come to find out they only went to the sidewalk because when we got there, we're looking around and I said, didn't you say that the sewer lateral had been replaced? And they said, oh yeah, they replaced it all the way to the main. And we're looking at the street. There's no street cut or sidewalk cut. So how'd they do that? Come to find out right where the sidewalk was, the PVC ran into cast iron. So well, I can tell you why they done it. I'm sure you know is from the house to that sidewalk cost them a whole lot less than from that because from that that sidewalk to that main is the biggest thing. That's the expensive part. You've got, you know, if it was in the city of Chattanooga and you've got to make the street cut, you've got to put it back, then you've got to warrant you that street cut for a year. Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of speaking of flippers, so many flipped houses that I go to when I get in the crawl space, it's just loose pecks laying all over the ground, which is one of my absolute pet peeves. In my day. How long does it, it doesn't take that long to just get some of those little brackets and nail them right up to the joist. But they're just laying all over the ground for one for mice to come chew on. Right. Now I did want to ask you what, what kind of implications can you have on like flow and supply when you've got the plumbing just laying all over the ground like that? Well, the flow, the flow, you're going to get, you've got longer, if it's sag like that, you've got longer wait times on your hot water for sure. For one. Longer wait times. Yeah. For two, the, to me, it's, it puts more stress on your fittings and then, you know, anytime you're contacting with the ground or down there, you've got more chance for rodent penetration and stuff like that. And I mean, and when it's sagging, it can work, goes through the floor, it can eventually bend. Right. So that is, that is, that is awful. And that to me as a, you know, I'm sure as an inspector, you look under the floor and you see a neat job, you know, you've probably got a quality plumber. You look at it and see that. You start wondering if they even had lysons or even if they was a plumber at all. That is always my first thought. Yeah. Is it, was this person even a plumber? Right. Yeah. Well, we see that a lot. You know, I tell people all the time, you can be, I mean, I can be a home inspector on Facebook. I can be a plumber on Facebook, but to actually implement it in the yard, you know, I know, I know, I know a lot of code stuff like that, but I hadn't been, hadn't been trained to do home inspecting. You know, I can go out. I'm probably going to miss something. You know, that's just like plumbers. You know, you might know how to run plumbing pipe, but there's going to be, you know, you, you know, you got a, there's code and stuff like that. I don't, I know these, they can't just go around and catch everybody not doing it by code. But I mean, that's one good thing about home inspectors is when you go out and you find something like it, I'm sure, I'm sure whoever is selling the home is not your friend at that point. That's what I'm sure you've made a couple of enemies telling the truth. That's like definitely. Yeah. The plumbing is definitely one of the areas where it's, it's very apparent, very quick, just with a glance at, you know, first glance, I see that that flexible, like accordion style drain pipe on your sinks all the time. That tells me that it's probably one of the proper plumber doing this. The plumbing laying around on the ground, pecs that's cut off all, all rough and diagonal and has like a really bad, bad cramps on it, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. When you, when you, when you see something like that, you basically just have to tell the homeowner, I guess, or who's buying it, whether what you see, there's not really nothing you at home has made. You don't have no repercussions as far as, you know, like, yeah, but I'm fully, fully third party, you know, the, the buyer hires us and we don't work with, you know, we're, they are that our client, so we work for them. And so we just give them an unbiased third party report on here's what I saw. Here's some things that you should probably get checked out by an expert, right? Right. We're generalists. So a lot of times if I see some, if I see like a drain line in the crawl space that looks like it's got a negative flow to it, going the wrong way, then I'll refer them out to somebody like you, like, Hey, something's going on with this thing. You should definitely get it checked out and see so that you at least know what you're getting into, right? I like to think of it as doing your research. So I give them a really good, really good starting point on some homes. That's all you need is the home inspection. Right. Sometimes, sometimes you need that extra opinion from an expert, somebody like yourself. Yeah. Well, I know a lot of times we do, we'll do a new home. And, uh, which we get inspections, you know, through the municipalities and stuff like that. And then we'll get ready to, when the seller gets ready to sell it, they'll have the buyer, it depends on, depending on the lender. And they'll still have another home inspection done on a brand new house. And I know that we've, uh, we've had instances where, you know, y'all, they actually, like I said, they do a report and there's, there's things that, that, that's code that, uh, officials don't look for or don't catch sometimes that y'all do, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's kind of like having a second, uh, opinion, I guess, like, you know, if you went to, you know, to a doctor, you'd want a second opinion on something that you was going to send a lot of time and, and, and energy on getting fixed, you know, and a home is a big expense now because, you know, back, well, about 15 years ago, maybe 10 less, maybe less than that, probably 10 years ago, you could buy a three bedroom, you know, 1500 square foot for around $175,000. Now they're $275,000 maybe. So yeah, it's a huge investment. And why wouldn't you do all the research you can? Right. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's something you can have in you, you know, your, your hip pocket to just to know when, and a lot of times, uh, companies, companies that settle the home, if you, if you have any protection, then like, yeah, it's not a big deal for him to go into a punch list. Yeah. I mean, when I go in, when I go in and get one of y'all's reports or whatever, I love to see a good detailed report that way. I know exactly what to fix, you know, because we're not, I've said it on here before, we're not perfect. We're human. Human is fallible. Yeah. That's why you have checks and balances. Yeah. So that's, you know, it's like I said, inspections to me is one of the things that you could, it's, it's great for the homeowner. It's great for, you know, the, the, the, and the technicians and stuff that built the house that way they can see what they can do. They can grow, they can, you know, the next time we, you know, the next time we, we done a bunch, we was doing a bunch in Georgia and then we jumped across the line, Tennessee, well, Tennessee had a little bit more strenuous inspection. And we're, you know, in Georgia, Walker County, down there, where I'm from, didn't even have inspections for a long time. Yeah. And, uh, they're, they're just now getting to the point to have inspections and they're still not implement, they're still not, uh, requiring license, uh, tradesmen like to pull permit. Right. Right. Well, you can pull the homeowner can pull a permit, then hire whoever wants it. Yep. Okay. You don't got to have a GC unless the bank requires it or you're going to sell the house, if you're going to build to sell, you've got to have a GC. Mm-hmm. So, or, and license and then once the GC rules department, they don't have to use the license, electrician plumber, HVAC guy. They can hire whoever. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And they said, they just, it don't matter. They don't have to have theirs. And I tell people all the time, that's well and good. It may save them some money, but there's no repercussions. On that, if something happens down the road, see when we put on the house, we carry a one year warranty on it. You know, from stem to stern, if anything happens with that plumbing system for one year, yeah, we're going to take care of it. If it, you know, if it's something that we've done, if you did one neglect or just, you know, straight up neglect or something like that, we're going to take care of it and most of the time on new houses, I've been down in the same spot since 1976, if you call me and it's something that I know we left out. I mean, two years. I mean, I'm still going to, I mean, I'm still going to fix it because of my name. Yeah. So you think, um, moving up here into Tennessee and getting sort of the more tighter inspections, you think that up to your game and George, it's made us a better plan. That's what I was getting at. I kind of got off the subject. It's made us a better plumbing company. It's made my guys better. Yeah. We, we, we implemented stuff that we see up here that, that we took back with us. You know, once I got into my Tennessee stuff and my Tennessee license, I'm like, you know, Hey, they do this like this, you know, I can see the, you know, why they do it like, yeah, you know, we weren't right. And some of it, we weren't doing wrong. It was just, they done it different. And it made a better, it made a better, you know, each municipality and inspiration, when you do codes, the ICC or the IPC, the way it reads is they can meet or exceed the minimum standard. So, you know, if you're an inspector and you know, you want to clean out every 20 foot in a lateral line, you can require that, you know, but what we've seen, one of the big things in Chattanooga and we saw was they required back water valves at the house in the sewer lines. Yeah. Well, if, if, if the man ever stopped up, it don't flood the house. Yeah. Well, now we put a backwater valve on every, for every sewer ladder we do. One, it's a double clean out at the house to take care of that. And then two, if, if they have certain loans, FDA, FD, FDA loans, USDA, VA loans, some of them required. Okay. So, you know, you kind of cut it. Right. Yeah. That's one of the things that was, um, you know, after I went through the home inspector training and was out shadowing one of the other guys for a while and then got out on my own. And one of the things that was kind of the hardest for me to learn was that there are so many ways to do something right. So just because somebody has done it differently, doesn't always mean that it's wrong. Right. So that's one of my favorite things about being a home inspector is putting on that finding something like that and putting on kind of my critical thinking hat and thinking through why was it done this way? And is it going to cause any issues? And, you know, we're not necessarily inspecting for code. I'm just inspecting things to make sure they're working the way they were intended to. Right. Um, we do, we do use a lot of like kind of code is like guidelines, like a baseline. Um, but yeah, a lot of the time, and especially in newer construction, you start to see things that are exceeding the code because there are things that builders have realized. These are things that people want. These are things that are making the home work better for people. And these are things that, um, just all around, we should be doing exactly like what you're talking about with the, with that backflow on the serial line. Yeah. Another great example, which you're talking about, and I want to say that more and more, and that's encapsulation under the floor. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we see more and more new homes with it and we love it. I mean, it keeps us clean when we're under there. Yeah. And, uh, I mean, I'm sure you've seen more of it. Yeah. And it's such a, um, you know, cross spaces are so great for maintenance, such great access to plumbing, electrical, all that stuff. Um, but when they're, you know, when they're small and tight and dirty, you got a bunch of like critters, you know, you're worried about critters, you're worried about snakes and mice and possums down there, all that stuff. It's hard to focus on what you're doing straight up. That's the worst thing you've been into in there. Busted sewer pipes. That's always a bad one. Yeah. What about you ever run into any critters under one yet? Um, yeah. Possums, uh, which possums, you know, they won't, they don't do anything. They even, once you get close to them, they just go, yeah, they're just trying to scare you off. Um, but lots of snakeskin. I see snakeskins all the time, but I haven't run into a live snake yet. Yeah. Yeah. We, we, we have run into the posser, caving a possum. Um, a skunk we got, we got on your hustle. Yeah. Yeah. That was, you know, once you see him and realize what he is, you know, you get under there and we thought we would have smelled him, but we would have been until we got up there on him. Yeah. And then, then once you realize you're trying to get out, you know, you've got a helper, you're kicking your helper in the face, trying to get by him and he don't know what exactly you're trying to get away from. Yeah. So I mean, it's comical. It's comical after the fact, during that fact, you're fighting for your life. You're like, yeah. Uh, the biggest skier I ever had under a house was, uh, was a kitten. Oh, no one up your pants. Wait. Oh my gosh. Yeah. You don't know what it is. Right. Yeah. It turned out to just be, I was in the kit and you know, or, uh, that's fine. But we, uh, thankfully I don't crawl as much as I used to. So yeah, my guys, my guys do. I got younger guys for that. Now I'm getting, I'm finally getting my dues paid as I tell them. Yeah. Yeah. And everything, but, uh, yeah. The crawl space. Um, yeah, some of them can be a drag. Lots of them are totally fine. You know, most of them are just kind of normal crawl spaces. Then you got the kind of 5%, maybe 10% at the top that are fully encapsulated. Those ones are really nice. Then you got 10% at the bottom that are real terrible. Got to have a boat under. Yeah. Right. Ones that are wet, muddy, um, covered in animal, all kinds of animal waste, that kind of stuff, or busted sewer line that you can smell as soon as you open the crawl space door, that kind of stuff. That's got to be the ones that that's got to be the homes that they've bought. They're going to flee up and they're trying to get you out to see what all they need to do. I'm sure, I'm sure y'all get to, I'm sure some of these investors just call y'all out to get a list of what they need to do before they buy the house. That's yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. Oftentimes, um, they're looking to basically put their own punch list together. Although punch list is, um, maybe not, it's kind of a generous name for it. It'd be more like, you know, replacing the HVAC, putting a new sewer line in, you know, tearing out all the drywall and replacing it, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Cause we, we, we get on some of those jobs where we're like, we got, you know, they always, I've got this, uh, this list from the home inspector. I'm like, and pretty much so says complete replum. I mean, you know, cause yeah, really when, once you get so far into it, if patching pipes and stuff like that, you're better off just to go ahead and pull, pull a full replum, but you know, your average house flipper, he's, he knows that anyway. You know, right. You know, uh, invest drive, I don't want to call them flippers. I guess called investors, but it ain't for them, but, um, all right. So, um, before I get out of here, I got a couple comm just common issues. I run into, um, so sinks, slow drains on sinks. A lot of times when I see them, it's got that accordion style, that flexible pipe. They sell them like the P trap replacement kit, the big box store. Um, but whenever you got a slow drain at the sink, what's the fix for it? Well, most of the time it's, it's, it's a, it's a sludge at issue. We like to tell people to, to, if you, if it's slow and it's starting to slow down, use your box of baking soda and vinegar, pour down, you remember those volcanoes. Well, that right there will help break that down and wash it all down. But if it gets to a certain point, you're going to have to send in a descaler or a D degrees or, uh, yeah. Uh, we call them flat shafts and they go ahead and they, they cleaned the edge of the pipe back out and then you jet it. Yeah. Okay. So what about, um, putting grease down in the kitchen sink? We all know. All right. So to do it. So tell me this when I'm done cooking at home, uh, frying up some pork chops, I got like, you know, a little bit of oil left in the pan. Should I be scraping all that out into the garbage can or is it okay to put a little bit down? I would do as much as I could. I mean, I'll tell my wife, take a, a putt, some, once she pulls it into the little container that she keeps it in, take apart some paper towels and wipe it out and throw them in the garbage. Yeah. Because the, the, the, the least amount of grease you can go down there because a lot of your soaps, they turn back to go. I mean, if you, if you go to where you pump your soap out of your hand, soap or your, like a big gunks on the way, they go to the pops. And it's true. Yeah. Okay. What about, um, a toilet that flushes slow, like takes a long time. To swirl down. Is that because of a clog down the line? Well, it can be, it can be because of a clog down the line, but most of the time we see if, if it's the toilet, nothing else, the tool, it's probably got some age on it. Yeah. It's got, uh, your, uh, scale build up in it inside. Yeah. And a toilet's got a jet in the back throat of that thing and it blows water out. And what we see is someone, you know, the, the, the, the scale build up from urine. Yeah. And, uh, the calcium and the, the, the, the debris or a block that a lot of times they do make a D a desciller that you can correlate it's setting. And it helps sometimes, but we see that a lot. That makes sense. On all the commodes and all the homes. This is another, another commode question. What about when I run into these all the time? Um, when you have to, when you, you just push the lever once and it doesn't flush. But if you push the lever and hold it down, then it'll flush. Yeah. The adjustments off in the handle chain. Okay. It's got a chain. It is the chain is too long. You can make them too short. So you've got to get it just right. Yeah. You want just enough tension on it. Cause when you flush it, you want it to kick past 45 degrees, what'll fall back. I left the thread open and then it settles back down. Okay. Those are, um, I run into that kind of stuff all the time. And so it's just good to have the expert opinion from someone like yourself. So that when someone asks me about it, or I'm talking to him about what's going on in the bathroom and I'm like, you know, your toilet, you, uh, doesn't flush quite right, but it's an easy adjustment on the chain. Yeah. And you really got to worry about, you know, I've taught people all the time. Most of the time, you know, most of the time toilets are good for about, you know, 20 years, if you get a good 20 years out of a toilet and if, uh, then water haters is your, your, your biggest ticket items is your water haters and houses, if you, you know, people and people will not do no upkeep. I mean, yeah. Yeah. I'm sure you say you don't find a water heater. It was like it's been the mouse bathroom for the last 40 years. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, we didn't even get to talk about water here. So I feel like we could, I could come back. We could do a whole episode of water here. I know we got to get you out of here. I appreciate you coming. It was nice to meet you. Yes. We'll run into each other out there, but then, and, uh, remember if you need your house inspected, Holler Joseph over at Chattanooga house inspectors. Yeah. Appreciate your time. Thanks for having me on. All right. All right. Take care, Daniel. All right. Well, we get done here. We'll be back with the five most common myths of plumbing. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. I really went on and on and on. And that's yeah, definitely about the water. Well, yeah, man, it's good to meet you. All right. I hope everything works out. Have a good day. I appreciate you taking time. You're welcome. Hey guys, we're back. Our guest had to leave and go take care of some prior obligations and now we're going to go into a deep dunking, the plumbing, the common plumbing mess. You know, there's a lot of them out there. I mean, I could probably talk about that for days on end. Just constantly, there's people make up things like old tales that your grandma and grandpa used to tell you about, you know, things that you could do and things like that that's made it down through the years and become myths and a lot of people don't know that they're not real or it's just questions that need answered, you know, that we feel like we hear these asked and we're like, you know, we deal with it every day and we take them for granted as plumbers, but you know, the common homeowner may not know what, you know, these answers are or the situation rises and they need to know what to do. So we're going, I'm going to go over that today, a little bit on this end of this podcast in this second session to give y'all an idea of what the do's and don'ts and the myths of plumbing. Hopefully I won't get down through here and get on my soapbox on nothing because I usually don't complain a lot but when I do get to complain, I'll really do that. All right, here we go. Myth number one, they asked if you can flush, you know, all people was like, you can flush anything biodegradable. This is true to a point. We would rather you flush biodegradable products, but there's certain products you don't want to put into a septic system. I mean, when we're talking about some of this stuff, especially flushing, we're going to be talking about, you know, septic tank versus city sewer service. Septic tank, you know, it's an onsite system. It has a storage tank that stores the fecal and the influent around it. It gets a biomass on it, it deteriorates and then it goes into a leach field that's in your yard. You're going to take different precautions on stuff like that. You don't want to flush, you know, you don't want to flush a bunch of food down that because it's going to increase the biomass. So any food that you can throw away, especially if you're on a septic system, it's a good idea. So, you know, food, it's biodegradable, but don't flush it. You know, any of the biodegradable bags or baggies or flushable wipes, even though it's biodegradable, those are not going to, there's time in the degeneration of that stuff that takes too long in septic systems. Now, if you're on a city sewer, you've got a little bit more leeway, you know, you could flush a little bit more food. I don't like to, I don't like for people to flush food. For one, it can get into places, it can hang in places in your pipes, you know, if you got a disposal, we still tell you if you're going to just do, you know, garbage disposal. Run plenty of water that way and make sure it flushes it out of there, you know, gets all the gunk and everything washed down and then that way you can make sure you've cleared your lines. And so that's another thing with that is making sure you run plenty of water when you do use a garbage disposal with biodegradable, you know, food products. You know, we like to see toilet paper being the number one thing we like to see be flushed. I mean, that's really what we want you to flush is toilet paper. And we had an issue this week where a company changed toilet papers and it was really, really tough. It did not want to break up in water. Toilet paper that breaks up in water is the best toilet paper to use. If you're, especially if you're on an older home or a home on safety, you know, because you want that septic system to be running at optimal absorption and as long as it can, because they cost so much to replace, you know, the starting repar on septic tank system starts around $6,500 and goes up from there, depending on where you're at in the soil to the water. So, here's here in Georgia. Myth number two, lemons clean garbage disposals. Well, this is not really something that I, you know, employ my customers to do. I know ice will. We tell them, you know, ice, if you're going to clean out your refrigerator, dump your ice bucket in there, turn it on and it's a good way to clean the ice breaks down, it helps the blades, it descales the inside of it. I mean, I'm going to say lemons is not a bad idea. I mean, they've got a citrus acid quality to them. They'll probably cut some of the gunk out of there. I mean, but if you put the whole lemons in there, you've got the rind to contend with and that can clog your lines really good as grinding too much lemon rind down into your thing. So I would suggest just jumping past the lemons and go to the ice, just use ice to clean it. It does the best job on it. It helps, you know, keep the blades freed up and they do make disposal cleaners. You can get, you know, some, some cleaners to go down in it that helps clean it. I know a lot of the disposals and garbage disposals get a smell to them. We'll get a call out that it's got a smell, you know, the lemon may help with the smell, but you know, the chances of it clogging your line outweigh the smell thing. And on the smell, I just put some ice in it and maybe you know, a couple of packs, I get a couple of chunks of ice and maybe a dishwasher packet, you know, or some dishwasher detergent just to let it get clean. And they probably helped the smell to break all that stuff down the smell they're smelling is the food that's left in there because it don't get all the food out of the nooks and crannies unless you run plenty of water. We're back to running plenty of water with us to bozall. We discourage disposals on septic systems for sure. If you do put it in a spozall, the environmental help, which is who regulates the onsite surge management systems require you to put in more fill line. I mean, so, you know, you gotta put in another 100 foot of fill line for a disposal. So it's just not a good idea if you got a septic tank. We see a more in, you know, municipalities that have public sewer, which is, they do good, but I mean, disposals is one of my money makers for our, for our company, you know, disposals help gunk up the line, you know, you better off to have a composting barrel outside or a composting heap outside. If I was, you know, if I was gonna give you any, any advice on that, you know, as far as flushing anything or putting it down a garbage disposal, get your composting place, compost it, put it back down to the soil where it goes. Lift number three. Drain cleaners are safe and effective. (Laughs) That's a loaded question because there's so many drain cleaners out there that are made of different chemicals. There's a lot, you know, the big one, liquid plumber. It is a super concentrated, bleach mixture. If you open up a bottle and smell it, it smells just like, you know, chlorine bleach that you use to wash your clothes, which probably is not gonna be as, you know, bad on everything as some of the others out there will go through and we're gonna start with, we're gonna start with a drain out, so just to be, you know, it's got the most commercials on TV right now. You know, that's probably the one that everybody thinks about, drain over, you know, liquid plumber. It's, you're not gonna, if it's completely stopped up, you're not gonna get it unclogged with a drain cleaner. If it's slow, it might help, but the liquid plumber is not gonna be a solution long-term. To be honest with you, I feel like people waste their money on it because everybody that uses drain oil or liquid plumber always comes back and calls a plumber to come really de-scale or de-grease the line. The best way to clean a line is to send a flex shaft down it with a degreasing head on it, then you send a jitter behind it to get rid of the other debris that's left behind. Then you've got you a good clean line, you're good for another, you know, depending on what you put in it, how many years that you'll get out of that unclogging, you know, at the best you're gonna do sinks, kitchen sinks and stuffs are gonna clog, and then they make some acid-based clog removers. I mean, they made liquid fire, Red Devil, I was born, clogger was another one, they were meredic acid-based. They're very dangerous to your lungs if you pour them in, they're very corrosive to your countertops, your sinks, your pipes, they get hot, they melt plastic pipes, they damage the joints, I mean, you can really wreak havoc on a system with some of that stuff, and they sell it at your local hardwars. And it's, you know, it's very tempting, I mean, if you got a stocked up line to pour it in there, and it's another thing, any time you got a line, if it's starting to get slow, it's when to add any kind of drain cleaner if you're gonna use it. I'm not a big fan of drain cleaners, I guess y'all figured that out here. Because, I mean, when I was about, I think when I was about 16, 17 years old, we took care of a set of government subsidized apartments, and we, you know, young, I was young, just started plumbing real good, you know, learning. They had clobber, we called it clobber, it was an acid-based drain cleaner. I poured it in a sink, it actually gassed, and when it gassed, it filled the room, the apartment with gas. Thankfully, I was the only one in there, and my father, both of us was exposed to the gas, it ventilated, it made us sick, we actually had trouble, had to go to the doctor, have some breathing treatments and stuff like that because of this drain cleaner, you know. And as far as a homeowner, I was a plumber, I know better, should've known better, and it happened so quick that I didn't have time to get out, so when you're doing something, a drain cleaner, you probably definitely want to make sure you're doing the safety precautions, and I would just really just stay away from them. We do suggest some preventative stuff. Hercules makes us stuff called WAM, it's a degreaser. If you use it, you know, like it's directed with some warm water, great precautionary, you know, preventative maintenance, push it down the line with some water, then go to bed, or go, it's very safe, it's got some cleaning chemicals in it, some meth, some, not meth, but menthol and stuff in it, it's what it uses to clean. And it will help get the grease out of the lines. I suggest a lot of people on kitchen sinks to put a box of baking soda, and then pour vinegar back on top of it. Vinegar and baking soda is a great degreaser. It goes down through there, bubbles and foams, and eats the build-up grease. Well, it's not gonna eat it all down, but it will help. If you do it, you know, on a good line, you know, preventative maintenance, it's gonna help keep that line clear. There's no, there is no drain cleaner as good as a good plumber with a jitter and a descaler. Okay, we're gonna move on to meth four. A slow drip isn't a big deal. Well, it depends on who you are. Slow drips turn into big drips. Faucets that start slow dripping, they're aggravating, but what you don't understand is that slow drip is making it into the seal side of that faucet. And when it comes through that seal side of that faucet, it's going against a rubber seal and a brass seal. Why is it drips by that? It actually cuts a hole in the brass. I have seen a small leak turn from a small leak to a big leak, and by the time it turns to a big leak, it has burnt the faucet itself, and you have to completely change the faucet be it a tub or a vanity. So small leaks are very detrimental. They're stuff that add up, I mean, two or three leaks in a house, it can cost you 10 or $12 a month in a water bill. Not only that, if you're on a septic system once again, and you ignore the leaks, and it drips into your septic tank, you're going to wind up filling your septic tank up with more and more water. And that is bad for septic tank, especially this time of year. It's winter, the water table's going to be high, the cold ground, don't let the absorbance rates do what they normally do. So the less water you can get in a septic tank, the better. I mean, anytime you can prevent a drip, you better do it. And I know people say, "Well, it's a drip." We don't want a plumber to come out for just a drip. And that's true. I mean, I understand it. Everybody's on a budget. Everybody's worried about the cost. But would you rather pay a plumber a service fee now and get it fixed, or pay a plumber a service fee and a new faucet and then install a faucet? So it's kind of like, you know, you kind of call it a catch-22. All in a home is always costly. There's always something to do. There's always something that needs done. Not all of that. It's going to run your water bill up. And if it's not dripping into a sink, if it's a drip outside of sink, you need to immediately get it fixed. You know, if it's a drip under a cat or anything, it can run thousands of dollars worth of cabinetry, floors. If you get mold in your house, that is a whole other story. I had a uncle that had some mold get in his house and they completely condemned the house and he had to build a whole new house. I mean, mold is a whole, that's a whole podcast by itself, Remediation. Hopefully one day I'll be able to get Archer, Mr. Brian Boy from Archer in here to talk about remediation. And then, but drips, not being a big deal is a myth. 100% myth. Just, you know, and the myth number five, the number one, the number one myth that everybody's got, and as I understand it, because it is what it is, plumbers are too expensive. There's a way to look at this. There's a monetary way of looking at this and there is a value way of looking at this. Plumbers do get paid for what they know and the years of experience to be able to remedy a problem that you have, especially on the service side. But if you go into a situation where you are trying to save some money and you are chucking the truck, it's just, you know, he's a handyman, you know, Jack of all trades, master of none, and you get him to come in, or you do it yourself and you start to save money by working on the situation, it can turn into a disaster. I have seen it several times in my career. I'm a good example. Man wanted to change his water heater. He had a water, he went to Lowe's, Home Depot picked up a water heater. He come back, he thought he was gonna drain the water heater, so he goes to drain the water heater, water heater don't drain. Well, we have special tools and stuff that'll help us drain that water heater in place. So the water heater wouldn't drain, that was his first problem. Then his lines coming out of the wall were CPVC and we've touched on that here, CPVC are brutal. So he gets the water care off at the road. He gets the water heater start draining, it won't drain, so he decides he's gonna manhandle it out. When he does, he pulls it out, breaks off the stubs out of the wall, the water heater pins him against the wall, crush it, puts a hole in the wall, he gets it flopped over to the door, drops it out the door, and this is where I find it, upside down, hanging out the door on the stairs. So not only did he, a typical water heater install runs anywhere from four to $600, and we will include the water heater and bring it with us and haul off the old electric water heater, 40 gallon water heater start at $1,275. You get a water heater professionally installed, the water heater brought to you, the old water heater drained and took away, and all you gotta do is drive a check. This man could have done that, but no, he bought a water heater, he busted his wall, he wound up having to have the pipes in the wall replaced, the water heater fell on the steps, broke the steps, he had to have a carpenter, drywall man, and a plumber, because he was trying to save that money. And I'm all about saving money, but it's like, you wouldn't try to save money on getting your appendix removed. You're not gonna go down here to the back alley and find the guy that's gonna remove your appendix for $50. You're gonna go up to one of the local hospitals, and you're gonna pay the fee that they're gonna charge. And I say it all the time, doctors are high, but are they? They go to school, they get degrees, and they take care of your health and well-being. Well, plumbers are pretty much all the same thing. They go to school, they get license, just by the same license and board that a lawyer gets, or anyone else gets their license from, nurses, doctors, then they get education and a continued education, and they have things that they do and learn that they usually implement, so they're able to take care of the health and well-being of your house and you. Because if you've got sewage or water problems in your house, you've got a big deal. It can turn into a situation where you'd be sick, your kids are sick, you lose your house to rot, you just don't, you can't put a price on your house. Quality. And we try to take into consideration, so we use the ability to learn and implement new products to be able to be as affordable as we can for people. We want to be affordable for you, we are not too expensive. That's a number one myth. Well, it's been a long, time getting to this point in my life to be able to sit down and do a podcast and I've been enjoying it so far. This has been our fifth one. We're coming to the end of this one. I appreciate everybody that's tuning in, watching these things. Remember, we're down in Lofette, Georgia, where Mitchell's plumbing, and Lofette, Georgia, we're 206 North Duke Street. Number 706-638-8914. Give us a call, we'll do free estimates. We'll give you information. We want you to feel comfortable with having us come out. We're trying to do these podcasts to get people educated on some of the plumbing stuff that we do, some of the plumbing things we get into. There's more myths that we can get into. I would like to get an actual inspector from the county, one of the local counties in here, we're gonna try to do that. I've got a couple of builders I'm trying to get to come in here with me. I'm gonna get a couple of those, but stay tuned. We're expecting big things for 2025. This is today's December the 3rd. The next podcast we'll do will be done on December in December. We'll got one more in December, and then we'll be in the new year before you see us next. So y'all have a great year, and this new year, y'all have a wonderful, Merry Christmas. We'll see you next time. This is Daniel Mitchell with Mitchell's Plumbing. This is Plum Delusional Podcast. And remember, we're here when you need a place to go.

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