Plumbing is often overlooked in preparing your home before heading out on vacation.  Plumbing should be a priority, just as you prepare your ac unit or your pool before leaving. 

Don CeSar Beach Resort, St. Petes Beach, FL

I’m sure you know someone who has shared a painful water leak disaster story occuring while they were away. Having a mess on your hands and missing work is no fun. We want to help you avoid an unhappy ending to a great vacation and coming home to water damage or mold surprises. 

Most insurance companies will tell you that their number one homeowner’s claim is water damage and the top 3 items that cause these claims are:

• Washing Machine Valves or hose failure
• Reverse Osmosis Drinking Water System that gets older and the lines break
• Sink or toilet valves breaking off and leaking

All of these plumbing problems can incur a high amount of damage when no one catches the leak quickly.  Don’t become part of these statistics.

Here are a few helpful plumbing tips for your home located in Gilbert, Scottsdale, Glendale, or any other town in the Phoenix metro area. 

Top 10 Plumbing Tips Before You Leave on Vacation: 

1. Turn off your plumbing main shut off  valve to your plumbing system.  There will still be water in the water system, but no more will enter into the system while your gone.  Please be sure the plumbing main shut off valve is working properly. Only turn it off  if nothing needs water around the home while your gone. Don’t forget your pool fill or any pumps you may have that need water while your away.
2. If you can’t turn off your main plumbing shut off valve. You can shut off individual valves under your sinks, behind your toilets, at the Reverse Osmosis unit, behind the refrigerator and behind the washing machine.  But only turn off the valves that are in good working order. 
3. If you turned off your plumbing main shut off valve, this is still a good time to look at all your shut off valves and supply lines under your sinks and toilets to be sure none are wet or leaking before leaving.
4. If you have plumbing behind your refrigerator, pull the refrigerator out and check to be sure nothing is wet or corroded.
5. Look all around your water heater and water softener, to be sure  you see no wetness or water leaking. These also have their own shut off valves, that can be turned off to lessen the chance of water damage.  
6. If the water heater is in good condition, turn the thermostat to vacation on a gas water heater. On an electric water heater turn the  breaker off at your main electrical breaker box, to avoid wasting energy for heating water while your gone.
7. Add water to all drains, and BioBen, if you have it, before leaving to keep them wet and avoid odors when you return.
8. Walk around the outside of the home, make sure nothing is leaking before you leave the house.
9. If you have a drinking water system, make sure your drinking water system is newer, as older lines on these units  crack and break and are often the culprit causing water damage in many homes. Some of these systems can be turned off indivdually at the valve under the sink to lessen the possibility water damage. 
10. Have someone come in and walk around the home to check that nothing has broken or continues to run while your gone.

During the visual review of your plumbing system before you leave, none of your plumbing system should be corroded or wet, some plumbing parts will appear ok until you touch or shut them off.  All  parts of your plumbing system should be in good working order, able to be turned on and off without breaking, and problem parts should be replaced.

Older plumbing system can fail anytime.  But when you’re gone for consecutive days and something does break it will cause far more damage than when you’re home, able to spot and stop the break quickly. 

When you return home, remember what areas of your plumbing system you turned off and turn them all back on.  Please know that once water is turned back on you will get some bursts of air… that is normal.  Don’t get too scared from the blasts. It startles me every time even though I know it is coming. Leave the water run until the air blasts stop. 

We want you to enjoy your vacation and come home with great memories to share with your family and friends (not the story of how you found water damage and broken plumbing upon your return). 

If you feel uncomfortable reviewing your plumbing system, mention this blog, and we’ll provide you a free home inspection.  To help prevent broken plumbing and water damage while your away,  just call us at 602-485 -1111. And if you need a good plumber you can count on while you’re away please keep our number handy, we are here 24/7 to help in any plumbing emergency. 

Upcoming Blogs: 

* Cutest Photo Contest 

*Best Way To Clean Your Toilet

Drains are great when they drain efficiently.  But when they don’t, life can become more stressful and less comfortable.  Have you ever stood in a shower with the drain open and find the water is rising to your knees?  While brushing your teeth, does water fill the entire sink with dirty water?  Why does this happen? 

The more that goes down the drain, the more clogged drains you will have.  The more you chose to put down your bathroom drains, the more important regular maintenance is needed to keep them running smoothly and better smelling.  

Have you seen the ad for Turbo Snake?

It promises you can clear your drains easily, watch this video clip and see if you think it passed the challenge. Our Dallas Benjamin Franklin Plumbing put this the Turbo Snake to the test. See how it did before you try to use it. 

If you have slow running drains, you don’t always have to call a Gilbert Plumber to clear them. If you’re handy and don’t mind working around pipes, there are a few things you can do regularly when they get real slow.  

If Your Bathroom Drains Are Very Slow:

• You can take apart the curved pipe (the P Trap) under the bathroom sink and clean it out, it may smell really bad, so be ready with a good garbage can close by with a lid.  The first time I saw the inside of my bathroom sink drain, I was shocked at what had piled up in there.  Clearing the P trap will help the sink drain run smoothly again. 
• Your bathtub or shower drain can be cleared out with a very powerful shop vac  hose tightly sealed around the drain area opening, (you may need to take off the drain stopper or strainer).  Once it is sealed well around the drain, turn the shop vac on and hold it tightly against the drain opening until you can feel nothing more being pulled up from the drain.  It should pull out hair and soap that have built up and stuck near the top of the drain line area.   

How To Keep The Bathroom Drains Running Smoothly:

• Use a biodegradable drain maintenance product such as BioBen monthly, my past blog will give you more information on this product.  It will eat away the hair and soap scum stuck to the pipes regularly, so you don’t have to open up the pipes or hire a Chandler Plumber to clear them out  when they get worse.
• Cover your drains, with proper strainers to only allow water to pass through.
• Don’t let other things go down the drain if you can.

The Most Common Items That Will Slow Your Bathroom Drain System:

• Hair, long or short, overtime it gathers in the pipe and will stick to the pipe, the inside of the pipe will get  smaller and smaller making water to run very slow down it.
• Soap, hair or makeup products will stick together in the pipe and make the drains slower and smell.
• Small Plastic Caps will get caught in the soap or hair sticking to the pipe or elbows of the pipe only able to allow a very small amount of water to drain at a time.
• Q Tips or toothpicks falling into the drains may allow slowing intermittently, sometimes they will allow more to go by and other times the drain will seemed more clogged. 
• Dust and dirt build up over time allows the pipe to have a smaller opening and only allowing a small amount of water to drain at a time.
• Don’t flush things down the toilet unless you know your toilet or drain. Learn more about this in my prior blog Toilets vs Tampons Friends or Foes? 

A Hint That Can Save You Money:

Keep the toilet lid closed, here is a photo of a cell phone that fell in a customers toilet.

Look for my upcoming blogs on:

How To Prepare Your Plumbing System For Vacation!!

Funny Photo Contest

Clogged drains in your home can be prevented.  It’s really quite simple with this plumber’s secret.  If you are tired of clogged drains we have a safe and easy solution …BioBen.  BioBen is a biodegradable drain maintenance product so safe that you can eat it, but most of all it’s safe for all sewer lines and septic systems and is stamped Designed for the Enviroment by U.S. EPA.

The BioBen Process:

“BioBen’s friendly bacteria eat away at greasy slime buildup and odorous residue, leaving your pipes and wastewater systems in top condition all year around when applied on a routine basis. It’s safe for both human handling and the environment.”

Are you tired of asking someone else in the house to clean out the slow drains or hate the smell of your drains?

Now you can easily do it yourself with BioBen, even if you don’t feel like you’re handy around the house.  If my sister can keep her drains clear with this, everyone can.  I say this with the most respect for my sister and love her dearly, but I also see how much happier she is now that she keeps those clogged drains away. 

Top 10 Reasons To Use BioBen:

1. Your tired of calling a plumber to clear your drains, even though you really like them.
2. You know that grease, oil or fat products is washed down your drains regularly.
3. Hair and short shaving hair is washed down the drain every day.
4. Hair spray or gel are washed down the drain.
5. Soaps or make up is rinsed down the drain line regularly.
6. Laundry lint or dust  from the air build up in the laundry drain pipes and need to be cleared out.
7. Food products are rinsed down the drain.
8. Your drains are in need of rebuilding up friendly bacteria that every day household chemicals destroy.
9. It is designed to work with plumbing and septic systems, it has met the EPA’s DfE challenge.
10. It is a proven GREEN friendly formula that works!

Bathroom Sink Drain with no BIOBEN

This is what was found in a customers bathroom drain after 3 months of no treatment, can you imagine brushing your teeth everyday with this in the drain below?  But you don’t have to worry or feel sick about it, JUST USE BioBen!

What Forms Does BioBen It Come In?

• Liquid Form
• Dry Granules
• Commercial Grade Auto- Dispensing System

But You say, I Just Use The Over The Counter Drain Cleaners Like Liquid Plumber, Why Change?

1.  The number one reason, these over the counter products usually are used after a clog  or slow drain have occurred, where as BioBen keeps the clogs and slow drains away when used regularly.
2. Most products over the counter are not safe to be around kids or animals. Please be sure to read the labels. I have had customers tell me how they hurt themselves using some of these products.
3. They can be very harmful to the pipes, plumbing fixtures and the environment. 
4. If you’re not sure why the drain is slow or clogged, these chemicals can worsen a clog depending on how it adheres to the particles in the drain.  Sometimes a minor clog can turn into a very tough hard as cement type of drain clog that will take  professional help to clear.
5. One bottle or jar will last most homes 6 full months of use. 
6. Use the same product for a number of needs, like bad smelling disposals and avoiding slow drains or clog.
7. 100% Guarantee by Benjamin Franklin, The Punctual Plumber.
8. Easy to get, your local Benjamin Franklin, The Punctual Plumber can ship it or deliver it to your home.
9. BioBen is a safe quality product.

It’s not to late to enter win up to 100 grand with Trumps Time Is Money Sweepstakes, read more about it in my prior blog.

Need help with your plumbing, let us help you, just mention this blog and get a free BioBen..Expires 7/30/10.

Upcoming Blog Topics:

* How to easily clear a really slow shower drain, yourself.

*Cutest photo contest.