Spring Cleaning For Your Plumbing

Everyone remembers to put clean out the gutters, wash the walls and wax the floors on their Spring Cleaning list, but rarely do we remember to put plumbing needs on our Spring Cleaning lists. Never under estimate the power of simple household cooking products such as vinegar to clean your plumbing.

• Pools:

With temperatures on the rise many Valley families will start swimming if they haven’t already. Be sure the auto fill is working properly; the hotter it is the more water pools need to function.

• Kitchens:

It’s essential to our personal health that dishwashers are clean and doing their job. Run a load with only vinegar and water to clear out their lines

Disposals can use a good cleaning, use a 1/4 cup of vinegar and 1 cup of water and run it through the disposal, to clear out grease, etc. Next take a cup full of ice with no water and sharpen the disposal on it. Add a cap of cooking oil after and let it run until the rough sounds disappear.

• Bathrooms:

Spring is a great time to check toilets. They get a lot of use and should be thoroughly checked at least once a year. A simple and inexpensive way to make sure you’re not wasting water is to use food coloring in the back tank. Place 5 drops of any color in the tank and let it sit for 10 minutes. If the color leaks through to the bowl the toilet should be tuned up a bit. This one small move can conserve thousands of gallons of water and allow the toilet to perform well throughout the year.

If you’re having issues with flushing, be sure to check the small holes in the bowl, up and underneath the rim. These can get clogged with calcium deposits and dirt. By cleaning the holes out, it can allow the toilet to perform better, but it can be a nasty job.

Toilets need at least one deep cleaning every season. Many toilets have rings that a great tool known as Shaw’s Pads can get rid of nicely without much work. Before using a Shaw Pad to clean please check with your toilet manufacture to be sure it’s safe for your toilet.

Showerhead

Shower heads can be cleaned with undiluted white vinegar in a plastic bag tied up over your showerhead, leave it overnight and clean off all the loose deposits. But when most shower heads get to the point where they are very hard to clean up it’s best to replace them. Replacing your shower head will create better water flow and shower experiences. It’s an inexpensive way towards a great spring experience daily.

• Waterflow:

Several things come through our water lines on a daily basis that will corrode or clog faucet aerators, our faucets filters, hurting water flow. Unscrew the tip of the faucet and clean out the filter and screw it back on or get new aerators. This is a cheap way to freshen up the faucet and its performance.