Plumbing Blog

A sewer line is one of those things that you never really think about until it stops working. Of course, you need a sewer line to remove waste from your home, and for most homeowners, sewer lines function perfectly well without much need for maintenance. However, sewer lines are not built to last forever, and over time problems can arise. This is especially true for older sewer lines, many of which are made from galvanized steel.

There are a number of things that might cause household flooding. It may be a washing machine hose that breaks or corrodes. It might be something even more serious, like a sewer backup, or some kind of a leak that manifests while you’re out of the home and unable to resolve it promptly. Whatever the case, your first course of action should always be to turn off your water, and then call a professional plumber to have the issue attended to.

Sooner or later, every homeowner encounters the need to replace a toilet. Sometimes this is strictly for aesthetic purposes: An older toilet may look dated or it may become scratched up and rickety. Other times, of course, it may be because the toilet simply fails to work properly, everyday wear and tear finally rendering it unusable. The question homeowners face, then, is this: Should you call a professional plumber to replace your toilet, or should you take it on as a DIY project?

Savvy homeowners tend to understand the basics of all their household components—enough to know when there is a serious problem, and perhaps even enough to make some minor repairs. For example, you may not be a master electrician, and you may not trust yourself to make any serious electrical repairs, but you can hopefully tell when a circuit breaker has been flipped; you probably know how to reset it, and maybe even how to deduce the cause of the problem.

Ask any homeowner what his or her worst homeownership nightmare is, and more likely than not you’re going to hear the word mold pop up—if not immediately, then certainly on the shortlist. While most homeowners will find some small trace of mold somewhere in their home—sooner or later—large-scale or chronic mold problems are bad news by most any standard.

Homeowners aren’t expected to be masterful, professional-grade plumbers, nor do they really need to be; should any major or minor plumbing need arise, our own Vancouver plumbing team is close by to offer assistance. With that said, homeowners are smart to brush up on just a few plumbing basics, ensuring that they understand their household plumbing systems well enough to perform maintenance and make a few small adjustments or repairs, as needed.