Ken's Plumbing | Blog

Your home's plumbing system is essential to keeping your standard of living comfortable. If it's not working properly, you won't be able to shower, wash your hands, use the toilet, wash dishes, water the lawn, or run the washing machine. Plumbing systems are responsible for quite a bit; however, most people don't really know what their plumbing system is. They just turn the handle or press a button and expect the water to come out at the precise temperature and pressure they want.

As a homeowner, it's important to have a basic understanding of how your plumbing system works so that you can take better care of it and prevent costly breakdowns. Keep reading to learn the 3 major categories of your home's plumbing system.

With Fall quickly approaching, let's take a minute and look at some things you can do to prepare your plumbing for colder weather. While it might not seem cold now, it's best to handle these things before the weather gets cold so that your home is ready when it does!

The plumbing system in your home gets used constantly. Every time you take a shower, wash your hands, do the laundry, run your dish washer, go to the bathroom, water the garden...  Well, you get the idea.

While you may not think about where the water comes from and how it gets to its final destination, the process is more complicated than you might think, and it's important to make sure your plumbing system stays healthy.

If your plumbing system breaks down, you will quickly find yourself wanting to pull your hair out in frustration.

Day to day activities aren't the only reason you should care about the health of your plumbing system. Let's take a closer look at why your plumbing system is so important, and why you should give more thought to its health and longevity.

You know you shouldn't do it, but it's just soooo easy. The garbage disposal is conveniently right there and you have a bunch of food waste that you just want to get rid of. You throw it down the disposal, turn it on, and the waste is gone forever with seemingly no consequences. Does this sound like you? We don't blame you. Using the garbage disposal as a second trash can is a very easy thing to do, and half the time people don't realize that the things they put in their disposal can actually cause serious long-term damage that will be pricey to fix.

Let's look at 5 of the worst things you can put down your garbage disposal and why it's probably a good idea for you to make the extra few steps to the trashcan instead.

If you've ever had to shut off the water supply to your whole house or even part of it, you know that normal plumbing functions will be limited. That includes your toilet's ability to flush.

Losing the ability to flush the toilet while the water is shut off can be both annoying and embarrassing. Fortunately, there is a way you can get around the problem and get the toilet to flush anyway!

Keep reading to learn how to flush the toilet without a water supply.

Clogged drains and other plumbing problems are never a fun thing to deal with -- especially if you have to pay out the nose to get them fixed.

Many times a clogged toilet and simple drain can be fixed with a few DIY methods that can save you from spending a lot of money on a service call that only lasts a few minutes. In today's blog post we're going to look at a few plumbing hacks that can get your draining problems fixed and help save your budget too!

It might come as a surprise that we’re writing about reducing your water pressure. Most of the time when people have a complaint about their water pressure, it’s because the water isn’t coming out of the faucet strong enough for them. While having a nice hot shower with just the right water pressure is a pleasure that’s tough to beat, there is a certain point where your water pressure can be too high and actually cause damage to the internal workings of your plumbing.

Let’s take a look at what causes high water pressure, some of the damaging effects it can have, and how you can use a pressure reducing valve to solve these problems.

Unlike the toilet bowl, the tank should never come in contact with dirty water. However, it can still get a little grody in there over time—possibly from a metal (flapper) chain that’s rusted, hard water stains on the ceramic, mineral buildup, or even smelly bacterial deposits.

If someone once put a brick in the tank to save water, you may also be dealing with crumbled sediments gathered at the bottom of the tank, and possibly even dropping into the toilet bowl when you flush.

(Pro tip—if you want to save water for each flush, use a filled and sealed plastic jug or a buy a "tank bag" instead of a brick.)

If your toilet tank is due for a semi-annual cleaning, here’s how to do it:

Question: If water causes steel to rust, why doesn’t the inside of my water heater tank rust out?

Answer: It will eventually, unless you have a working anode rod installed.

What is a water heater anode rod?

It’s a fact of nature that water corrodes many kinds of metals—steel most noticeably. But here’s where a bit of cleverness comes in with the invention of the water heater. If you introduce a rod of more “tempting” (that is, more easily corroded) metal into the environment, the water will react with that and leave the steel unaffected.

Modern homes have many “invisible” systems—such as buried cables and underground plumbing—that keep things running smoothly without drawing attention to themselves. The flip side of this convenience, however, is that when something breaks down, the problem can go on for a while before becoming obvious.

This is especially true when it comes to your home’s sewer line, the pipe system that discreetly moves all wastewater from your toilets and drains into the main city sewer (unless, of course, you have a septic system). It’s great that we don’t have to think about where all that waste goes—until something goes wrong.