Ken's Plumbing | Blog

Dripping tub faucet driving you crazy? Even if the incessant sound doesn’t keep you up at night, the constant drip can cause staining in your tub, plus waste water—up to 20 gallons a day!

Instead of letting that money go down the drain, take care of the problem right away. If you’re in the mood for a DIY project, grab your plumbing toolbox and get ready to do some work.

In previous articles, we’ve discussed items that should never go down your kitchen sink or other drains. At the top of this list are fats, oils and greases (sometimes abbreviated as FOG).

What makes these kinds of substances so bad for your plumbing?

Well, in addition to being harmful for the environment (large amounts of oil and grease are very difficult for water treatment plants to remove from the water system), the main issue to worry about is the likelihood of creating very nasty clogs.

Need to keep cool this summer WITHOUT cranking up the AC? Perhaps you’re trying to save money by conserving energy, you’re spending lots of time in the great outdoors, or you’ve been working outside and want relief from the heat now.

One of the best tools for beating the heat quickly is something most of us are blessed to have access to at all times: clean, fresh water.   

Even if you don’t have your own backyard pool, you can still use water tricks to keep you cool around your house and yard:

Let’s say you want to brighten up a dark room. You purchase a bright 100-watt incandescent light bulb, but when you go to screw the first bulb into your lamp, you notice it has a warning label that says “Maximum 60 Watts.”

“Well,” you think, “What’s the worst that can happen?”

The short answer: a home fire. And even if the bulb is removed before a fire starts, the overloaded current can do permanent damage to your wiring.

Let’s take a closer look on why this is:

Are you frustrated with your water heater frequently experiencing leaks? Have you found yourself in a constant cycle of replacing water heaters without understanding the root cause of the issues? If this sounds familiar, it’s time to consider the installation of a water heater expansion tank.

Your home’s water heater has a maximum temperature setting that controls how hot the water in your faucets may be at any given time. While most of us don’t think about this setting being customizable, it is actually something you can control.

A new water heater is typically preset to a maximum temperature of 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Some say that’s the ideal temperature, while others argue that it’s better to reduce the maximum temperature to 120.

There are two distinct schools of thought on this topic. Let’s take a closer look at them:

Roses and irises are in bloom and on Saturdays the parking lots at local garden centers are jam-packed—gardening season is in full swing here in Greenville, SC!

Chances are if you’re the gardening type, you’ve gotten the bulk of this season’s planting work already done, and you’re moving into the maintenance stage of keeping up your yard.

Just because your lawn and flowers will need plenty of water this summer doesn’t mean your water bill needs to climb sky high. Here are some handy tips for conserving water in your yard so you can keep your wallet as happy as your plants!

More than 8 out of 10 American homes are affected by hard water—that is, water filled with dissolved minerals such as calcium and magnesium carbonate. While these minerals aren’t harmful for most people to ingest, hard water can cause a lot of inconveniences in everyday home life.

Below are five typical problems caused by hard water buildup. How many of these symptoms have you noticed?

1. Fading Laundry

Minerals such as iron and calcium found in hard water can react with the chemicals in laundry detergent, compromising its effectiveness and wearing the colors out of your clothing prematurely. Hard water can even leave small chalky or rusty stains or make the fabric feel stiff or scratchy.

In our last post, we talked about natural bathroom cleaners that can help you keep your bathroom surfaces disinfected without using dangerous chemicals.

This week we’ll focus on how to unclog a drain without commercial drain cleaners such as Drano or Liquid Plumr.

Of course, the best step is prevention. To learn how to avoid problems in the first place, read our post on preventing clogs before they happen.

Why should I avoid chemical drain de-cloggers?

Using natural cleaners helps you remove unnecessary toxins from your home, plus avoid headache-inducing fumes. In the case of drain cleaners, however, there’s also another factor consider: Regular use of commercial drain cleaning products can actually damage your pipes!

Want to keep your bathroom clean but don’t want to expose your family to harsh chemicals and unpleasant vapors? While commercial cleaning products are popular because they do work well, you can swap them out with natural cleaning products that are gentler on your bathroom fixtures and better for your health.

Sometimes natural solutions take a little more elbow grease to reach sparkling perfection, but on the plus side, they’re easy (and cheap!) to make.

Here are some natural cleaner recipes for keeping your bathroom clean: