Ken's Plumbing | Blog

Let’s say you want to brighten a dark room or replace a flickering light bulb. You purchase a bright 100W 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. Even if the higher-watt light bulb is removed before a fire starts, the overloaded current can permanently damage your wiring.

How come? Let’s shed some light on it.

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:

Spring is on its way, and we want to make sure your home is ready to look (and feel) its best when the flowers start to bloom!

With Ken's Plumbing, we are here for you 24/7/364, so just in case things don't quite go your way this spring, make sure you call The Picky People's Plumber for your every need.

Until then, hopefully these spring cleaning tips get you where you need to be.

When planning the layout of your home (in the case of new construction) or looking into renovations, you may find the space that seems to be the best fit for your laundry room is... upstairs.

Are you concerned about whether or not an upstairs laundry room could pose a risk in the case of a burst pipe or a flooding disaster?

Today, we'll take a look at those concerns and walk you through why an upstairs laundry room may just be the right choice for you.