From the Desk of a Plumber’s Wife

July 8 2020

Gurgling Drain Causes

drainage From the Desk of a Plumber's Wife, Maintenance, Uncategorized

Have you noticed drains around your home making gurgling noises? While the obvious way to tell a drain is clogged is slow drainage, this gurgling sound can let you know that something is wrong with your drains before it’s too late. Here are some causes for a slow gurgling drain.

The most common and obvious reason is a blocked drain. Over time, a drain will begin to collect things like loose hair. In the kitchen, small bits of food and coffee grounds will begin to build up. This buildup will eventually start to block your drain. While in a perfect world we’d be extremely diligent about protecting our drains from this buildup, we know that sometimes it’s easy to forget. We suggest adding a small filter to your drain to catch unwanted bits before the drain clogs. If you’re currently experiencing a clogged drain, all you need to do is clear the blockage and it’ll be as good as new!

Gurgling drains can also be a last indicator of a blocked mainline before the water backs up. If you notice a gurgling sound in your toilet or your bathtub this is likely the case followed by the water failing to drain, stop using the water immediately and call a professional. If this is happening to you call R&B Plumbing and we will be on our way to help right away!

Lastly, gurgling in the drains around your home could be caused by a blocked vent stack. The main drainage lines in your home are all connected to your vent. The purpose of this is to draw sewer gas away and release it out the roof. If your vent stack is blocked, the methane gas cannot escape. This is what’s causing the gurgling noises. If you suspect this is happening in your home, call R&B Plumbing and Heating to help you figure it out.

If you’re hearing gurgling in the drains around your home or suspect any issues with your plumbing give R&B Plumbing a call today. We are able to help guide you with information and if an issue needs to be resolved we can send out trained professionals to help you out!

January 16 2017

Honey There’s No Hot Water

hot water From the Desk of a Plumber's Wife, Maintenance

Honey, there’s no hot water…

Has this happened to you? You are well into your morning routine and about to step into the shower only to discover it’s lake temperature instead of spa temperature? Want to know a secret? Even though I’m the wife of an excellent plumber, it’s happened to me. Much like the shoemakers’ children want for shoes, the plumber’s wife wants, occasionally, for hot water.

And to a non-plumbers wife, that’s probably very worrisome. Dollar signs and stress begin to dance before your eyes. The truth is that many hot water problems are simple to fix. They don’t always mean a new tank; sometimes it’s as simple as the mixing valve as it was in our case. A regular service call, $45 for the part and voilà, you are back on track.

The other thing that its important to know is that many hot water tanks have extensive warranties of starting at 6 but some as long as 12 years. That can be a great advantage to you. One of the first things we check when we are called to repair a hot water system, is the warranty.

Want to extend the life of your tank? Annual maintenance. Add your hot water tank to the annual maintenance of your furnace or boiler. It doesn’t add much to the service call, but it will make a world of difference in reliability and longevity of your equipment.

These easy and inexpensive tips and steps will help ensure your hot water is there when you need it.

January 9 2017

Clogged Kitchen sink – Blog 4 – What to expect when your Plumber arrives

drainage From the Desk of a Plumber's Wife, Plumbing System

Every so often, I get first hand experience as to what our customers are going through. In this case, I managed to do everything wrong and get our kitchen sink clogged.

Our experience with the clogged drain was a doozie. We tried – OK, HE tried all the home remedy tricks but nothing worked. My new job was to empty the sink with a bucket, and then empty the cupboards beneath while he went to retrieve the small electric drain cleaning machine from work. Yes, were he not a plumber, this would be a service call; and an emergency one at that, on a Sunday afternoon! A plugged kitchen drain also means no dishwasher since they run on the same line, and while I don’t mind doing dishes by hand, I did not want to do them in the bathroom!

So, out came the drain cleaner and off came the drain under the sink. “Why not use the clean-out?” I asked innocently. Clean-outs are openings in the drainpipes that allow the insertion of the drain cleaner to address clogs without disconnecting the sink drain. It turns out our clean-out was too far down the line and the if we had tried to open it, all the standing water above it would have drained into our cupboard. Since the cupboard with the clean-out was the corner cupboard with the lazy susan, getting a bucket in and underneath to catch the water was not possible. So off came the sink drain and in went the auger. Most sinks like ours have a built in strainer and prevents insertion of the tool from there.

Round and round it went as the cable played out, and out and out. 25 feet, then 35 feet, then back in again to change bits. Was it going up the vent pipe? It was impossible to know. Back out again, back in again, test, nothing. Every five minutes he’d look back at me and say accusingly, “What did you PUT down there?” Nothing really…there was some chicken that had gone bad that I didn’t want in the compost for two more days attracting rats and stinking to high heaven, but that went in the garburator. (See tip number 2 which I didn’t do) There was the burger grease that I had cleaned out of the pan (see number 4), and the quick on /off I did with the coffee grounds that morning and every morning (see number 1) – other than that…nothing. EXACTLY.

I must say I am REALLY surprised at just how stuck things were in there I mean, it was SOLID. It took about an hour before he finally cut the cable and fed it down the drain from the sink side to gain a different angle on the pipe. Finally that seemed to work. It must have been building up for a while, as I had noticed our drain was quite slow before that, but not all the time. There were fewer warning signs because the clog was so far down, but I did notice the sink did not smell very fresh. It didn’t always drain slowly, only when I had a lot of water to let out.

So learn from the mistakes of this plumber’s wife and avoid an emergency call to R&B.

December 19 2016

Clogged Kitchen sink – Blog 1 – Series Introduction

drainage From the Desk of a Plumber's Wife, Plumbing System

From the desk of a plumbers wife – clogged drain

Would you like to know a secret? We had a clogged drain in our kitchen sink of monumental proportions a few weeks ago and my first-hand experience has resulted in a series of tips from my DH who is also a master plumber.

Even though we are the proud owners of a top of the line Insinkerator Pro 1100 garburator, (installed!), This garburator has a full 1 horse power motor, and is one of the quietest on the market. The Pro Series can even chew up bones. I know we are composting now, but it is hard to compost soup, stew, and cereal bowl dregs. Plus, sometimes the item for the compost is so stinky, you really just want it gone right away. One thing a garburator can’t do for you, no mater how good, is get food that has gone down the other side of your double sink. I learned the hard way about clogging sinks.

I post this now because we’ve just survived, I mean enjoyed the holidays and many of you will have had a LOT of excess food around and some of it will end up down the sink. This, unfortunately, leads to an extremely high incidence of clogged drains this time of year. Want to avoid it? In this blog series I will give you some tips for avoidance and for treatment before you call the professional.

If you still need help, call R&B and then look at the blog on how to clear kitchen sinks so you know what to expect.

December 30 2015

From the Desk of a Plumber’s Wife – No Heat, The Resolution

heating DIY, From the Desk of a Plumber's Wife

Much like the cobbler whose children have no shoes, we are the family of a heating technician…well anyway. We had no heat.

When my husband came upstairs with our old filter, it was gray and fluffy where it should have been smooth and white. Really! Our filter should’ve been changed at least 2 – 4 times each year and so should yours. Furnace maintenance is one of those things that slide to the bottom of the list because when it works, we don’t think about it. Add to the fact that filters come in so many grades and sizes it’s hard to know what to buy. But replacing filters is easy to learn, and buying them is as easy as telling R&B the model number of your furnace.

At R&B we supply quality grade filters in all sizes, and the furnaces are designed so the homeowners can install these themselves. There is a great DIY video on how you can check and replace your furnace filters.

For a quick education on air quality visit this section of our website: Air Filters and Filtration. There you will find an easy to read and understand explanation on how they are rated and what things like HEPA actually mean.

Then once per year, have R&B out for your reoccurring maintenance and annual safety service. Your home’s heating system, water heaters and fireplaces will be serviced and maintained from inspections to filter replacement. The bundled services will save you money, plus it improves air quality, efficiency and protects you against an unexpected winter heat failure.

We believe that spending a little money on regular maintenance will help our customers avoid taking advantage of our 24-hour emergency service. We want you to be warm and happy, and your winters warm and stress free from the furnace room.

I wish we had; but now we do!

–Blog 2 of 2

December 23 2015

From the Desk of a Plumber’s Wife – No Heat

heating DIY, From the Desk of a Plumber's Wife

I’ll tell you a secret. Even though I am the wife of a man who does plumbing and heating, we are not immune from the instances of, “Honey, there is no heat!”, as happened to us last winter.

It started when I realized I was COLD and not because one of the children left the door open. I walked over to the programmable thermostat to see if it was on.

(I should stop here and say that programmable thermostats, which take care of turning down the heat when you don’t need it and having the house nice and toasty when you do. They are a great way to improve efficiency and save money on your heating bill. They are simple to install, simply replacing your existing manual thermostat. R&B can install one with your regular annual service, or any time you like. Call to arrange for yours.)

Our thermostat said “clean furnace filter – press to dismiss” I pressed to dismiss (wouldn’t you?), and the heat came on! I was so impressed with myself; I was magic, brilliant, independent! I had fixed the heat … for about 5 minutes. That’s about how long it took for the furnace to reject my “fix.” Yes, we needed a service call, and if this happened to you, you would too.

Want to know what was wrong? Read the rest of this series of what happened to us and what you can do to learn from our mistakes and prevent the ‘no heat’ call.

–Blog 1 of 2

From the Desk of a Plumber’s Wife

Gurgling Drain Causes

Honey There’s No Hot Water

Clogged Kitchen sink – Blog 4 – What to expect when your Plumber arrives

Clogged Kitchen sink – Blog 1 – Series Introduction

From the Desk of a Plumber’s Wife – No Heat, The Resolution

From the Desk of a Plumber’s Wife – No Heat

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