In the role of a certified plumber in the Las Vegas area, we receive lots of service calls for stopped up drains. Several of the most common drains that end up clogging include the kitchen drains, bathroom drains, toilets, and tub drains. While we certainly like the business, many of this group of calls meant for drain clogs can be prevented if you understand these straightforward steps:

1. Every few days run very hot tap water through the drain. This is one way to keep a drain free of odors. Treat any partially clogged drains promptly.

2. Put a tablespoon of baking soda into the kitchen drain about once a week, then slowly pour in 1/4 cup of vinegar or lemon juice and let it stand for 30 minutes. Next run run hot water through the drain to eliminate minor buildups and odors.

3. Put a tablespoon of baking soda into the kitchen drain around once a week, then gradually pour in 1/4 cup of vinegar or lemon juice and let it set for 30 minutes. After that run hot water down the drain to eliminate minor buildups and odors.

The job of hiring a maintenance plumber for your home plumbing requires you to study various factors along with the contract letter. The contract letter off course discusses the plumbing fixes that the hired plumber would handle. In addition, it becomes the duty of the homeowners to analyze the role of the maintenance plumber during different plumbing emergencies or situations.

Various factors that need to be studied by the homeowners before availing the services of a maintenance plumber are described below. The tips would help you to monitor the services offered by a hired maintenance plumber.

The water sections in the plumbing scheme such as water heaters, plumbing pipes, drain pipes, sewers, gutters etc. must be examined thoroughly from time to time. The broken or leaky pipes must be immediately patched or replaced by the maintenance plumber. Any problem in the water heater must be brought to the attention of the homeowner as soon as possible. Thereafter, the plumber avails the permission of the homeowner to move ahead with the proceedings.

Besides these, various plumbing fixtures of the home such as bathtubs, refrigerators, gas line, water tank, sewage tank, faucets, sinks etc. must be monitored regularly on the basis of their performance or efficiency.

Ignorant homeowners don’t consider the maintenance job of their fixtures an important task. Due to lack of proper maintenance, fixtures start to show irregularities. At this point of time, some of them wake up and hire a professional to undertake the concerned repair work. Such a hefty investment can be avoided if the plumbing setup is maintained properly from the very onset. With few easy and straightforward tips, you can save yourself from all such problems.

Start off by employing stoppers for all the sinks. Stoppers would check the entry of the foreign materials such as debris, hair, filth, waste food particles etc. in the drain pipes. Installing stoppers does not mean that you are not required to clean your sinks regularly. Installation of stoppers is a way of stopping excess drainage of filth. The remaining filth should be removed manually by accessing the passage of drain.

The problem of leaky taps is another common plumbing issue in most households. This problem can be solved easily with some wise apprehension. Often, such a problem occurs due to a loosely screwed tap. In such case, you can tighten up the tap using an appropriate-sized wrench. If the tap still leaks then you have to change the weary washer fitted inside the tap assembly.

A plunger is a device that is used to unclog the clogged drains. A plunger is used prior to any other unclogging device because of its ease of use. A plunger may give you a false conception about its usage but its handling is quite tricky in actual practice. A plunger would help you in avoiding the usage of synthetic chemicals.

Plunger should be given priority over drain-opening chemicals. In case the plunger fails to unclog the drain, move on to the chemicals. Do not try to plunge water from the drain which contains acid-based chemical drain-openers. Such water can damage your skin and eyes very badly.

Plunger is mainly employed to remove as much standing water as possible to avoid churning of water on to you or on to the floor. You can add additional water later on if necessary.

Take the plunger out from your toolkit and fix it on the drain opening firmly. Be careful while setting the bell in position so as to attain maximum vacuum. Now, start plunging in an up-down motion such that the action is short and vigorous.

It is not a difficult job to fit a garbage disposal unit in kitchen sink. There is no doubt that assembling its parts and checking it for no leaks is a time consuming exercise. And if we have a dishwasher, it will enhance the labor and time taken because dishwasher is emptied into the waste pipe. But with the fitting of the garbage disposal unit, the dishwasher is emptied in the garbage disposal.

Fortunately, attaching a garbage disposal to a dishwasher is easy. The article below familiarizes the homeowners with the steps to connect the garbage disposal with the dishwasher.

Clean out the bottom sink cabinet and place a bucket under the existing J-trap pipe. Use a pipe wrench to loosen the pipe and remove the pipe. Dump any water collected in the trap pipe into the bucket. Also remove the large nuts that connect the drain pipe with the sink. Detach the drain pipe from the sink.

To remove the strainer body from the sink, unscrew the large nut that holds it in place underneath the sink. Then clean off the old plumber’s putty that surrounds the edge of the drain opening.

You may already know that anti-siphon and/or back-flow prevention devices are widely required, but you may want to know why. The answer is, “contamination.” Anytime a hose is placed in a yard or an underground sprinkler is operated, there’s a chance for contaminants — such as pet excrement, fertilizer, lawnmower gas, etc to enter the line. Without anti-siphon or back-flow prevention, these contaminants could be sucked into the source water, where they may be ingested in drinking water.

These are used on the outlet of a pump wherever gravity or other downstream conditions may create negative pressure (siphon) and drain a tank. The valve is pre-set to open under pump pressure, but closes bubble-tight when the pump is shut off. Because of the design of its design this valve actually closes more tightly when unwanted siphon occurs.

This valve also prevents gas siphoning. Gas siphoning is the process of moving gasoline from one tank to another using physics concepts and a clear plastic tube. Gas siphoning can be used for illegal purposes such as stealing gasoline from another tank. Also, this prevents the pollutants to enter the tank. Well, this takes place with the presence of a non-wet u-cup seal around the tank.

A broken sprinkler pipe can leak gallons of water every day and cost you lots of money. It can also cause a loss of water pressure to your sprinkler heads, as well as cause water damage to foundations, or other structures in the immediate area.

Fortunately, fixing the problem isn’t too hard if you don’t mind getting dirty. Buy supplies. Nothing is worse than having to run to the hardware store in the middle of a project. See the list of things you need below. PVC pipe, PVC sleeve connectors, PVC pipe cutters or hack saw, PVC glue, PVC primer and safety glasses.

Firstly, turn off the water supply to your sprinkler system. This can usually be done by turning off the water supply to the house at the city meter. More appropriately, if you have a separate meter or a well, there should be a cutoff valve located near your sprinkler control box. Also, it is advised to cover the eyes with the safety glasses before getting involved in pipe mending.

As the winter sets in, people start using hot water to carry out their daily household activities. Even a small disruption in the working of the water heater can upset the overall arrangement. People living in colder places are more dependent on this appliance for their daily requirements. Pressure relief valves are found on gas or electric water heaters. The pressure relief valve is responsible for releasing pressure in the water heater.

Proper working of the valve is essential. If the pressure relief valve is not working properly, the tank might explode. Make sure this valve is working correctly. If it’s not, replace it immediately. Here are some steps to replace the water heater relief valve.

Remove all electric power from the hot water heater. In the case of a gas fired hot water heater, shut off the gas by the gas valve on the water heater tank. Shut off the cold water feed to the hot water tank.

Empty the water from the heater. Open a hot water faucet, and drain the water. It will hardly take approximately three to five minutes. No need to empty the full tank, just do it up to the level of the relief valve.

The process of replacing a faulty sink drain is not as much difficult as it is described by the plumbers. In reality you can easily replace it without the need of the plumber. Replacing a leaky drain requires some basic plumbing tools like wrench and a little bit of plumber’s putty. Using the above equipments, you can easily get away from the serious bill charged by the plumber instead. The above mentioned things can be purchased from any of the home improvement stores at reasonable prices.

Start off by confiscating the ‘p’ trap. The ‘p’ trap can be removed easily by detaching a pair of bolts that are holding it in place. If comfortable you can get under the sink so that you can get a clear view. After removing the ‘p’ trap, come over to the sink tail piece and remove it as well. You can unscrew the sink tail-piece by unbolting the nuts that are holding it in place.

Now, carefully unscrew the nut that is on the bottom side of the drain using your drain wrench. Be careful to hold the top side of the drain in its place until the nut on the bottom side is removed.

Have you ever fought with the clogged drains? Well, you must have undergone this dilemma many times. Every time you had a bath, a lot of hair, soap scum and other such debris gets build up in the drains, resulting into chocked drains. The situation is not that big if cured in time. But at the same time, small negligence from the home owner’s side can worsen the situation.

Accumulation of the wastes like hair and soap scum generally clog the drains. Calling a plumber or a drain cleaning company each time you get a clog can indeed be expensive. Fortunately, there are steps you can take before calling a plumber to try to clear that clog.

Clearing up the drain blockage becomes a child play if one has an auger with him. For those who do not have this wonderful device can go on cleaning the drains using the steps mentioned below.

First of all, remove the strainer from the drain. For this, all you need is to unscrew the screws that are used to hold the strainer in place. The type of strainer that is has no screws, remove it using the pair of nose pliers.