Preventing Flood damage
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Most Home Floods Are Preventable
Here's how
Most home floods ARE preventable. Statistics show that a home will suffer some sort of flooding every 5 TO 10 years. Mitigation costs can easily exceed $5,000.
A simple water extraction and mold treatment in a 12 X 12 carpeted room can exceed $1,000. If the leak occurs on a second floor, the damage to personal property in the rooms below can easily run into the thousands of $$$$.
The most common cause of home flooding is not stormwater, but plumbing system failures. Besides prevention, there are reasonably inexpensive tools that will alert you to a leak long before it becomes a catastrophic flood, or results in thousands of dollars in repair and mitigation costs - not to mention heartache.
The Two Common Types of Plumbing System Failure:
- Fresh Water Supply Failures
- Waste Water Backups
Fresh Water Supply Failures
Common Causes
- Wear and tear, builder construction faults. These result in long delayed pipe failures due to compounding effects of friction and/or incremental pipe movement. (The image to the left is a typical example of a hole worn through a pipe after years of friction against another pipe.)
- Damaged valves, frozen pipes (They can crack and will burst when thawed)
- Old appliances, particularly water heaters (when they wear out, they tend to fail suddenly and catastrophically).
Indicators To Look For
- Unexplained fresh water discovered in unlikely places such as the base of a wall or near a water heater.
- Unexplained sounds of water running.
- Decolorization at the base of walls, indications of mold
Prevention
- Follow freeze warning procedures – (let pipes drip, keep heat on, disconnect exterior hoses, etc)
- Know where water supply cut offs are located in your home, and know how to use them.
- Virtually all plumbing fixtures have water supply cut offs under or next to them.
Proactive Steps You Can Take
- Test Cut Off Valves Annually
- A good practice is to do this in the Fall – schedule it at the same time you plan to replace smoke detector batteries.
- We suggest you have a plumber do this the first time around if you have an older home. (Click here for our list of Dallas area Preferred Plumbing Providers)
- In many cases you can do this yourself by slowly turning your supply cut offs off and back on while water is flowing through them. (Start by turning clockwise, then counter clockwise). Do this slowly the first time. Older valve designs will take several turns, newer valves may only require a ¼ of a turn to fully close.
- If they leak, or fail to seal 100%, you must have them replaced.
- We suggest you have a plumber do this the first time around if you have an older home. (Click here for our list of Dallas area Preferred Plumbing Providers)
- A good practice is to do this in the Fall – schedule it at the same time you plan to replace smoke detector batteries.
- Install Monitoring Devices - see below
Waste Water Backups
- Common Causes
- - Age / wear and tear
- - Pipe failures due to movement, roots, manufacturing defects
- - Improper usage - putting inappropriate items into toilets and kitchen sink drains
- Kitchen sink/bathroom sink/bathtub/shower drains work slowly.
- Toilet flushes slowly.
- Water rising into fixtures from the drain for no apparent reason (Most common in the bottom floor homes of multifamily buildings – this is a sign of an imminent failure, contact a Preferred Plumber Immediately)
Prevention
- Never put anything in a toilet that is not bodily waste or toilet paper. This means ANYTHING, including paper towels, tampons, cotton, plastic or paper of any kind.
- Use kitchen sink drains and disposals properly.
- Sinks without disposals cannot be used for waste disposal of any kind. This includes cooking oil, grease or any particulate matter.
- Kitchen sink disposals are designed only for minor cooking scraps. They are NOT to be used to dispose of large amounts of any substance other than water. Oils, grease, fats, cereals, rice, of any kind will cause a back up sooner or later.
Proactive Steps You Can Take
- Arrange for periodic drain line routing. (If you share plumbing in a multifamily building the HOA is normally responsible for this task.) (Our Dallas area Prefered Plumbers offer discounts on scheduled periodic service)
- If you live in a multifamily building, share phone numbers with your immediate neighbors- (You want to be able to contact them immediately if you detect a leak – it could be from their plumbing, not yours)
- Use drain cleaning enzymes periodically in toilet and kitchen drains. (These are environmentally safe products that ‘eat’ waste lodged in drain pipes)
- Install Monitoring Devices
Montoring Devices
Taking preventative steps greatly reduces the likelihood of a leak. However, there are situations you cannot predict or control. Monitoring devices are the cheapest and best way we know to protect your property from flood damage. They are designed to provide early indicators of imminent floods.
The most common, and most inexpensive are simple alarms. They are designed to be placed next to fixtures and appliances that are common sources of leaks. In the simplest version, they are small box alarms with two contact points. When water leaks, the two contacts become wet, creating a circuit that directs the alarm to sound.
We have found them for as little as $10.00 on discount sites. However, there is a problem – if you are not home, or within hearing distance, you will not know when they detect a leak.
Fortunately, there is a solution. In recent years leak detectors have been designed to report the start of a leak to you no matter where you are. They communicate by using your home WiFi to alert you on your cell phone.
Prices for these types of devices run from $50 to $299.
The best one we have found is the Honeywell Lyric Wi-Fi Water Leak and Freeze Detector. Shown above, you can see the sensor module with the actual sensor wires placed under a clothes washing machine. The sensor is battery powered and easy to install.
You can find them retailing for $65 to $80 in hardware stores, but you get them for under $60 on Amazon.
We suggest using them in kitchens, bathrooms, laundry rooms, next to water heaters, and at adjoining walls where your neighbor has plumbing fixtures on their side of the wall.
Monitoring Devices are a cheap way to protect your property and bank account – strongly recommended.
You can find them retailing for $65 to $80 in hardware stores, but you get them for under $60 on Amazon.
We suggest using them in kitchens, bathrooms, laundry rooms, next to water heaters, and at adjoining walls where your neighbor has plumbing fixtures on their side of the wall.
Monitoring Devices are a cheap way to protect your property and bank account – strongly recommended.
How to Unclog a Toilet with a Plunger &
How to Unclog a toilet without a Plunger
How to Unclog a toilet without a Plunger
- When it comes to waste water backups or drain clogs, the worst are toilet overflows. Some of the most common calls a plumber gets are:
- How to unclog a toilet,
- How to unclog a toilet with a plunger. and even more difficult,
- How to unclog a toilet without a plunger !
This article is all about solutions/answers to those questions.
Frankly, this unpleasant occurrence happens to everyone. And normally at the worst time! Here are our favorite tips on how to unclog a toilet.
First, and this may seem the wrong place for this statement: Get a plunger. Get it yesterday! Yep, that right, you really should have a plunger to unclog most toilet issues. So - Go Get One!
Ok, may it's too late, maybe you have to unclog the toilet without a plunger. Either way, follow these steps. The first 5 steps do not require a plunger.
Follow These Steps Exactly
- Turn the water supply to the toilet off. It's usually on the wall near the floor about one foot from the toilet on the left side. Do it now! (There are lots of reasons for this, I'm not going into them, just do it.)
- If you have not done this before, read the suggestions above under the heading "Prevention". (Rule 1 - Don't break the water shut off valve!)
- Is the toilet bowl still filling with water or overflowing? If it is still filling, you are being affected by something else. The problem is probably NOT a toilet clog. Contact a Preferred Provider plumber now!
- If #2 above does not apply, assess and wait. Seems funny to say this, but wait. Some toilet drain clogs will self-correct in a few minutes. If they do not, go to the next step.
- If the water in the bowl is not near the top of the toilet, Fill a pitcher with water and slowly pour it into the toilet bowl to 2 inches from the top rim. Don't worry, if you eliminated #2 above as the cause, your toilet is not going to overflow.
- Assess. If you tried the step above, your toilet may flush itself. If not, and it drains down slowly, repeat the step above two or three times. This works to unclog the toilet about 50% of the time.
- Didn't work? OK, now you DO need a plunger. But read below carefully. There are some very wrong ways to go about this.
- Follow this process carefully:
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Final Step: You've dislodged the clog! You are now a toilet plunging master!
Remove the plunger and use the pitcher to pour more water into the bowl. Carefully turn the water supply back on. let the tank fill and flush. (I like to do this a few times.
And, just in case, be prepared to turn the water supply back off if something goes wrong (which is exceedingly rare, but just do it so I can sleep tonight, knowing you 'got'er done' without flooding your bathroom).
Final Step: You've dislodged the clog! You are now a toilet plunging master!
Remove the plunger and use the pitcher to pour more water into the bowl. Carefully turn the water supply back on. let the tank fill and flush. (I like to do this a few times.
And, just in case, be prepared to turn the water supply back off if something goes wrong (which is exceedingly rare, but just do it so I can sleep tonight, knowing you 'got'er done' without flooding your bathroom).
