The Essential Checklist for Maintaining Your Home Plumbing

Whether you own a house or just renting an apartment, your home is your pride, which is why it is crucial to take good care of your residence, most especially your plumbing system. A healthy plumbing network is essential as it provides access to clean water and is responsible for flushing out wastes out of your home. In fact, the plumbing companies Sydney residents depend on when it comes to emergencies suggest that you follow a maintenance checklist to protect your home from plumbing disasters that may affect your family’s safety. Check Progress Plumbing

Here’s a short yet useful checklist you can follow as a guide in maintaining the health of your plumbing system at home.

Never pour grease, oil or fats into your sink

It’s easy, and sometimes becomes a habit, to dump excess oil down the drain after cooking. What happens then is it travels through your pipes and reaches the sewer, where more fatty blobs are waiting. They start to stick together and form an ugly fatberg. Fatbergs grow and grow over the years, clogging your sewer system and causing wastewater to flow back up into your drains.

Inspect and unclog your kitchen sink drains right away

Don’t leave standing water in your sink. It is unhygienic and will eventually produce bad odour. If you are using a sink strainer to keep food and debris clogging up your drain, make sure to clean them regularly or every after using the sink. Throw all the waste food into a trash bin. When you notice the water is still not going down, try running hot water into the drain to soften the blockage.

Use your garbage disposal unit properly

When using your garbage disposal unit, leave plenty of cold water running for 15 seconds even after the food grinding stops. Remember not to dump oil, bones, fibrous materials, and anything that could clog up your drain line.

Clean your faucets

Don’t wait for your faucets to look cloudy and stained before cleaning them. Keeping them clean and good as new is not just for aesthetics, but also to get rid of microbes and germs that can contaminate your water. It is also the best way to make the fixtures last longer.

Check pipes underneath your sinks

Under-sink leaks can cause mould growth and rot your kitchen cabinet and wall. Before it gets to this horrible mess, you must make inspecting your pipes a part of your weekly routine. Watch out for signs of leakage, rust and drain leaks.

Inspect your toilet bowl and tank

Among other things you need to inspect regularly is your toilet bowl and tank. Test if it flushes correctly to ensure that you are not wasting money on high water bills due to a faulty toilet.  You also need to check if the tank refills quickly or too long. If it doesn’t work the way it should, there must be something wrong with its flapper valve or water tank. Replace and fix the broken parts as soon as possible.

Check your sewer line

In any Australian household, one of the most overlooked parts of a plumbing system is the sewer line. Main reason? Well, it’s kind of gross and most people don’t want to think about where wastes and ugly, slimy stuff are going. But if you don’t think about your sewer now, you could be spending more time agonising over it when a pound of sewage spills to your home. That said, you need to allocate some of your time to inspect and look for signs of sewer clogs and blockages like slow drains and a very nasty smell.

Takeaway

You should not take for granted your plumbing system at home. Complicated plumbing issues usually start from minor problems like running toilets, clogged sinks and leaky pipes. Thus, it really pays to conduct a regular maintenance and inspection to prevent problems from getting worse. Most importantly, note that while there are some plumbing inspections and repairs you can do by yourself, it is still highly recommended to get a team of licensed plumbers to get the job done properly.

To save more time, money and energy, it is best to consult with a reliable plumbing company in Sydney. They can conduct a maintenance service that covers everything in this article’s checklist, plus those that are not listed here.