All Things Plumbing & HVAC: The Orange Coast Plumbing Blog
Need to know what’s an emergency and which problems can wait? Which problems you can solve DIY? The Orange Coast Plumbing blog helps you understand common plumbing, heating, and air conditioning issues.
A hot water recirculation system moves heated water around your plumbing so that it arrives in a fraction of the time.
At the heart of it is a recirculation pump installed on your water heater. It pumps heated water from the heater directly to plumbing fixtures. When the water in your pipes begins to cool, the pump kicks in and sends it back to the water heater to be reheated and recirculated.
The system includes a bypass valve, allowing you to control how much hot water goes into your plumbing and when the pump turns on. You can turn off the recirculation and save energy if you’re away from home.
A plumbing disaster, if you’ve ever experienced one, is unforgettable. Even traumatic.
Imagine your panic when the living room floods at 10 PM and the shut-off valve fails to stop the flow. Many plumbers offer 24-hour service. Still, they may not arrive in time to prevent damage to your furniture and walls.
Toilets clog for all kinds of reasons.
Sometimes, it seems like they clog out of spite.
More likely, someone put too much paper in the bowl, or the sewer pipe is getting long in the tooth and working at reduced capacity.
Most toilet clogs are minor and need nothing more than a DIY repair. But you need the right tools and knowledge for the job.
There’s a leak in the line connecting the toilet to your home’s water supply.
A visual inspection tells you the problem stems from the threaded connection between the water line and the bottom of the toilet tank.
Or the problem may lie with the threaded connection at the other end, between the supply line and the shut-off valve at the wall.
Those treaded connections! What’s a resourceful DIYer do? Run to the hardware store and waste an afternoon replacing the leaky connections?
Not when there’s Teflon tape lying about, an indispensable tool for any homeowner with more than a modicum of DIY repair ability.
It can certainly stop the leak, but you have to know how to apply it.
A heat pump water heater transfers heat from the ambient air into your water tank instead of burning natural gas or electricity. An HPWH can be up to three times more energy efficient than traditional electric water heaters. It’s much quieter than conventional models; if you’ve ever been disturbed by the sound of your old unit at work, this can be a godsend.
So how much money can you save with an HPWH unit? According to the US Department of Energy, you might expect yearly savings of up to $330 and energy savings of up to 60%.
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