Whether you dream of becoming a professional plumber or would simply like to improve your skills so you become handier around the home, a great place to start is understanding the most common plumbing problems and how to fix them.
From dripping taps to leaking pipes, here are just a few of the most common water woes you may come across:
1. No Warm Water
Every plumber will be familiar with the complaint that there’s no hot water. This can be extremely inconvenient, especially during winter months, so getting it fixed asap is often a key concern.
A lack of heat can be attributed to a number of issues, therefore a number of checks will need to be made before a fix can be made. This may include anything from checking the supply is on and there isn’t a timer to monitoring boiler pressure and analysing the electrical supply.
2. Constantly Running Toilet
Sometimes, you flush the toilet and the water continues to run. This is easy to fix once you’ve diagnosed the issue. The most likely cause? Overflow tube issues, a poorly positioned float or a faulty flapper.
3. Poor Water Pressure
There are many factors why your water pressure may be different from property to property, however, a sudden change in pressure could be an indicator of an unknown leak or a clogged pipe.
4. Blocked Drains
Wet wipes, condoms, cotton balls, paper towels, cigarette butts – these are all things you may think are ok to flush down the loo, but are actually main offenders when it comes to blockages. If there’s a blocked drain, this is likely the cause.
Other causes could include a build-up of fat or oil, hair or leaves.
5. A Dripping Tap
The drip, drip, drip of a leaking tap can be extremely annoying and can waste a lot of water over time. This is most likely due to a degraded or damaged washer, but could be an issue with the valve seating. Either way, this should be a relatively quick fix.
6. Sump Pump Problems
Sump pumps may be designed to remove water and moisture from basements, but during prolonged periods of rain they can become overwhelmed and fail. There are a few basic checks that can be made, but in most cases a direct swap will be required.
7. Leaky Pipes
Last but not least is coming across a damp patch or puddle – a key sign of a leak. Locating a leak can be tricky – especially as most pipes are concealed in walls, floors or ceilings – but following the flow of water backwards is the general rule. Hint: leaks are commonly found at pipe joints.
Improve Your Plumbing Knowledge
Okay, so admittedly we didn’t go into too much detail about how to fix these common plumbing problems in this blog post.
For detailed training on how to mend these, plus install plumbing, sign up to one of our plumbing courses.
Train to become a plumber today or read more from our blog:
How to Become Gas Safe Registered
10 Top Plumbing Safety Tips
Plumber or Heating Engineer: What’s the Difference?
