Archive for Water
No Water To Toilet? It May Be Your Toilet Supply Hose In Your MN Home.
Posted by: | CommentsWe have a technician meeting every Tuesday at our office. This meeting includes plumber, hvac technicians, and drain cleaners. Along with the training on new product and technicques is a section of the meeting where the technicians tell us what they are seeing in homes. This could be what home owners are requesting along with issues with products that they are replacing.
The meeting today brought up a problem that is costing home owners money when they try to keep their home from flooding with water due to a broken hose. It was an example of good intentions leading to unintended results.
According to our plumbers, there are toilet supply lines that are being promoted as keeping your home safe from flooding if they break. They are designed to close and not allow water to pass if they detect a flow rate that is higher than normal. This is a great idea and product when it works. However, it does cause a problem when you need to shut off the water to the toilet and then turn it back on quickly. The quick turning on of the water to the toilet results in the supply hose thinking that there is a burst and shutting off. The hose then needs to be reset before it will operate correctly or allow any water to flow.
Home owners are calling us to come investigate the lack of water in their toilet. This call results in a service fee that is uncessary if care is taken to follow the reset directions of the hose. It could also be that these hoses were put on by another plumbing company without the customer’s knowledge. Either way a service call is the result.
In order to prevent the supply hose from locking up you need to turn on the water slowly. This will simulate the normal flow that happens when you flush the toilet.
Call Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air if your toilet is not filling or is having any other problems.
Back to School is Great Time to Think Water Efficiency!
Posted by: | CommentsBack to school time is a busy and exciting time of the year. New clothes and school supplies for the kids, visits to the new classroom, mom or dad trying to get the schedule under control and cold water.
Back to school means that everybody is trying to get ready in the morning at the same time. Your water heater becomes the most needed fixture in your home. Water efficiency can play a huge part in how quickly and comfortably you get ready in the morning. It is amazing how getting a cold shower in the morning can slow you down for the entire day.
Making your water go further helps save money and can help with your comfort also. Using less water in the shower helps the hot water to go further and allows the water heater time to recover from the hot water use. More hot water to keep more people happy and ready to go.
Below are some great way to help with water efficiency.
- Low Flow Shower Head – The old style shower head uses 3 to 5 gallons per minute (GPM). These are not available anymore but are still in homes. New low flow shower heads are 1.5 and 2.0 GPM. In a typical 10 minute shower you would use 30 to 50 gallons of water with the higher use shower head. The new shower heads would be 10.5 gallons to 20 gallons. How much of this would be hot water depends on how hot you like your shower. This also does not include the 30 seconds most people let the shower run to warm up.
- New Water Heater – A water heater over time will develop scale on the bottom. This scale reduces the amount of water in the tank and increases the amount of time that it takes to heat the water since it is trying to heat through the scale at the bottom of the tank. New water heaters are more efficient and the same size water heater can provide you with more hot water through quicker recovery time.
- Tankless Water Heater – Tankless water heaters or On Demand water heaters provide you with hot water when you need it. Water is heated at the time of need and does not sit in a tank heating over and over again waiting to be needed. How water does not run out since there isn’t a set amount that is heated in a tank.
These are just a few of the many ideas on how to save water and money. These ideas will have the most impact when you are trying to get the kids off to school while you get off to work.
For more ideas you can go to http://eartheasy.com/live_water_saving.htm. You can also contact Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air with any questions or if you would like to learn more about what appliances or plumbing changes you can make in your home.
What Does A Sump Pump Do In A MN Home?
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Sump Pump by Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air
Everybody knows that a sump pump in your basement is critical to keeping water at bay and outside of the basement of your home. This time of the year is when a sump pump becomes your best friend and something you miss when it does not work properly
Sump Pump Pit in Basement
What isn’t known or written about as much is how the sump pump works in your home. Knowing how it works can help you understand why it is so critical to have in your home.
Most homes have what they call “Tiling” around their home. This is tubing that allows water to seep into it instead of trying to leak into the basement of a home. It reduces the pressure put against the basement walls by removing the water from the ground. The water that goes in the the tiling or tubing runs into plumbing pipes that are hooked up to it. The plumbing pipe then enters your home and empties into a sump pump pit. This pit is usually in a corner of your basement. The pit will contain a basket which will hold the water that is drained into it by the pipe that runs to the tiling around your house.
The sump pump sits inside the sump pump basket in the water that is gathered. The sump pump will have a pvc pipe coming out of it going straight up. This pipe will then be plumbed out of your home away from your home. This piping if done correctly will lead the water away from your home so that it does not work its way back into the sump pump pit again.
The sump pump has a form of float in it that tells it when there is water in the pit to be pumped out. This prevents the overflow into the basement of water. Water will fill up the basket resulting in the float to raise. This will signal the pump to start pumping the water out of the pit into the plumbing pipes. The sump pump has a check valve which opens when water is going up into the pipe and closes when the pump shut off. This prevents water from the pipe flowing back into the pit.
For everything to work correctly, it is very important that you have the sump pump installed correctly. A licensed plumber will know the correct piping procedures to make sure the water goes up and out of your home and away from the foundation. Having a sump pump isn’t enough to protect your home. As with everything, the correct installation is just as important as having one.
Call Minneapolis Saint Paul Plumbing Heating Air or contact us online if you have any questions or would like your sump pump install inspected.