Fullerton Plumbing Tips for Summer

There is a cure for the summertime blues here in Fullerton: at least if those blues are caused by plumbing problems that can crop up this time of year. Make sure your summertime living is easy by following some simple preventive tips to keep your plumbing healthy - and having access to a professional plumber just in case.

Starting on the outside of your home, if you have embedded sprinklers, they’re liable to be more in use now than at any other time of year. So be sure to clean the heads, and inspect them for any wear and tear.

Inside, avoid wear and tear on your dishwasher, garbage disposal, and kitchen drains following these tips:

Rinse dishes before they go in the dishwasher.
Keep foods like stringy celery, banana peels, watermelon rinds, and corncobs out of your disposal and into the trash or composting can.
Run water before and after you use your disposal to keep the drain line clear. Let the water run for at least fifteen seconds after you’ve put any food down the drain.
Do watch what and how much you put down your disposal at one time.

In the laundry room, with heavier loads of clothes passing through your washing machine, due to summer activities, there are more problems that can occur and wear and tear on your washer and dryer. Replace washing machine hoses regularly every few years to prevent cracks in the lines. Don’t overload your washer. And shake out clog-inducing sand before you toss that bathing suit and beach towel into the machine.

In the bathroom: vacation time means more people in your house, and more toilet paper in use. Limit the amount of paper passing through the pipes at any given time, keep a plunger handy.

And connecting all your plumbing is your sewer line of course. Tree roots grow in summer and can cause intrusion into your lines. Have a plumber inspect your line pipes and let you know if any damage has occurred or if you’re susceptible to problems. A non-intrusive plumbing camera can quickly assess any trouble spots and prevent issues or keep solutions simple.

Sewer lines can cause a world of headaches if they crack, break, or burst. While sometimes problems can occur no matter what you do, it’s relatively easy to minimize the extent of the problem and prevent damage to your home.

How? Maintenance! Just as you wouldn’t wait until you lost a tooth to schedule a teeth cleaning, you shouldn’t wait until there’s signs of trouble before have routine maintenance performed on your sewer line in Fullerton. Simple, regular maintenance through sewer line cleaning, and line observation by using unobtrusive plumbing cameras can mean the difference between a smoothly operating sewer line and a major plumbing issues.

Viewing any problems before they become enormous is key to providing an fast, cost-saving, and efficient to solution. For example, if you have trees on or near your property, roots will edge their way into any small crack in a sewer line and create the need for major repairs. If you spot that leak or crack early, this can be prevented. Knowledge about deteriorating pipes, rusted sections, or build ups of debris means you’ll be able to find a fast solution. Today, many sewer line repairs caught early enough, can be handled without using conventional, intrusive digging. Pipe lining and pipe bursting, both handled in a trenchless fashion are quick and economical solutions.

Non-invasive plumbing cameras provide your “insider’s look” at the sewer line, and regular maintenance - cleaning the line - prevents a host of problems. After all, if no cleaning or checking takes place, you won’t even know there’s a sign of trouble until trouble arrives. Smelly, soggy spot in the lawn? Backed up or slow moving toilets, sinks or drains? Don’t wait until one of these major issues occurs. A little look around and cleaning of that sewer line can save you time and money.

Staying Cool in Fullerton this Summer

Worried about how to stay cool this summer in Fullerton without spending a fortune on air conditioning? Don’t want to come home after a long day at work to heat and humidity? The easy solution of course is to turn on the air conditioning, but that uses up money and energy. It’s just not sound anymore for your wallet or for the environment. In fact, in many locations, the electric company offers discounts for people willing to allow their a/c to be turned off on certain days when energy is at a premium.

With this in mind, what is the alternative to using that air conditioning? Here are some tips.

Use fans whenever you can. Ceiling fans save energy and are proven to reduce temperature by around six degrees. And if you’re going out - turn them off, because they use power, too.

Set your thermostat to 78 degrees or higher and leave it there - but if you’re away at work all day, set it even five degrees higher.

Get a programmable thermostat. Inexpensive and easy to install,  you can program your home’s temperature to fit your schedule.

Clean or change your air conditioner’s filter yearly to make sure your unit is working well. Dirty filters mean less air flow and less efficiency.

At dinner time, don’t use the oven! Use the range or the microwave, or make a salad  - or cook several meals at once, preferably in the evening, when things have cooled down for the day.

Consider doing dishes by hand so that you can avoid that heat setting on your dishwasher’s drying cycle. Wait until you’ve filled the dishwasher before you run it to save energy.

Try to use dishwasher, dryer, and stove after the sun goes down or early in the morning - that way you won’t be adding more heat to your home when it’s hot outside.

Even your lighting can help you keep things cool - compact fluorescent light bulbs use 75% less energy and generate 75% less heat than standard bulbs!

Fullerton Plumbing Service

Just as it’s important to have a primary physician for your body, and a mechanic you can trust to maintain your car, your home’s health requires the use of professional services. Like plumbing. You may very well need to have a professional available to repair your roof, or repave your driveway, but let’s face it, how many times over the course of your residency will you need either of those services to take place?

But plumbing - plumbing assistance is just a fact of life with home ownership. Sure, you can minimize the need for this assistance by regularly maintaining your drains, being careful what you put down them, using filters and the like. But pipes wear and sometimes break, toilets sometimes overflow or clog.

And when you need to bring in a professional Fullerton plumbing service, you need to find the right service. Talking to neighbors and friends is one simple way to get a recommendation. Reading online recommendation sites is another. And referring to a plumbers website is another. However you narrow your plumbing choices, do spend some time looking at the services a plumber can offer. Does the plumber perform repair work only, or can he or she provide installation? After all, sometimes a leaky tub means you’d prefer to get a new one installed to replace it, and why not utilize the same provider, and keep things simple.  Also, check the plumber’s location. Local orientation means faster and more efficient service - whether it’s a routine visit or a middle of the night emergency.

And, check the plumber’s hours. Can you count on help if an emergency does occur, or does the provider work only 8-5 on weekdays? Also, how long has the plumber been in business? Experience does count.

Assessing all this information is key to finding the best plumber for you: local, skilled, and experienced.

Fullerton Drain Cleaning

Drain Cleaning Los Angeles

Drains, drains - they won’t go away. You wouldn’t want them to - you need them - in your bathroom, in your kitchen sink. You use them all the time, and like anything that receives heavy use, problems can occur.

With kitchen drains, grease and food waste can stick and make drains run slowly or clog and back up - and then it’s time to call the pizza delivery service, because you won’t want to be washing dishes until the issue is resolved!

In the bathroom, hair, soap, and grime are the build up culprits. Keep an eye on your shower and tub - before a drain becomes completely clogged it may simply run slowly. That’s not normal - water should drain right away when you shower, and rapidly post-bath.

Toilets can also be problematic. Whether it’s an excess of toilet paper or accidentally flushing baby wipes or facial tissue which dissolves less easily than toilet paper, clogs do happen. A plumbers’ snake is usually the easiest way to cut through the clog and clean the drain at the same time.

Then there are the drains you may not usually even consider - ground level drains such as drains on patios, in driveways, or laundry rooms. These drains usually contain a trap that can get clogged, causing back up.

Using drains everyday means that over time, almost inevitably, there’s going to be a clog or two. You can try to prevent this by using a drain filter in the bathroom to catch hair, running hot water anytime you put anything down a drain, pouring boiling water into a mildly clogged drain and being patient, adding more and more hot water until the clog - whatever it may be - dissolves.

But none of these measures help all the time. Sometimes you need to bring in a pro to do the cleaning. And you want to make sure you’re working with someone who knows what they are doing. Look at online reviews, ask for referrals. Drain cleaning Fullerton style: get rid of that clog fast and efficiently, or prevent it from happening in the first place with professional cleaning before a problem arises.

Make Your Fullerton Home a Greener Place to Be

Making your house in Fullerton, CA green is a lot easier than it used to be. And it's a good plan - you can save time, money, and the planet at the same time, more or less - all without taking on an overwhelming amount of work either. In fact, going green at home has never been easier.

Let's start with the basics. These include getting rid of older, inefficient appliances. This is a good plan for your wallet as well as for the environment. Some people are very surprised at how much they save after they purchase Energy Star rated refrigerators or washer dryers that are more friendly, environmentally and use a lot less power.

And here's an inexpensive and incredibly easy change - just replace your light bulbs. That's right, get rid of incandescent bulbs and replace them with fluorescent lighting, or LED type lighting. Again, savings for your pocket book, and energy savings for the environment.

Another favorite, efficient, cost saving green change is a programmable thermostat? These inexpensive devices make temperature alteration a snap. Using this kind of thermostat allows control of the temperature in each individual room in your home. So your bedroom can be toasty warm, and your living room stay cool all night long. Or, turn on the a/c for that dinner party in the summer, cool off the dining room and kitchen - but moderate the temperature in the part of your home where you're not entertaining.

And then there’s water savings. Naturally, low-flush toilets and low-flow showers are a great idea. But many Fullerton home owners are selecting landscaping choices that result in even more savings. Replace those non-native flower beds that need constant watering with native plants that grow beautifully in Fullerton, and live longer, too.

Spring in Fullerton

This is my first blog post - that's one sign of spring! But there are a lot more. Sure, some parts of the U.S. are still seeing snow, but here in Fullerton, CA, we've got blue sky, daffodils in gardens, and sunshine.

Here are some of the things I do to put the winter months behind me:

After work exercise. No more early morning sessions at the gym.  I can take a run along the sand at the end of the work day, with more daylight to guide me through the sunset.

Garage sale. Spring cleaning only sounds like a cliche, in reality one of the best ways to clean out the house is to get rid of unwonted items. Whether it's outgrown children's toys or that apple-baker your great aunt gave you, having an old fashioned garage sale is a great thing to do. Not only can it put a little extra cash in your pocket, left overs can be donated to a worthy charity or two right here in Fullerton.

Home maintenance. You don't have to go overboard. Just pick one necessary item and make sure it gets done. So whether that's cleaning out or replacing rain gutters, or replacing that leaky shower head, just do it. No procrastinating.

Finances. Yes, it's almost tax time. Spring is the time to get your receipts and your 1040's in order, whether it's you putting it all together or your accountant.

Recreation. Have you been longing to take up tennis again? Or learn how to surf? Or do you have a great Fullerton  location you want to visit but haven't - like the Arboretum, for example. Apply the same principle here as you would to chores - just pick something fun and do it.

Goodbye winter - hello springtime in the Southland.