DIY Plumbing: Leaks You Can Handle and Ones That’ll Ruin Your House!
We’re back with Scott Smolski, owner of Waterman Mechanical in Edmonton, to talk about the top DIY plumbing tips every homeowner should know. Whether you’re dealing with a leaky faucet, a clogged drain, or just want to be more confident handling minor plumbing tasks, Scott’s here to help you avoid costly mistakes and know when it’s time to call in a pro.
All right, Scott, thanks for being here.
Thanks for having me, Trevor.
A Plumbing Tool Every Homeowner Needs
Awesome. So, Scott, for homeowners in Edmonton looking to tackle small plumbing tasks, what’s the first tool they should invest in—a small plumbing task?
I would say a wrench. A wrench. A wrench.
All right, yeah. What type of wrench? Any specific wrench?
An adjustable wrench. Most people call them a crescent wrench.
Mhm. And what does that help you do?
So that’s going to help you tighten up valves. A lot of the leaks that we take care of can often be tightened up with a crescent wrench or an adjustable wrench.
How Should Homeowners Handle a Leaky Faucet?
Perfect. There you go. Question number two: Let’s say somebody notices a dripping faucet. What is a simple fix that they can try before calling in a plumber?
So, before calling in a plumber for a dripping faucet, obviously you can shut the water down and see if you can easily take apart that plumbing fixture that’s dripping. If it doesn’t look like it’s going to be an easy fix, then you might have to end up calling us, because you do need more than just an adjustable wrench to fix most of the faucets in your home.
Sure. So, when it comes to a leaky faucet, what are some of the potential problems that occur with a leaky faucet?
So, potential problems would be a cartridge that can be dislodged with any sort of buildup—calcium buildup or rubber from different parts of your plumbing system. Your valves: a lot of the older-style shut-off valves have rubber seats or washers, and that can get dislodged over time and get caught up in your cartridge, causing faulty cartridges.
Should Homeowners Use Draino?
There you go. Fair enough. Number three: Are there any safe and effective ways to clear a clogged sink or shower drain without using harsh chemicals?
The best way is the mechanical method. Sending down a drain auger is obviously the best choice. We don’t typically recommend much for the chemical treatments just because it is hard on the system. It can be hard on older pipes, and if you do have a leak in your piping system that you’re unaware of at the moment, it can present itself with some of the harsh chemicals.
Okay, so get something down there and yank that thing out, or call a plumber.
All right. I think the answer at the end of all of these is “call a plumber.”
Edmonton Homeowners Need to do This to Winterize Their Home
Okay, yeah. Question number four: How can Edmonton homeowners winterproof their plumbing without hiring a professional?
So, the best thing you can do in the fall is disconnect your hose, by far. A lot of homeowners phone us and they haven’t disconnected their hose, so the water—even in a non-freeze hose bib, Trevor—the water’s going to sit in that hose bib, it’s going to freeze, and there’s most likely going to be a crack in your wall or ceiling. Then come springtime when they go to use the water again, it’s going to present itself and possibly flood your basement. There you have it, folks: disconnect your hoses. That is the number one winter tip—disconnect your hoses.
The other one I would recommend come fall is always make sure that your main water shut-off works and is properly functioning. You can test that. It’s right beside your water meter, which is often located in your mechanical room beside your hot water tank or thereabouts.
The biggest thing you can do is just turn it off. Make sure that when you do turn it off, you test the faucet upstairs or downstairs—let the water run for a while, because the pressure should drop, and then you should just get a small trickle or no water at all after some time. If you can’t shut off your main water, then when you do have a leak—if something springs in the winter because of a frozen pipe—then you’re going to turn it off and it won’t do it, so you’re going to have a continuous leak, and then you’re in real trouble.
Yeah, then you’re going to have a swimming pool in the basement. An indoor soggy—an indoor pool you never wanted.
Exactly. Ice cold.
Do Sump Pumps Need Anything Different in Winter?
Yeah, right. Okay, the other thing I was thinking about was your sump hose. I had one time in our last house that we owned, the sump hose was still connected and it froze. Then I kept hearing this noise, and I’m like, “What is going on?” The sump tried clearing but it froze right at the connection outside.
Okay, so it would go up and then it would drain back down; it would go up and drain back down. So it was trying to—yeah, it just kept on cycling and then can obviously burn out your pump, so then in the springtime when you actually need it, it’s not working anymore—but you don’t know it yet.
So yeah, disconnecting the sump hose is a big one. The other thing: a preventative measure we can do is put a summer/winter switch-over in some homes. In some applications it works, and obviously in some it doesn’t, but that basically means you’re putting it inside the home into your drainage or storm system.
Cool, so that way it never freezes in the wintertime.
Right, did not know that. There you go.
Toilet Trouble: How Homeowners Can Handle Them
Number five: When it comes to toilet issues, what are a few DIY fixes that actually work, and which ones should people avoid?
So, I would think the biggest issue with toilets is either your fill valve becomes faulty, so it will just keep filling your toilet and you’ll hear a bit of a hissing sound. It sounds like maybe water is running, but you hear a slight hiss. You can kind of jiggle that; you could maybe lubricate it with a little bit of water or possibly some sort of silicone lubricant. That can sometimes save the lifetime of your fill valve.
The other thing would be a flapper valve—that’s in the bottom of your toilet tank. You don’t have to put your hand in the toilet bowl ever, but it’s in the back of your toilet tank. And honestly, you can just shut down your toilet supply line, clean it off—sometimes it gets caught up with debris or coated with some hardness. If you just clean it off and try it again, sometimes that works.
There you go, folks. A couple of simple tips that might actually fix it before you have to go to the store and try and find a replacement.
Exactly.
Checking for Plumbing Leaks in your Home
Awesome. Number six: What is the easiest way for a homeowner to check for hidden leaks in their home?
So, for a hidden leak, if you notice that your water bill is going up or something—say you look at your water bill, it’s gone up quite a bit that month—the best thing to do would be make sure that all your faucets are turned off, your dishwasher and laundry aren’t running. Leave your water meter on, but go and open it up and make sure the water needle isn’t still spinning when your house is not using any water. If it is, you’ve probably got a leak somewhere. Quite often it’s a humidifier valve; it can often be somewhere on your toilet or possibly a leaky shower that you just haven’t noticed.
All right, there you go. There’s some really good—really good answers to that question about mysterious leaks that you suspect might be happening. Then in that case, I would definitely call a plumber to come and sus it out and fix that.
For sure, yeah, and we can definitely do that.
Should Homeowners Install Their Own Bathroom Fixtures?
All right, number seven: You’ve probably seen some DIY jobs go sideways for sure. What’s one common mistake homeowners make even when they’re trying to do the right thing?
I would say the biggest mistake that we see homeowners do is they try to install their own shower systems. You can buy a one-piece shower kit from Home Depot or one of the big box stores; it says it’s easy to install, but there are quite a few issues that can arise from that: from your walls being out of level, to connecting the drainage and the water lines. You can’t tell some of that stuff in a finished home until it’s too late and it’s caused a lot of damage. So I think installing your own DIY shower kits is probably the number one problem that we see.
There we go. I—I did a bathroom one time; I will never ever do that again.
Yeah, it’s a lot of work. It’s awful. It’s not worth it for me.
What Homeowners Should Avoid With DIY Plumbing Projects
Um, okay. Number eight: For those installing new fixtures like a faucet or a shower head, what’s a tip that can help avoid damaging their plumbing system?
Try to not use a wrench and scar the faucet or shower head. That’s going to be one of the main issues you come across: somebody’s going to tighten it up and scar it, and then whoever bought that fixture or comes into the house to look at it isn’t going to like the look because it’s chipped up.
What should they tighten it with?
Well, there are different methods. Obviously an adjustable wrench is preferred. A strap wrench—there are different types of tools that we can use, or different techniques that we use.
I know we’ve talked about it at least once or twice in this video, but let’s go over it one more time. Share with us step by step how to safely turn off their main water supply.
So, if you need to shut your main water supply off at your home, it is always just before the water meter, which is usually in the mechanical room located near your hot water tank. Sometimes they’re in hidden spots in older homes; it can be far away. In that case, your best bet is to search for a large water line that’s going to your hot water tank and try to follow it back outside of the mechanical room, and then do some investigative work on that. But usually they’re pretty simple: you just go to your water meter location and turn it off.
Okay, so sometimes they’re the twisty kind; sometimes they’re the ball valve.
That’s correct. Newer ones are going to be a ball valve; it’s a quarter-turn, so it’s easy to tell when those are on and off. The handle should be in line or parallel with the water line, and when it’s off it’ll be perpendicular.
Right.
Okay, now the other ones are gate valves or globe valves, which you often find in older homes, probably before the 1990s or 2000s—you’re going to have to fully turn it to the right. Obviously, the old saying is “righty tighty, lefty loosey,” so you just turn that valve all the way to the right. Hopefully it isn’t in bad shape and it’s not going to break, because those ones do fail; they can leak or trickle. Then you can call a plumber like Waterman Mechanical to come over and replace that with a better valve. Oddly enough, we had one of our service techs out to somebody’s house to replace one this morning.
There you go.
Yeah, there’s a little bit of a procedure that you follow with EPCOR and we can walk you through that as well.
Know When to Call the Experts at Watermen Mechanical
Awesome. Thanks, man. Last question, finally: When is a plumbing issue small enough to handle yourself, and when should Edmonton homeowners pick up the phone and call Waterman Mechanical?
So, oftentimes when you’re dealing with faucets, I would say that’s probably your easiest bet, or possibly a hose bib—a leaky hose bib or a leaky faucet, like we talked about earlier, could be a cartridge issue on the hose bib. It could be a vacuum breaker issue if it’s a newer style of hose bib, and you can just untwist that and put in a new vacuum breaker. That’s an easy fix, and we get called out for those often.
But people have a hard time describing what the problem is sometimes over the phone, so before we get there we don’t always know if it’s the cartridge or the low flow in your faucet. Then you can take apart your aerator and just give it a quick clean-out. There’s a lot of water hardness in Edmonton’s water; we sell a lot of water softener systems. A quick clean-out of the cartridge can cure a lot of water flow issues.
All right, there you have it, folks. Thanks so much, Scott, for sharing all the valuable information with us about plumbing and DIY projects that people can do at home. If you guys are looking for some plumbing help in the Edmonton area, definitely call Waterman Mechanical.
Thanks, Trevor.
You betcha. See you next time.