Most sump pumps rely upon mains electricity to keep the basement of a house dry and flood free. However, one of the most common times that you can experience a power outage is during or shortly after a heavy storm – a period when your sump pump should be working its hardest. This is where [...]
Plumbing
There are all sorts of differences in water systems meant for city water and ones made for well water. We will talk about typical well water systems and what you need to know about them. We also intend to provide you with some solutions for different well water problems that you may have if your home is fed with a well instead of with a city water supply system.
If you have a home without city water, chances are that you have or will need a well. There are many things you need to be aware of if you plan on owning a home with a well or if you need to install a well. You want to be sure your water is safe to drink and that your well meets your state’s local codes.
A whole house water filter system is a water filtration system that is hooked into the main water line of your home. Therefore, it filters all of the water coming into your house instead of just filtering it at the kitchen sink like some other systems do. That means that not only is your drinking water filtered, but your laundry, shower, toilet, bathroom sinks and any other water source inside the home is filtered as well. That way you are sure to get contaminant free water regardless of where you get it from in your home.
Different Types of Filtration Systems
A slow draining shower is almost certainly due to either a drainage blockage or possibly a shower tray and its plumbing fittings not being correctly angled. Needless to say, blockages should be fairly easy to rectify and clear to get the shower draining properly, so too should showers with a tray. But having to sort out a slow draining shower in a wet-room – will be a more difficult undertaking.
Causes of Shower Blockages
You need to remember the shower is for taking a shower in, drying yourself off and then stepping out of it. If you stand their using cotton-buds, tissues, face-mask packs etc – you need to be careful that you don’t create debris that can get washed into the shower drain.
The hissing faucets, banging water pipes, and screeching showers that go with noisy plumbing are annoyances, and can indicate a need for repairs or adjustment. In order to diagnose them, the first thing to do is to figure out if they come from the inlet side (when water is turned on) or from the drain side (when water is leaving the system).
Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) piping is acceptable for use in drain waste vent plumbing, and it’s use in these systems is widespread. One of the reasons for that is it is relatively inexpensive, lightweight and easy to join with simple tools. PVC pipe is joined together with PVC fittings using cement. Before the cement is applied a special primer is brushed onto the surfaces to be joined.
The rigidity and toughness of the type of polyvinyl chloride used in PVC piping requires treatment by a primer, which softens the material in order to improve the adhesion of the cement bond. It also cleans the pipe of grease and dirt.
Plumbing made from acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic pipe is joined together with cement adhesive and fittings. Plastic pipe’s ease of joining is one of it’s advantages over copper and iron piping. It does not require soldering, so there is no danger of starting a fire when installing or repairing it as there is with copper, and unlike no-hub iron pipe, it can be worked on in areas with limited access. Joints are highly leak-resistant once cemented, the inner bore is very smooth, which helps solid waste pass and lessens frictional loss.
Water supply to a house doesn’t always come at the perfect pressure; the municipal water main pressure may be too high or too low for a home’s needs. Different regulating devices are available to compensate for the various problems with water supply pressure. The following lists the basic types of devices and their uses.
Copper pipe used in home plumbing systems is joined by soldering. Soldering, or “sweating”, as plumbers call it, creates a watertight seal at the fitting between two pipe lengths. The basic steps are- flux is applied to the outside of the copper pipe and the inside of the fitting; the fitting and pipe are then assembled and heated with a soldering torch and the solder is applied to the joint. It’s called sweating because tiny sweat-like droplets of hydrochloric acid are formed on the surface of the copper pipe when it is heated.