FREQUENTLY ASKED PLUMBING QUESTIONS

Flushing water heaters are definitely important. ALL-PRO recommends you flush your water heater at least once per year and if you don’t have a water softener we increase that to 2 times per year. Flushing water heaters remove a lot of the unwanted lime and scale that hinders your water heater to work efficiently. The unit has to heat the water by going through a layer of basically rock which requires more energy than a unit that gets regularly maintained. The lime and scale also displaces water I.e. this means if you had a 50 gallon water heater with lime and scale accumulating, over time you could be losing as much as 5 gallons of capacity.

Almost all contractors charge trip charges. There are expenses that occur before a tech even gets to the customers door. Licensed, professional plumbers are valuable in today’s economy and compensated as such. There are also vehicle expenses, tech wages, insurances, registration fees for municipalities and many other expenses. These are just cost of doing business that gets passed on to the customers. The companies that offer free estimates usually recover that cost by charging more for the job.

If the outside faucet is installed correctly it should have pitch away from the building. This allows the water to drain out when the faucet is turned off. However, when a hose is left connected the faucet, water has no place to go causing it to possibly freeze. With freezing come ice obviously but, what most people don’t realize is that ice also produces extreme pressure. The pressure is what causes pipes to rupture.

Mechanically your plumbing system is probably not going to be harmed any by this drip or running. Your wallet or pocketbook will be taking the brunt of the damage for this one. Depending on the leak/drip you could be losing as much as 10 gallons of water per day. Most of us in the Indianapolis area are on municipal water which means your paying for water that just goes right down the drain. These little nuisances can end up costing several hundred dollars over the course of a year on your water bills.