Colorado N. Review 01.30.2016

This company has helped me twice (different issues).  The second time I tried to avoid calling them by doing the work myself and I was almost (so close) successful but there was a leak so I ended up calling McAdams.  They came and not only fixed the leak (which wasn’t my fault as it turned out – yay!) but replaced an old pipe and changed the handle too so it’ll be easier for me next time.  Rick is a great guy and the woman who schedules the appointments is kind and always answers the phone which is nice.  I’m glad I found this company.

McAdams Plumbing, Inc reply:

We are so glad to have you as such a loyal customer! Thank you for taking the time to write us such a great review! Those DIY jobs can be tricky but we are glad that we were able to tackle any of the loose ends with you. We look forward to working with you in the future!

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Turn Up the Heat on Frozen Pipes

Colorado winters have a whimsical way of making our plumbing systems resemble the frozen caverns of the Ice Planet Hoth (yea, your plumber just referenced Star Wars, we’re cool like that).

See what I mean?

Anyways, as we all know prevention is better than reaction. So with that in mind we give you the number one way to prevent your pipes from freezing:

KEEP YOUR HEAT SET TO AT LEAST 65°F AT ALL TIMES!
(when it’s below freezing outside, of course)

Yep, that easy. Fight the freeze with heat!

Is it 100% effective? No, it certainly isn’t. Winter in Colorado can be brutal and when it hits 10 below outside there’s a good chance a pipe in your garage or along an exterior wall will freeze, but this will prevent the other, easy to avoid problems.

Now, you may ask, “Chris, why do I care if a pipe freezes, won’t it just thaw?”

Great question!

The answer is yes, over time it will thaw. But when the weather is consistently below freezing this can take a VERY long time; days even. It’s best to just prevent the pipe from freezing than worrying about thawing it.

“But can’t plumbing companies come out and thaw my pipe?”

Sure, some can, if they can find it. Because of the amount of and complexity of the waterlines in your home it may be difficult or impossible to locate the freeze, and even worse it may involve making several holes in your drywall and ceiling before successfully located. There’s also a higher than 50% chance that the thawing machine used to warm the freeze will cause the copper line to split, forcing you to repair the line at an additional cost. That’s why McAdams Plumbing doesn’t recommend this practice.

“But I have PEX piping, not copper, what about that?”

Great! Pex handles frozen pipes much better than copper. It can expand and contract to its original form dramatically. This protects your home from freeze breaks. If you can locate the freeze in your PEX pipe you can easily fix it by slowly warming the spot with a hair dryer. PEX is fracture resistant, so there’s lower chance of it splitting, but it’s still possible. If you can’t locate the freeze, however, you’re still in the same boat of having to wait for the freeze to thaw.

I hope that helps give you a plan for protecting your home from frozen and broken pipes. You can find more tips on how to prevent frozen and broken pipes below in the “More Prevention Tactics” section.

Happy Monday and stay warm everyone!

-Chris

 More Prevention Tactics:

In order to make keeping your heat above 65°F more effective you can also open up all your cabinets, closets, and access panels in the house to allow the warm air to move around freely. The more “cold pockets” you have in your home the more likely it is you will have to deal with a frozen pipe.

Also ensure that any pipes you have running along an exterior wall or exposed to the atmosphere in anyway (outside of home, crawlspace, garage) are heavily insulated. Standard fiberglass insulation and foam pipe insulation are good options for this.

Finally, but most effectively, simply turn off your whole house water and open your faucets before you go to bed. By doing this you remove all water and pressure from your plumbing system while you are sleeping, and when the weather is the coldest, and make it close to impossible for your pipes to freeze. No water, no ice!

*Image courtesy of Starwarsreport.com.

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Locate Your Main Water Shut Off

As a homeowner, and even a renter, it is extremely important to know how to locate your main water shut off valve.

Why?

Because if you live in a home long enough you are bound to spring a leak somewhere, at some time. Often, that leak will appear behind a wall, in a ceiling, or on your water heater, and you may not have any choice but to shut down all your water to prevent flood damage until you can get a plumber out to help.

So in this week’s blog I’m going to show you how to recognize, find, and use your main water shut off valve so you can rest easy knowing what to do in case of an emergency.

Step One: Recognize Your Valve

There are 2 very common types of shut off valve you will find in not only Colorado homes, but most homes across the United States. They are ball valves and gate valves. They can range in size, but the most common are 3/4″ and 1″ for residential purposes. Handle colors may also vary, so don’t necessarily expect yours to be red or yellow. They could be blue, black, pink, or any other color of the rainbow.

Ball valves are very trustworthy and shut off with a simple quarter turn of the handle. When the handle is parallel to the body (as seen above) it is in the open position. When the handle is perpendicular to the body, it is in the closed position.

Gate valves take a little more effort to close and can become stiff with age. They are, however, very reliable and have a very long life. To shut off a gate valve simply turn the handle clockwise until it will not allow you to turn anymore. Make sure the handle is snug. Some gate valves require a little extra effort on the final quarter turn, but if you find yourself exhausted, hurting, or needing tools to fully close the valve it would be a good idea to have it replaced before an emergency.

Step Two: Find Your Valve

You main water shut off valve is usually in a basement or utility room of your home. In Colorado it is also common for the valve to be located in a crawl space if one exists. Due to the cold temperatures in Colorado it is rare to find a water shut off outside the home or in a garage and it is not recommended that you relocate your shut off to such a place.

Start by following the wall that faces the city street side of your home at the lowest point. If your home does not face city streets (i.e. rural properties) look toward the side of the home that faces your well. The shut off may be behind an access panel, coming off of a copper pipe that pokes through your concrete foundation, in the furthest corner of your crawlspace, near a water heater/furnace, or right in plain view. Less often the shut off is located in an upstairs mechanical room. This happens more in apartments, condo units, and multi-home complexes.

Step 3: Test Your Valve!

Once you have located your valve it is recommended that you test it to ensure it is operating properly. As with all metals in contact with water it will wear down and eventually become non-functional. If this has happened, you want to know before an emergency, not after.

In order to test your valve turn it’s handle following the directions in step one based on your type of valve. Once you have fully closed the valve go to your nearest faucet and turn both the hot and cold water handles to the “on” position. You should have a steady flow of water for a few moments which will become lesser and lesser until the water completely stops flowing. The more faucets you open the faster this process will occur.

If you have the main water valve turned off and you are still seeing water drip out of fixtures after a few minutes of waiting your valve may not be fully closing. Contact your plumber to have them come test the valve and properly replace it if necessary.

If you have a small leak coming from the packing nut (see picture below) on your shut off valve simply use a small crescent wrench first remove the handle stem nut and handle, then lightly tighten the nut and replace handle. Gate valves normally require a Phillips head screwdriver to remove the handle, however the packing nut is in the same location. Tighten only enough to stop the leak, starting a quarter turn a time time. Check after each quarter turn. If you over tighten two things may happen: 1) the handle may become too tight to turn, or 2) you may break the packing nut which will mean you must replace the whole valve.

If you are not comfortable performing the previous task contact your plumber to tighten the bolt for you. Sometimes it’s better safe than sorry, especially on older devices.

Residential homes often also have a water shut off located in a pit at the city street. You’ll recognize this by the round iron lid that is marked with your municipalities insignia. PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS! This shut off is for licensed professionals and city workers only. Because this valve is city property, not property of the homeowner, you could face a fine ($500 – $5,000) from your city for using this device.

For Licensed Professional and City Use Only

When you are ready to turn your water back on, do so slowly and purge the air from your waterlines starting with bath tub spouts first. There will be a lot of bubbling and gurgling as your system regains water pressure.

I hope that’s a helpful walk though. If you have any tips or ideas to help your neighbors find their valves, post them below. Also feel free to send pictures or messages with crazy places you’ve found your main water shut off valves.

Extra tip: Occasionally when you shut down your water system small pieces of debris can come loose. This is nothing to worry about, it causes no damage, however this debris can clog the aerators in your faucets. You can avoid this in one of two ways:

1. Simply unscrew and remove your faucet aerators prior to turning you water back on to allow the debris to pass. Then re-install the aerator after purging water.

2. Open a bathtub faucet on the top floor first. They allow for unrestricted flow, therefore if you let this run for a couple minutes it should remove the debris from your system without you needing to remove faucet aerators.

All the best!

-Chris

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Kohler Touchless Toilets Are Awesome!

So yea, the nerd in me just got all types of excited over the new Kohler Touchless flushing toilets. They are pretty awesome. Check out the video below:

How cool is that? Not only did Kohler produce a line of their most popular toilet style pre-installed with the Touchless system, they also made it so you can retrofit most toilets with the Touchless kit! So you can make almost any standard toilet a Touchless flush toilet simply by installing the touch less module!

The Touchless flush cartridge runs off of 4 AA batteries and has the average life span of a year with no added maintenance aside from chafing out the batteries. This product works with most canister and flapper toilets. It is not compatible with dual-flush, top-mount flush, pressure-assist, or ballcock valve toilets.

The most important benefit of going Touchless is the improved hygiene. With no need to touch the toilet in order to flush that’s one less surface we spread germs on in a bathroom. Every little bit helps. It’s also a quick, inexpensive, and impressive upgrade to any home. I know I’ll be bragging about mine to all my friends.

The Touchless Kit comes with a 1 Year Warranty.

For more information on the Kohler Touchless Toilet system and for pricing please call McAdams Plumbing at 303-465-1900.

Remember, McAdams Plumbing is you local Kohler Leading Edge Plumber. So we are here to answer any and all of your Kohler questions and have the knowledge and skills to assist you with all your Kohler/Sterling purchases and installations.

Thanks for reading along and happy Monday everyone!

The Proof is in the Plumbing!

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We’ve Got All the Right Tools!

One of the characteristics that separates professional plumbers from the rest of the wrenchers out there is the tools we use in our daily work. As you can imagine, there are a lot of different types of plumbing fixtures. Different producers, different parts, and different applications. All these different items require different tools.

It would be really nice if every producer and supplier of plumbing items used the same parts, but unfortunately that’s not the case. Because of this, plumbers have to be prepared for all the different styles of plumbing parts by having a wide array of tools for the job.

Most plumbers collect these tools over their lifetime in the industry. When new parts come out, they get the tool that’s made for that part. This is how we can repair and replace the fixtures in your home without causing additional damage.

Many times do it yourselfers and handymen will assume that they can use a standard wrench for just about anything, not realizing how delicate the part may be. We had a great customer recently decide to try and replace his own shower cartridge. He’s a handy guy with a good head on his shoulders, but unfortunately he just didn’t have the right tool for the job. What he ended up with was a completely broken shower valve that needed to be replaced.

You can see how the copper pipes twisted and crimped while he was trying to remove the cartridge. Below, you’ll see how the wrench dug into the body of the shower valve, tearing up the metal and exposing the new unsealed metal to corrosion and oxidation.

Now, McAdams Plumbing believes in self-sustainability and we completely understand folks wanting to do their own plumbing work. Heck, we support this! That’s why we host the do-it-yourself page. We just always ask you know your limitations.

When you get into a situation that feels uncomfortable, give us a call and talk about what you have going on. You may be able to save yourself a lot of money in repairs with a simple phone call.

As always, thanks for reading along. Hope everyone has a great week out there!

The Proof is in the Plumbing!

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Are You Drinking Toilet Water?

Our friends at 9News have posted a great investigation piece on back flow and how it can effect the water in your homes called “Are You Drinking Toilet Water?” You can read the introductory article and watch the teaser here.

The complete video investigation can be watched here.

The big takeaway from this article: be careful if you’re doing your own plumbing. Cross contamination is a big deal and can cause sickness in a healthy person, or more severe issues in a person with a compromised or weak immune system, like children or the elderly.

If you’re not completely sure what you’re doing when installing your plumbing, call a professional. It is the job of a licensed plumber to know all codes and regulations when it comes to drainage and back flow, and it’s their job to keep your family safe from cross-contamination.

If you have any questions or need assistance with your at-home plumbing project, call McAdams Plumbing today. We’re happy to take the time to discuss your situation and help you make the best decision for your family and your pocketbook.

The Proof is in the Plumbing! 

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Grease: Your Drain’s Worst Enemy

Thanksgiving is around the corner, which offers us this week’s blog topic: grease in your drains. It’s important that you remember after that big meal full of sleep inducing turkey, not to pour grease and food scraps down your drain. Most people are under the impression that you can put some food in your garbage disposal, I mean, that’s why it’s there right? Wrong! Even though your garbage disposal may be able to handle small, non-fibrous food scraps, your drains are not designed to. Food waste, grease, and debris builds up in your drain pipes and causes blockages.

The best way to avoid this problem is to ALWAYS brush all of your food scraps into the garbage before you wash your dishes. This will ensure you keep your drains clear and clog free and your garbage disposal free of performance reducing grease. In order to properly dispose of grease and oils, especially if using a turkey fryer, follow these steps:

• Once cooled, pour cooking oil and grease into a non-recyclable container; add kitty litter or coffee grounds, seal the container, and place in the trash.
• Scrape food scraps from dishes into trash. Minimize the use of your garbage disposal because even cooked foods contain oil and grease that can clog sewer lines.
• Remove oil and grease from dishes, pots, and pans with a paper towel or napkin.
• Pre-wash dishes, pans, and pots with cold water before putting them in the dish washer. Hot water does not remove oil or grease but rather liquifies them. Once they cool they return to solids and can clog the sewer lines.

For additional information about how to care for your drains in a safe, natural way, please take a look at this article from our friends at Networx.com:

http://www.networx.com/article/care-for-your-drain-the-natural-way

Hope you enjoyed the blog. If you have any questions or comment please leave them in the comment section below or call us at 303-898-0851. Remember to follow us on Facebook and Google+.

The Proof is in the Plumbing!

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Dishwasher Flooding Repair DIY

A common problem the folks at MP run into with their customers is dishwasher flooding. Luckily, just last week, we came across a great blog written by Chris Barnes of the Huffington Post about some DIY tips for checking your dishwasher before you call out a plumber. And since we’re in the business of trying to save you money, we’d like to pass on the info. Thanks for the great write-up Chris!

You can find the link to the article here.

Dishwasher Flood Damage

Some Main Takeaways

If you find your dishwasher flooding:

• First things first – unplug the dishwasher or turn off the circuit at the breaker box
• Remove all the dish racks and check the drain grate on the floor of the machine – food and debris can clog this and cause flooding
• If the water doesn’t drain after clearing the drain grate check the hose running from the machine and see if there’s a clog
• Remove the hose connection from under the sink
• Grab a bucket and remove some of the water from the washing machine to make it easier to pull the washer out (you’ll need to)
• Run some water from your sink into the dishwasher hose to see if the line clears
• Re-assemble and see if it drains properly – if yes then hooray! – if not then give us a call and we’ll see what we can do, or refer you to someone who can help!

Thanks for your time folks! As always drop any questions, comments, or suggestions below. Remember, the Proof is in the Plumbing!

Barnes, Chris. “Dishwasher Flooding Repair You Can Try Before Calling A Plumber.” Huffington Post. The Blog. Web. 4 Apr. 2013.

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Do It Yourself!

At McAdams Plumbing we are constantly trying to find ways to help our customers. Then we thought, why not just make a page that teaches people how to handle easy, safe plumbing repairs all by themselves? Thus, the Do It Yourself with McAdams Plumbing page was born!

With this new page McAdams Plumbing is going to post videos, articles, walk-throughs, etc., thoroughly explaining how to fix minor home plumbing problems. We are planning on covering many, many different topics anywhere from properly plunging your toilet, to how to unfreeze frozen pipes.

As always we really want to hear from you, our customers. All of you out there are the reason we are in business, so we want to know what topics you want covered! Please leave suggestions in the comments section, or feel free to email them over to me at [email protected]. Please also include a contact number in the email if you choose that route. The number isn’t so we can cold call you or anything like that, rather it just proves that you’re a real person, not a robot! Stupid robots.

Anyways, thank you as always for your time and attention. We hope you have a wonderful week and remember, with McAdams Plumbing, the Proof is in the Plumbing!

P.S. Since we dropped the ball on Monday, happy Martin Luther King Jr. day! Hope you all had a wonderful, safe holiday, and took the time to appreciate civilian sacrifices for the betterment of our country!

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