Plumbing Tips to Avoid Catastrophes – Father’s Day Edition

Father’s Day gives us the opportunity to honor the dads and father figures in our lives. It’s the chance to let them know how much they mean to us and to remind them of all the great memories we have made with them.

It’s important to remember the successes we’ve shared, but it’s also important to remember the fails. This way we don’t repeat the same costly mistakes over and over again.

In particular, it’s important NOT to walk in Dad’s footsteps and try to fix all our plumbing issues on our own.

Toilet Installations Aren’t Fun

Once in a blue moon, it’s time to change the toilet in your bathroom. This can be due to remodeling or because the old toilet is leaking. Often, people are tempted to install their own replacement toilet… and in preparation spend hours poring over articles and video tutorials online.

Perhaps that has already happened in your household, or happened growing up. Although it’s tempting, we should leave this unpleasant job to professionals for our own safety. Many things can go wrong during a toilet installation.

Toilets can contain bacteria, hazardous waste, and toxic sewer fumes like sulfur dioxide. Plumbers who regularly work with sewage and contaminated soil, have to be up to date with vaccines. Tetanus and Hepatitis shots are some of the most common ones. They also risk coming into contact with leptospirosis, E-Coli, and parasites.

Although not all these might be present in a toilet, why take the risk? especially if you aren’t healthy enough. There even is one particular health risk if you forget to properly sanitize all the tools and clothing you use for installations as well. Add to that the possible body injuries. Toilets are heavy, and lifting things the wrong way can hurt your muscles, particularly your back.

Among other things you could pinch your fingers, hit your head, or hurt your knees. Although you might have saved money from hiring a plumber, you might have to shell out the money to a physician instead if worse comes to worst!

The Duct Tape Repair Myth

If you were trying to find the perfect gift for Dad this year, it’s likely you came across Father’s Day duct tape gifts. There are many crafts done with duct tape and even shirts that make fun of his love of duct tape.

This comes from their want to use duct tape for plumbing, but we caution against it. Duct tape can be used to fix tiny leaks on pipes, but it isn’t the long term solution some people claim it to be.

Duct tape will only hold a leak for so long, and the longer you wait to repair a pipe, the worse the situation can become. It’s important to have a plumber evaluate and fix the problem, rather than waiting for the leak to grow and cause damage to the house.

Drain Snakes Can Cause Plumbing Damage

When you get a bathroom clog, dad might want to go rent a drain snake to clean out the pipe. If he’s done this a lot and was trained to do it, great, more power to him!

But oftentimes people rent a snake with little to no experience and damage their plumbing system. Using a drain snake the wrong way can cause leaks, cracks, or scrapes.

These scrapes can lead to corrosion and eventually even burst pipes. If you’re using a snake to clean your toilet, without experience, it can lead you to tons of repair bills. The snake’s recoiled wire could also injure you–not to mention again the risk of bacterial infections.

This Father’s Day, celebrate your Dad’s & Father Figure’s success and support their love of a good challenge. But don’t let him or others in your life make the mistake of doing plumbing jobs alone. Professional plumbers can help keep you safe, happy, and sane… Simply by doing all installations and repairs with speed and efficiency.