It’s possible that you’ve heard of rather unusual ways to at least temporarily fix a broken pipe or other plumbing problem. These fixes encompass everything from dental floss to chewing gum to white bread to a handful of moss. Even professional plumbers employ fixes that are a little bit out-of-the-box in response to problems that are uncommon or especially tricky.
What You Can Do First
First, before anything else, you need to find the main shut-off valve and other shut-off valves of your plumbing lines. If you ever have to shut off your fresh water, open the faucets on your top floors to drain your pipes.
It’s also a good idea to have a few jugs of fresh water on hand. That way, if you find a leak, you can shut off the water immediately, and you’ll still have water for at least a day or two. If the leak is caused by a puncture you can reach, stanch it with a little screw and a flexible washer.
Here’s how to use the dental floss. If your showerhead has a ball joint that’s leaking, take it apart, wrap the threads with some dental floss, then reassemble it. Make sure that the dental floss is unflavored. This is such an effective hack that you might not need a plumber to follow up.
Another thing that many people might not think of is to have a plunger for all of the toilets and keep them nearby. The toilet won’t wait until you run to the bathroom on the other end of the house to retrieve the one plunger.
Uncommon Problems That Plumbers Fix
Granted, the out-of-the-box repairs that plumbers sometimes have to do are most often caused by DIYers trying to fix a problem and making it worse. Clients use duct tape and gum to repair broken pipes, install drain pipes that force the water to defy gravity and actually remove P-traps that keep potentially deadly sewer gas out of the house.
Plumbers must repair these pipes and reinstall traps, valves, diverters and other hardware. They fix toilets that flush and faucets that turn all the way on by themselves. They also have to fish all kinds of objects out of their customers’ plumbing. These range from rubber ducks to false teeth to diamond wedding rings to electronics that are still working despite being underwater. Plumbers often utilize video cameras, snakes and grabbers to find and retrieve these objects. Some plumbers resort to using lengths of PVC pipe to extend the length of a grabber.
Of all the systems in your home, your plumbing is one of the easiest to understand. Yet it can be devilish to repair when things go wrong. The good news is that professional plumbers are trained to handle just about any problem. If you live in Brunswick, GA or a surrounding area and need plumbing repair services, make your first call to Hendrix Air.
