When to Stop Ignoring Your Plumbing Problems
It’s easy to close the door and turn a blind eye, or ear, to common plumbing problems like leaky faucets or running toilets. Unfortunately, the choice to ignore common plumbing problems is often detrimental to homeowners and property managers who also fail to recognize that these minor inconveniences lead to bigger, more expensive problems.
It can be hard to differentiate between a chronically leaky faucet and one that hasn’t been shut off completely, or a running toilet from one that had just a little too much toilet paper to process. How do you know when it’s time to face the facts and hire a plumber? Here are a few ways to tell you’ve let your plumbing issues go for too long:
READ MORE: When To Call A Professional Plumber
Your Waste and Utility Bills are High
Ignoring minor plumbing problems comes at a high cost – literally. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) WaterSense Fix a Leak site, letting a leaky faucet drip at a rate of 1 drip per second for a year means you’ve watched more than 3,000 gallons go right down the drain – and that’s a small leak! When you’re contributing to water waste, even at this seemingly passive rate, you’re raising your utility bill each month.
These leaks can worsen over time, resulting in even higher expenses. The cost of a leaky faucet won’t manifest all at once. It’ll sneak up on you in incrementally higher utility bills that will drain your bank account until it becomes impossible to ignore. The moment you identify a potential plumbing problem in your home – take note. If you have a drip that won’t quit, it’s time to call a licensed plumber to tighten things up.
A proactive approach to plumbing maintenance will help you identify and fix leaks before they creep into your bottom-line, saving you hundreds of dollars in the long run.
You’ve Noticed Water Damage
The biggest problem with water damage is that the root cause existed long enough for it to manifest into structural or cosmetic damage – meaning that in some ways, you’ve already waited too long to repair it. When it comes to leaky pipes, the water coming out has to go somewhere. Usually, the leaking water will follow the path of least resistance and pool wherever it can—such as in the floorboards, gaps in the wall, or the foundation of a home.
Collected water contributes to the following problems:
- Mold growth
- Rotted flooring
- Weakened wood support beams
- Rusting of metal building materials
By the time you recognize any of the above problems, your once “minor” plumbing issues become something much more formidable. The longer you leave water damage untreated, the more you put the structural integrity of your home at risk. The more damage done, the more expensive and complex repairs will be.
While the cost of water damage remediation will vary depending on the extent of the damage, it isn’t unusual for damages to exceed $7,000 when you factor in the labor for dry-out operations and the costs for replacing ruined flooring, drywall, ceilings, insulation, and other building materials.
Spending a few hundred dollars at the first sign of plumbing problems can help save you thousands later.
Your Property is a Health Hazard
Time is all it takes for minor plumbing problems to become major plumbing problems. Dirty toilet water can easily back up and cause chaos in multi-family residential units, let alone single-family homes. The standing water that collects in within a home’s infrastructure can lead to mold growth and the release of harmful spores. Mold spores aggravate the respiratory system and can easily incite a fatal reaction in those who suffer from asthma, COPD, and other respiratory illnesses.
Water damage, in addition to degrading the look of your property, can rot floorboards and cause uneven walking surfaces. All it takes is one person to trip and suffer from an injury to see just how detrimental “minor” plumbing problems can become. As a homeowner, these consequential injuries can be personally debilitating. For a property manager, it can mean personal injury lawsuits and negligence claims.
Don’t let plumbing problems hose you. An ounce of prevention is all it takes to secure your pipes and property against irreparable damage. The goal is to always stop plumbing problems before they put your home at risk. At the first sight of damage, find a licensed plumber to address the problem.
Finding a Good Plumber
Now that you’ve identified a possible plumbing problem, it’s time to find a reliable vendor. This is the step that often gets people stuck, leading to the aforementioned problems. Tracking down a pro in your area who is both available and qualified to do the work is a time-consuming task that can take hours – and that’s why many choose to ignore the red flags. Thankfully, the emergence of on-demand home services like HOMEE On Demand makes finding a licensed and experienced plumber easier than ever. With HOMEE, your plumbing service requests are instantly sent out to a network of thousands of fully vetted experts ready to help you within 30 minutes – a fraction of the time you’d likely spend on the phone trying to request plumbing services the old-fashioned way.
Are you ready to take the plunge into the future of plumbing system maintenance? Reach out to HOMEE today and enjoy a drip-free future.
