Union Of Plumbers, Fitters, and Welders

Monthly Archives: June 2011

Sound of Noise From Your Water Pipes

Have you ever turned off one of your faucets only to experience a loud noise accompanied by vibrations? If so, you experienced “water hammering” and had yourself a case of noisy water pipes. Water hammering is caused when a fast-moving stream of water travels down a narrow pipe and suddenly comes to a closed valve where it must come to an unexpected halt. It can be fixed.

Regardless of what your water source is, the truth is that constant water can not compress itself. For this reason, if the water must come to an abrupt stop it will result in a loud thud that can be heard throughout the entire house. This is why the problem is referred to as “water hammering.” Unfortunately the problem doesn’t end at the loud noise that gets created; the hammering is also capable of damaging joints and connections in the pipe.

Some people often wonder why a loud noise isn’t created every time a fixture is turned off. Really the answer is quite simple. First of all, water valves do not generally close quickly and unexpectedly. Most valves are designed to close slowly simply to prevent water hammering. However, overtime the gaskets in a faucet get old and brittle and eventually cause the faucet to close more quickly. This commonly results in a water hammer.

Water hammering is expected to happen once your valves start to close quickly, so to prevent this problem from arising, air chambers are built into the plumbing system. Air chambers act as cushions to prevent water from slamming against the piping. Unlike water, air compresses which makes it capable of absorbing the shock of the fast-moving water before it has a chance to slam against the end of the pipe.

Most household plumbing systems include air chambers. They are typically built into the plumbing system at critical locations such as the clothes washer or dishwasher. These areas are hot spots for watering hammering because it’s where electric shut-off valves close rapidly. However, some homes have air chambers built at every location where water is turned on and off. It’s often hard to spot air chambers because they are tucked away within the wall with the rest of the pipes.

The air chamber acts as if it were an upside-down water glass. Once filled with air it becomes a perfect cushion for the streaming water to collide with. However, in older systems there is the chance that air can leak from the air chamber. If it fills with water than it becomes useless and will make the water supply system noisy and prone to damage.

To resolve a water hammer problem, your best bet is to replenish all air chambers with air. The process of doing this is very simple. The first thing you should do is shut off your home’s main water supply valve. Once the water is off you will need to drain all remaining water from your pipes. Do this by opening a few faucets inside your house. Next, find the faucet at the lowest elevation; it is usually located outside. Turn this faucet on to drain all water from the pipes.

The reason you want to clear your pipes of water is because you want to add air. As the water is drained from the pipes, it is replaced by air. With all the water drained, you should then reopen the main valve. You will notice air being pushed out of the water lines causing a sputter as it exits the faucets inside. However, air will remain in the upside-down air chambers. Test out your faucets by running water and see if your water hammering problem has been cured.

Two Things To Keep In Mind

Sometimes noisy water pipes can occur when there is a loose pipe-mounting strap. This can happen even if all the air chambers are in good condition. Before refilling your air chambers, be sure to check all accessible pipes to ensure that they are properly and tightly connected.

There is another kind of air chamber called a shock absorber. It is said that shock absorbers won’t leak and will last forever, but they are designed in a much more complicated fashion and many feel that the fewer mechanical devices you have in your plumbing system, the better off you are.

Maitenance Your Septic Tank

Septic systems are used in areas where access to a municipal sewer system is neither available nor economically practical. They function as your very own onsite sewage treatment facility. Moreover, septic tanks are out of sight and odorless when they are properly maintained.

Septic systems consist of two main components, a drainpipe and a tank. The tank is buried below ground and has a drainpipe running through it that carries the raw sewage from the home to the tank. A series of drainage pipes extend from the tank to create the leach field. The leach field is used to cleanse and purify wastewater.

The septic tank itself can be constructed of various materials which include wood, concrete, steel, and fiberglass. It is designed to be watertight and virtually airtight. Raw sewage is collected and stored in the tank and as it remains there, beneficial anaerobic bacteria begin to break down the sewage solids.

Liquids enter the tank with the sewage, but are quickly discharged through an outlet that is positioned slightly lower in the tank than the inlet. This liquid is referred to as effluent. Once the effluent is discharged it is sent into a network of drainage pipes and then into the surrounding soil or the “leach field.”

A unique process of cleansing and breakdown occur in the leach field. This process filters the effluent as aerobic bacteria further break it down to create nutrients and chemicals that are beneficial to plant life. However, it’s important to know that using too much water can disturb the delicate biological balance within the septic tank. If this happens, the system will fail to work properly and efficiently. Furthermore, discharging more water into the system than it can handle can cause it to back up.

Septic systems are designed to last indefinitely as long as a small amount of routine maintenance is performed. However, the leach field will most likely require replacement after about 15 to 20 years of service. If you follow precautions and routine maintenance tasks, you can keep the system working efficiently for many years. Below are some descriptions of what your routine septic tank maintenance should include.

Use discretion when putting things into your septic system. It is very easy to disturb the delicate biological balance inside the tank. It also helps to add bacteria to dilute the amount of sludge and regularly pump the system.

Regular amounts of household bleaches, detergents, drain cleaners and other household chemicals can be used without upsetting the bacterial action in the septic tank. However, excessive amounts of any household chemical will cause problems and if you are not careful it will lead to a back up in your system.

Avoid putting coffee grounds, cooking fats, wet-strength towels, disposable diapers, facial tissues, cigarette butts, and other non-decomposable materials into the system. Since they aren’t decomposable products, they will end up filling the septic tank and plugging the system.

Do not dump grease down the drain. Temporarily store it in an old coffee can or milk carton and dispose of it with the trash. It could end up plugging sewer pipes or building up in the septic tank and plugging the inlet.

Spend the extra cash on a high quality toilet tissue that breaks up easily when wet. You can test your tissue by placing a handful in a jar half full of water and shaking the jar up. If the tissue breaks apart easily, the product is appropriate for the septic tank.

Lastly, be sure to clean your septic tank every one to three years. More specifically, how often you clean your tank will depend on the size of the tank and how many solids go into it. It’s important not to forget to do this periodically because overtime solids will start to build up and lead to bigger problems.

Something Problems With Your Toilet ?

The first step to solving some of the most common problems associated with toilets is to gain an understanding of how the toilet works. For most people, it’s understood that you flush the toilet with the handle and magically the water flushes away everything. Anything beyond the handle is a mystery to most.

The main components of a toilet include a tank, a bowl, a handle, a trip lever, a stopper and a ball-cock and flush-valve assembly. All of these components work together to make your toilet flush. Most often, if one of these components fails to work, then the whole process falls apart.

The handle is connected to a trip lever. When the handle is pressed down, it raises a chain or vertical rod that is attached to a stopper located at the bottom of the tank. The stopper is responsible for covering the flush valve. When the stopper is raised, water in the tank rushes through the flush valve. The flush valve is located at the bottom of the tank. The water then travels into the toilet bowl through small flush ports at the underside of the rim of the bowl.

At this point in the process, gravity plays a major role because it pulls the water in the bowl out through the trap and into the drainpipe. This causes the tank to empty out. As soon as all the water has left the tank, the stopper drops back into the flush-valve seat. Now the float ball has fallen down to the bottom of the tank which then triggers the ball-cock assembly to refill the tank with new water.

Water begins to enter the toilet via the supply line. The supply line is located below and to one side of the tank and then through the tank-fill tube. As the water level rises, so does the float ball. Once the float ball reaches a certain height it turns off the flow of water to the bowl. If for some reason the water fails to stop running, then the water is redirected from the tank to the overflow tube and then into the toilet bowl. This is often referred to as a “running toilet.”

A “running toilet” is a common problem with toilets. However, it can be caused by several things so it’s important to play around with different components to try and figure out what the source of the problem is. Almost always, the source of the problem is a float arm that is not rising to the proper height. This can usually be simply resolved by bending the float arm downward.

If you come to find out that the float arm was not responsible for your running toilet, then you may want to take a look at your stopper. It’s very possible that your stopper is not seating properly against the flush valve seat. This can be the result of deterioration of the stopper or a flush-valve seat that is damaged or corroded. Once again this can usually be resolved simply by replacing or cleaning the stopper and repairing the flush-valve seat.

Aside from a running toilet, other common problems include those that are associated with a cracked overflow tube and defective ball-cock valves. Repairing these components is an option, but you will find that it is often a better decision to just replace them. Also, you will find that some of the older ball-cock devices are not equipped with an anti-siphon valve. An anti-siphon valve prevents water in the tank from being siphoned back into the freshwater system. By replacing your ball-cock device with a new one you will be sure to get one that contains the newer anti-siphon feature. Additionally, it is often more expensive and time consuming to find and purchase individual parts then it would be to replace the entire assembly.