Easy-to-Fix Plumbing Problems ~ Plumbing 101 For Homemakers (she: Julie)

Hello everyone my name is Julie Zito, I am the mother of two lovely girls ages 5 and 2 and I am expecting our first boy in July! I am married to a great guy who works hard for our family and is a wonderful husband and father. He actually was my inspiration for this post!

So lets get right to it. My husband used to be a plumber with a Louisville, KY plumbing company so he messes with all the dirty nasty things that nobody wants to think about, let alone actually deal with. Fortunately there are some perks to being married to a plumber, for example: We have a killer disposal in our kitchen sink that my husband pretty much got for free! This thing is heavy duty to say the least. I’m pretty sure I could stick a cow leg down the drain and the disposal would gnaw it up like a beaver gnawing wood ( OK, that may be a slight exaggeration but, it is pretty awesome). Our toilets also have soft close lids on them. The lids are very light weight and all you have to do is tap the lid of the open toilet and the lid slowly, gently lowers it’s self until it’s closed. The problem is we have plumbing issues just like the next family. Ironically, my husband is never home when these emergencies occur or they aren’t really emergencies and he has a hard time getting to them. So most of the time when there is a problem I end up getting step by step instructions from my husband over the phone and I tackle the beast.

I am going to show/tell you how to fix it yourself- without calling your husband or the plumber. That’s right, put on your plumbing caps because we’re going to work.

Scenario #1

First: Turn the disposal off.

Second: Get the disposal wrench that looks like this……

These wrenches can be found hooked to your disposal or thrown under the sink by the plumber who put your sink in. If you can’t find yours just use an Allen wrench that looks like my picture. If your husband is like mine, you can find an Allen wrench pretty much anywhere you turn in your garage.

Third: Once you’ve found the wrench place it in the hole directly on the bottom of your disposal and start turning from side to side until it starts to move freely and easily. Once you can feel things loosen up below you can go ahead and stick your hand down the drain and pull out the object that was blocking the teeth. Could be a dime or a ring, in your case it’s probably a big chunk of leg bone!

Scenario #2

First: Make sure your disposal switch is off!

Second: The nothing sound could be one of two things, one: somehow the disposal breaker was tripped or two you need to call my husband because you need a new disposal. Fortunately tonight the breaker has just been flipped, no big deal. So on the bottom of your disposal there is a red button that looks like this…..

Push it and you are back in business!

Scenario #3

First: Make sure the sink water is off and then identify the pee trap. (Yes, a pee trap. And, yes…that is how it is spelled. I will give you just a moment to chuckle to yourself…goodness knows, I couldn’t help myself when my husband told me what it was called). OK, get a bowl and place it directly under the pee trap as seen above.

Second: Undo nut one.

Then undo nut two. Once you start to loosen this nut water will start to leak out.

Third: Once the nuts are loosened pull the pee trap off, clean that sucker out and put it back in it’s place, tighten those bolts back up and voila! you are finished! A helpful hint on this one, don’t be tempted to empty the bowl of water into the sink before you put the pee trap back on. It makes a mess!

Scenario #4

There are two reasons a toilet continuously runs. You either need a new flapper or a new fill valve. So here’s how to fix a bad flapper….

First: Empty the water out of your tank by turning the water to your toilet off. To do this turn the knob that is located behind your toilet and connected to the wall. Looks like this…..

Second: Take the lid off the toilet tank. Flush the toilet and hold down the handle until pretty much all the water is out of the tank. Then take the flapper off by unsnapping it from the sides.

Now if it were me, I would take that flapper straight to Lowes or Home Depot and buy one that looks similar to the one that was in the toilet.

Third: Once you have the new flapper, snap it back in it’s place, turn the water back on and you’re done. Give your tired self a pat on the back and look forward to all the peaceful nights of sleep that are ahead of you.

OK, what if it’s not the flapper? Then go for the fill valve. This is the big black thing in your toilet tank.

First: Follow the same steps explained above to empty the water from your toilet tank. When the water is emptied go to the underside of your tank and there should be a tube that connects from your toilet tank to the ground.

Second: Follow the tube up to the bottom of the tank and there should be two nuts. Get yourself a bowl and towel to have ready and loosen nut A. You will probably need a wrench to loosen these nuts.

When nut A is loosened pull the tube out of the toilet tank so it looks like this.

Third: Put your bowl and towel under nut B. I kind of wrap the towel around the bowl so it will catch any drips just in case your bowl isn’t in the perfect spot right at first. Start to loosen nut B.

As this nut starts to loosen put your hand on the top of the fill valve and push down on it so any remaining water in the tank won’t leak out till your ready. When nut B is off make sure your bowl is under the hole where nut B was and pull the fill valve out of your toilet tank.

Fourth: Go buy yourself a new fill valve and put it back in the same way you got it out.

Both the flappers and the fill valves can be purchased at any hardware store. The flapper will cost around 5 dollars and the fill valve between 8 and 15 dollars. Just make sure when you purchase these items you are getting one that looks like the one that was already in your toilet.

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So that’s it. You now have all the plumbing knowledge that I have!  And not only can you brag about how handy you are, add to his surprise by telling him how much money you saved by not calling a plumber. An average plumber costs anywhere from 75 to 150 dollars just to show up at your door and look at your problem. After that it’s another 75 to 100 dollars for every hour he stays to fix whatever was wrong and that doesn’t include the price of the parts, for the item(s) he replaced. So even if your friendly neighborhood plumber is only at your house for 20 minutes you could still end up paying him almost 200 buckaroos before he walks out the door. Now that I have told you a few easy plumbing fixes I have one more important thing to add. DO NOT think that you are an expert and try and fix things that you should have called a plumber for. Example, I was running late a few weeks ago and I jumped in the shower only to find that there was no hot water. I did not go to the closet where the hot water heater was and try and replace it myself. I called a few places to get a quote including Crown Plumbing Water Heater Repair Service, their offices were the furthest from my home but they felt bad for me and said they would try and squeeze me in later in the day. Know your plumbing skill limits is all I am saying.

I’m sure if you told your husband you saved him 200 dollars that would be grounds for a good foot or back rub! Right!?!