The Homeowner’s Basic Plumbing 11-Point Checklist

When it comes to home maintenance, the seemingly unimportant tasks easily get bumped down the To-Do list, held off for another day or the next paycheck. Life gets in the way of the best laid plans and intentions as the work adds up. Months, or even years, can pass, turning small repairs into big problems. When it comes to your home’s plumbing, those little problems can become emergencies if not caught early.

Plumbing problems tend to start off small and grow slowly. Sometimes, you won’t know that there’s a problem until it’s too late, and at that point you might have broken pipes and flooding on your hands. It’s good to have a checklist of the problem spots, things to keep an eye on regularly, to make sure that you don’t end up with large scale damage. The following is a homeowner’s checklist for plumbing tasks that anyone who owns a home could benefit from.

1. Leak Check

Make sure to do an in-depth leak check on your home. The best way to do this is to check out your appliances first and foremost. Appliances such as toilets, dishwashers and washing machines can have leaks. Also, make sure to check your bathroom and kitchen faucets for drips. These can be found under the sink, or if it’s not caught soon enough, as little puddles on the floor. There are now electronic leak monitors that you can buy for your home that can help in those hard to access spots, just to be sure you’re still monitoring them.

2. Test the Shutoff Valve

As you check on the fixtures in your home, make sure that you can locate the shutoff valve. Test them out regularly because if you have to perform any repairs, you’ll have to be able stop the water flow. If the shutoff valve doesn’t work when you need it to, it can lead to flooding and property damage, not to mention it makes the repair job a lot harder.

3.  Check for Corrosion

When performing plumbing maintenance, it’s important to look at any pipes and joints for corrosion. This will look bluish-green on brass and copper and will be rust on steel or iron. Even if there aren’t any leaks, corrosion can eventually lead to one. It’s best to consult a professional if you do see these signs.

4. Check for Sounds

Sounds are one of the easiest ways to tell when there is a problem with your plumbing. When the pipes start making noises, it means the water is meeting resistance rather than flowing through as it should. Your sinks and tubs should drain quickly, which means that you shouldn’t hear any gurgling or telltale signs that there is a clog. If there is some kind of blockage, you will usually be able to hear it.

5.  P-Trap Maintenance

If you have a P-trap, keeping it clean is important. This can help you from developing a future clog. One of the best ways to fight a plugged drain is to deal with the problem in advance. The more that you clean up what could be a potential blockage, the less you have to worry about something developing in the future. Basket strainers are also available that can keep debris out of a kitchen sink drain, for instance.

6. Garbage Disposal Maintenance

The garbage disposal is yet another component of good plumbing health. It might be easy to forget to take a look at it, but you shouldn’t. For a simple maintenance trick when it comes to the garbage disposal, you can use an ice tray to create ice cubes out of white vinegar. Then, once the ice cubes are frozen, you can grind them in the garbage disposal. This will clean it out. (You can even include citrus rinds for a fresh, clean scent.)

7. Mineral Debris

Showers and faucets can end up clogged by minerals and debris. This can seriously damage the performance of your faucets. If you want to make sure that any debris is cleaned from your tap, you can often use a toothbrush, soapy water and vinegar. You can also clear mineral deposits on a showerhead by dipping the showerhead in vinegar for thirty minutes, or overnight, if desired.

8. Move the Toilet

A properly installed toilet shouldn’t have any “wobble” to it; the “throne” should be reliable and secure, If you need to check on this one, be careful not to use too much force! First, you want to try to move or rock the toilet. If it moves, then you should check on the mounting bolts. If you find that these bolts are secure and the toilet is still not secure then you may need to reinstall the toilet.

9. Flush Toilets

If you have multiple bathrooms, then you know that there are some that may get more traffic than others. For those with more than one bathroom, there may be one or two that are hardly used at all. While this might seem easier on the pipes, it’s important that you go around and flush the toilet regularly if not in use. This will ensure that they are still working properly. The last thing you want is for your home to have guests and discover that the bathroom doesn’t work.

10. Washing Machine Leaks

A washing machine leak is often overlooked when that water pooled on the tile could be something simple like a hastily removed pile of wet clothes, but it could be a sign of a larger problem. You need to check on the water lines regularly to make sure that there aren’t any cracks or brittleness in the hose. If the connections aren’t secure, it can lead to flooding and damage to the walls and floor.

11. Water Heater Pressure Relief

Once every few years, it’s vital that you check the temperature and pressure relief valve on your water heater. First, be careful not to burn yourself and make sure that you have something to dump the hot water from the water tank into. Once safety has been considered, you open the temperature and pressure relief valve to test it and ensure that it still works.

At the end of the day, you don’t want to slack on plumbing maintenance. It is one of the most important aspects of home ownership. While there are many that tend to forget about how important it is to maintain their home when nothing is obviously wrong, you don’t want an accident to catch you out of nowhere. People often don’t realize that they are on the cusp of an issue with their plumbing. Utilizing a homeowner’s checklist for basic plumbing tasks can help you to take better care of your pipes.