Author: infogenix

Bathroom Plumbing Jobs to Leave to a Plumber

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No other room in your house has more plumbing concentrated in it than the bathroom(s). The kitchen may seem like it has more fixtures and pipes, but not only does the bathroom contain more plumbing, it can account for more than 50% of all freshwater use in your home. When it comes to taking care of plumbing issues, from repairs to new fixture installations, the bathroom is the place where most of the work in your house will be done.

And the people to do those jobs are usually licensed plumbers. Yes, you can sometimes unclog a drain or toilet using a basic plunger. A simple hand-crank drain snake can remove hair from a shower drain. You can replace a washer in a leaky faucet. But any bathroom plumbing job more complicated than these requires calling an expert plumber with the best equipment. Below are some of these important jobs you should let a plumber take care of.

Leaking toilet

Water starting to gather around the base of a toilet is a reason to make an immediate call to a plumber. This can be a major plumbing emergency, and you don’t want to risk the sort of damage that can be done to the building material around the toilet. (You’ve heard those stories about a toilet crashing through the floor? Well, although uncommon, this can happen—and it’s because of a floor weakened from water damage.) There are a variety of reasons for toilet leaks, and you need a plumber to find the source and fix it.

Obstinate clogs

You have a clog in a sink or the toilet that isn’t responding to a standard plunger or drain snake. So what’s the next step? It shouldn’t be reaching for a store-bought “drain cleaner,” which is a bunch of caustic chemicals that can end up harming your drains while doing an inferior job. You need professional drain cleaning using top equipment to fix the problem. We use special Bio-Clean® to provide safe and effective drain cleaning.

Broken P-trap

The p-trap is the curved section of pipe under a drain, and its job is to maintain a water plug so sewer gas won’t travel the wrong direction up the drainpipe. This section might break or come loose, allowing water to fall directly into the cabinet below. Trying to fix this yourself risks poor connections that will allow for slow leaking, so please leave this to a plumber.

Sink replacement

A cracked sink will need to be replaced, and you want a professional plumber to take care of this. It’s essential the sink is properly sealed to prevent leaks around the edges, which can create numerous problems. When you call on an experienced plumber for the replacement, the job will get done fast and correctly, leaving you with few worries.

When you have to call on a plumber in Frederick, MD, for any of these problems, simply reach out to us. We offer 24-hour service to ensure you get the help you need when you need it.

Mallick Plumbing & Heating is the Service Contractor of Choice. Our service area covers Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

How to Know You Need a New Commercial Water Heater

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There are few commercial buildings that can get along without a water heating system, even if just for their bathrooms. For many enterprises, the water heater is an essential component, such as in restaurants and throughout the hospitality industry. Commercial water heaters must be reliable, powerful, and have the water volume necessary to handle the needs of the building.

Eventually, all the strain placed on a commercial water heater will wear it down past the point where standard repairs and regular maintenance can do anything to reverse the deterioration. At that point, you’ll need the water heater (or one of the water heaters if your building relies on multiple ones) replaced.

Knowing When It’s Time for a New Commercial Water Heater

You don’t want to replace a water heater before its time since that’s a waste of money. Pay close attention to indications one of the water heaters is beginning to fail, and then call on our plumbers for an opinion. They’ll examine the system and give you honest advice about the best step to take: repairs or a replacement.

These are major warning signs you may have a dying water heater:

  • A drop in hot water volume – Are parts of your business running out of hot water too early? If the water heater was professionally installed, you shouldn’t encounter insufficient amounts of hot water to meet your needs; this is something professional installers are extremely careful about. So when it seems your business can’t get enough hot water, it points toward a dying water heater.
  • Humid conditions in the water heater room – If you walk into the room where the water heater is stored (we recommend doing an occasional check like this) and notice it feels humid when it shouldn’t be, it’s often warning that the water heater has leaks somewhere. Make a visual check if there’s water around the tank unit and if there is you need to call for professionals right away. If the water heater is leaking because of corrosion, it’s best to replace it.
  • Discoloration in the water – Have you heard reports from people in the building of reddish discoloration when the hot water comes on? This indicates corrosion starting up in the tank or a build-up of sediment. Sediment can be flushed out, but a corroded tank usually means the water heater is finished.
  • Rumbling sounds – When making those checks, pay attention to the noise the water heater makes. It shouldn’t make much noise at all, so when you hear something like a rumbling noise coming from it, this often indicates problems like limescale inside the tank. Often the tank will need to be replaced.
  • Basic age – Check the warranty on the water heater, which will give you an idea of how long it should last. If the water heater is over its manufacturer’s service life estimate, it’s time to start looking for a replacement before the system turns inefficient and develops a high risk of a breakdown.

We provide commercial plumbing for Bethesda, MD throughout Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. We have built our company on the principles of honesty and integrity, and you can count on us to provide the best advice for your company’s continued success.

Mallick Plumbing & Heating is the Service Contractor of Choice for your commercial and residential plumbing needs.

Gas Boiler Prepared for Winter?

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Many homes in Silver Springs and the surrounding areas use a gas boiler to provide winter heat rather than a furnace. Boilers offer a more even distribution of heat in rooms, faster heat delivery, and energy-saving operation. Compared to a furnace, a boiler will need fewer repairs during its lifetime and should enjoy extra years of service.

You Can’t Avoid All Boiler Repairs, However

No boiler can ever be 100%-free from malfunctions, and before the hard cold of winter arrives, you want to make sure that your boiler is in good shape. The best way to do this is to call our technicians and schedule regular maintenance. This is an essential task for any heating system so it can be inspected and tuned-up. It has particular importance for a gas-powered system such as a boiler since the inspections help detect if there may be any safety concerns so repairs can be arranged in time if there are. Keeping up with annual fall maintenance for a gas boiler will help it enjoy the longest service life possible.

Catch Repair Signs Early

After maintenance, you should still give the boiler a test run in the last days before the long cold weather sets in. You can look for any odd behaviors warning of repair issues. These include:

  • Rumbling sounds from the boiler tank
  • Cool spots in some of the rooms because a radiator or baseboard heater is heating up
  • Indications of leaking

Never hesitate to contact professionals to check on your gas boiler if you believe something is amiss with it.

We offer service for gas boilers in Silver Spring, MD. Remember that only licensed professionals are legally permitted to work on any appliance connected to a gas main, and this includes a boiler system! You can rely on our team to repair any issue with your boiler or help you with a new installation if it’s time to replace your old boiler.

Mallick Plumbing & Heating is the Service Contractor of Choice.

Why Schedule Drain Cleaning This Fall

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You probably have a long list of fall “to-dos” planned to prepare your house for the coming change of seasons. For example, you will have to schedule maintenance for your heating system, and if you have a generator for emergencies, it will need an inspection before it’s ready to go.

But have you put down “professional drain cleaning” on your list of fall to-do items? We’d wager you haven’t since homeowners, in general, tend to think of drain cleaning as something that they only need to have done when there’s a major clog in a sink, shower, or bathtub. There’s also a tendency to connect “drain cleaning” with bottles of chemicals at the grocery store, not the work of professional plumbers. But we strongly recommend you call our plumbers this fall and arrange for drain cleaning in Potomac, MD for your home’s plumbing system.

Regular drain cleaning offers many benefits

Why arrange this each year? Is it really a priority to have professionals clean your drains? The best way to answer these questions is to explain some of the benefits you’ll receive:

  • Few (to no) clogs: No plumbing service can guarantee a house won’t run into a clogged drain (objects can always accidentally fall over into a drain). But professional drain cleaning can reduce the chance of clogs occurring to as close to zero as you can get. The cleaning removes the build-up from the pipe wall so thoroughly that it gives food particles, hair, soap scum, etc. little opportunity to stick to the pipe walls and begin the build-up process again.
  • Stop bad-smelling drains: Food and other organic particles along the inside of drainpipes are a major cause for problems with bad drain odors and sewer flies. Cleaner drains mean a more pleasant household.
  • Longer life for the plumbing system: The build up inside pipes isn’t only a trouble for the efficiency of your plumbing. It can cause damage to the drainpipes and the sewer line over the long-term. For example, soap scum developing inside bathroom sink and shower drains can create a chemical reaction that will eat right through the pipes. Large buildup also raises pressure in the plumbing and creates the risk of leaks starting up.

Don’t touch those chemical drain cleaners!

We mentioned store-bought drain cleaners at the top of this post. This is something we want to emphasize: do not use these on your drains! They are a tempting, low-cost option supposedly to clean drains, but these caustic chemical concoctions can harm your drains. They’re also highly toxic, and even the fumes can burn your eyes. No professional plumber recommends using them.

Our plumbers rely on Bio-Clean® as part of unclogging drains and drain cleaning. Bio-Clean is an environmentally friendly drain cleaning solution that uses the natural power of bacteria and enzymes to remove organic waste from drains. We’ll use Bio-Clean and other professional methods (such as hydro-jetting) to ensure you have fully cleansed drains that won’t give you trouble for a long time to come.

Mallick Plumbing & Heating is the Contractor of Choice.

Can a Tankless Water Heater Keep up with My Household?

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We love tankless water heaters! We think they are a great option for homes looking to replace an aging storage tank water heater with something that will help cut down on their heating bills, save space, and provide an unlimited supply of hot water. When you consider that the water heater accounts for the largest portion of heating power in your home, going with a system that significantly cuts down on energy consumption can mean a large reduction in monthly utility bills. A tankless water heater installation may cost more than a storage tank water heater, but it will pay for itself in a few years.

However, tankless isn’t a perfect choice for every household. Although tankless water heaters technically cannot run out of hot water since they are designed to always heat up more water on demand, they can be overwhelmed with demand when there are multiple taps or appliances on at once. If your household has multiple showers on during the morning, or different hot water-using appliances are running at once during the day, you may encounter a tankless water heater that begins to lose efficiency.

Professional sizing for tankless water heaters

Tank water heaters are rated by storage capacity. Tankless water heaters are rated by maximum temperature rise possible at a given flow rate. To find a water heater matched to your house requires knowing the flow rate and temperature rise necessary to provide hot water to your household without interruption.

If your response to the above is “But I don’t know that!” you don’t have to worry. This is why you always want to rely on water heater professionals to handle the installation job. You can rely on our team to find the right unit of a tankless water heater in Gaithersburg, MD to match your household’s day-to-day use so you can enjoy the full benefits of this excellent appliance.

Mallick Plumbing & Heating is the Contractor of Choice.

Places in Your Kitchen Plumbing That May Need Repairs

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The most plumbing in a home is concentrated in the bathrooms. In fact, the toilets alone account for 40% of indoor freshwater use in a house. People often assume that the kitchen has the most plumbing. Although not technically true, it’s not a bad assumption to make if it means you pay close attention to the plumbing fixtures and pipes in this part of the home. Most kitchens receive an immense amount of use from day to day, and for households that do plenty of entertaining, the kitchen plumbing becomes critical.

Like almost all residential plumbing, any repairs done to the pipes or fixtures in a kitchen must be left to licensed plumbers. Below are some of the common parts of your kitchen plumbing in Silver Spring, MD that may require professional repairs. We’re here to help, and we offer 24-hour emergency service!

The Kitchen Sink Drain

The two drains in a household that are most likely to clog are the shower drain and kitchen sink drain. The shower drain has to deal with hair going down it, and the kitchen sink drain … well, stop and think about all the food particles, grease, and oil that get washed down it, and you’ll start to see why this drain may need a plumber’s attention. When clogs strike the sink, they usually can’t be removed using just a basic plunger; the build-up will need special drain cleaning services.

The Garbage Disposal

One reason that sink drains don’t clog even more often is thanks to the work of the garbage disposal unit, which grinds down food waste so it can safely travel into the sewer line (thus helping to keep it out of landfills). However, garbage disposals go through plenty of abuse in the form of objects that are hard for them to grind down and which shouldn’t go down in them. Even with the best precautions, a disposal may break and need to be repaired.

The P-Trap

This is part of the sink drain, but a specific part that can break and come loose, leading to a basically unusable kitchen. The p-trap is the curved pipe section under the drain that traps a water plug to prevent sewer gas from flowing the wrong direction up the pipe. The p-trap can start to leak or come loose from the sink, and water will then fall straight into the cabinet below. Get a plumber on this right away so you can use the sink again.

Faucets

The leaky faucet is an infamous plumbing problem, and it’s also an immense waste of water. Most people are familiar with tightening up a faucet nozzle to stop leaking, but faucets can also start to leak around their base as they get older, which in turn can cause construction material damage. Repairs in these cases usually involve having a new faucet put in.

Along with all the repair jobs we do for kitchen plumbing, we also offer plumbing service for kitchen remodeling. We’ll make sure that all the plumbing for your newly redesigned kitchen works just the way it should.

Mallick Plumbing & Heating—The Service Contractor of Choice!

Signs You Need a Water Softener

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Hard water. It’s a major problem across the country in residential water supplies, affecting approximately 85% of homes to some degree or another. For some households, the hardness won’t cause problems. But the higher the level of hardness, the more danger the hard water minerals pose to the plumbing system and the water-using appliances attached to it. If your home has a high level of water hardness, the best method to deal with it is to have our plumbers install a water softener.

Warning Signs of Hard Water Trouble

Hard water means water that has above-average concentrations of certain minerals in it, primarily magnesium and calcium. These do not make the water harmful to drink (although they can affect taste quality). But they create scale inside pipes and fixtures and along surfaces, leading to plumbing problems and difficulty with keeping a house and the people in it clean. Below are some signs that this is occurring in your house:

  • Poor soap lather: The presence of hard water minerals makes it more difficult to create soap suds for washing and bathing. This is often one of the earliest signs people notice of hard water.
  • Filmy feeling in skin and hair: Hard water leaves behind an unpleasant, filmy residue. You may notice this film on your skin and hair after showering.
  • Streaks and film on glass and porcelain: Likewise, the film from hard water will appear on glass surfaces and the porcelain of sinks. If your glass shower doors never seem to get clean, hard water may be the reason. You’ll also notice spots on glasses that go through the dishwasher.
  • Faded laundry: The minerals in hard water are brought out as scale when the water is heated. This will cause your laundry colors to rapidly fade after going through the washing machine.
  • Flaky deposits on fixtures: Calcite deposits will develop on faucets and showerhead because of hard water. If your showerhead is clogging up and sending streams in all directions, the trouble may be these calcite deposits.
  • Increased water pressure: High water pressure occurs because scale deposits inside the pipes are cutting down on volume. This can also lead to excessive amounts of leaks.

Keep this in mind: hard water isn’t just a nuisance. It can lead to expensive trouble for your plumbing. The appliance in your house that’s in the most danger is the water heater, which will develop limescale inside its tank and threaten to overheat or corrode. You’ll also run into busted dishwashers, laundry machines, and leaking pipes. Never ignore indications of hard water—because when they get out of hand, it will hit your budget hard.

Water Softeners Solve the Problem

Water softeners safely counteract hard water by replacing harmful minerals with sodium ions. This “softens” the water and protects the plumbing, as well as makes cleaning easier and the house more pleasant.

Where do you get a water softener in College Park, MD? You don’t go out and shop for one, either in a brick-and-mortar store or online. For the right water softener installed correctly, it takes plumbing professionals with experience in water treatment systems.

What to Do with an Overflowing Toilet

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Now here’s an emergency with household plumbing everybody dreads, one that’s likely to send people into a panic: a toilet that starts to overflow when flushed!

But there’s no need to panic. It’s easy to stop the problem immediately and take care of some potential damage so you can get a professional plumber out to your house to handle whatever repairs are necessary. Below we’ve listed some steps for the best way to handle this problem in your bathroom plumbing in Potomac, MD.

Steps to Take with an Overflowing Toilet

First, turn off the valve on the feed line to the toilet tank. This is the plastic piping that comes from the back of the wall and connects to the tank. The fresh water that fills up the tank after each flush comes through this line. Turn the valve counterclockwise to shut off the flow of water.

But what if your toilet doesn’t have a valve on the feed line? This is possible for older toilets (and we recommend having a new toilet installed in the near future since a toilet this old is probably wasting water). But you can still stop the water. Open up the lid of the tank—and be cautious about it since a broken tank lid is an expensive repair. Pull up the chain in the tank and place something under it to keep it propped up. This will stop the water flow to the tank.

Now place down newspapers or towels around the toilet base to soak up the water. You don’t want water seeping down into the flooring material, nor do you want it to spread around—the water may contain bacteria and other contaminants.

You can try to use a plunger at this point to see if a simple clog is the source of the problem. We otherwise advise you call on your local 24-hour licensed plumber for assistance. We have great staff on the job to help you with any plumbing emergency.

Mallick Plumbing & Heating Is the Service Contractor of Choice.

What to Look for When Hiring a Plumber

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There was a time when finding a plumber was a difficult job because you had to make a serious effort first to collect together a list of enough plumbing contractors in your local area and then start to work on narrowing down the list to the plumber who was best for the job. Today it’s still difficult to find the right plumber to hire, but for different reasons: it no longer takes much effort to find plumbers because you only have to type in a few words into a search engine—but you have so many more choices that it can be overwhelming to find the right plumber.

You’ve made a good start, however, since you’ve found a way to our site—probably through an Internet search. (If friends referred you, that’s even better!) We can offer you more information on what criteria to use when it’s time to hire a plumber.

Licensed and insured

This should be the first thing you look for when you arrive at a plumber’s website: a license from the state. This is how you can tell a professional plumbing contractor from an amateur. No matter what amateur plumbing may promise, you always want to go with a professional. Professionals are better trained, but they’re also insured, which is an important protection for you in case a plumber suffers an injury while on your property. (By the way, we are licensed in multiple states: #WSSC 70019, SC 1191, MD 19572, and VA 045283A.)

Warranties

A good plumber will offer warranties for installations and repairs that go beyond the standard manufacturer’s warranties. We offer a 1-year warranty on new installations and 30-day warranties on repairs.

24-hour emergency service

Plumbing problems don’t like to follow schedules! It’s almost a rule that if something goes wrong with your plumbing, it will go wrong at the least convenient time. A plumbing contractor worth hiring understands that and offers 24-hour emergency service. The last thing you want when you’ve got an overflowing toilet, burst pipe, or loss of water is to have to wait for a plumber’s office hours to start!

A wide range of services

A plumbing system consists of an immense number of appliances and fixtures. Make sure that the plumber you’re looking to hire can do the job you need! It’s a good idea, in general, to stick with a plumber who can tackle many types of plumbing jobs—even ones you may never require, like commercial plumbing—because it indicates a plumbing contractor with the proper tools and experience to do every job right.

Recommended by the community

Always take a look at customer reviews for any plumber you’re thinking of hiring. You want to hear what other customers in the area are saying.

It’s easy to find a quality plumber in Rockville, MD, and the surrounding areas: simply call on us! We’re a licensed professional plumbing contractor with 24-hour service. We are also committed to using the best in current technology, such as sonic detectors, trenchless pipe replacement, and video inspection equipment.

Mallick Plumbing & Heating is Your Service Contractor of Choice for the Greater Washington Metro Area.

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