Author: infogenix

Time to Schedule Water Heater Maintenance!

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Do you arrange for maintenance for your home’s heating system every fall? If you don’t, you should, since this is the best way to plan ahead for the winter and ensure that your family will have warmth whenever it needs it and that the heater will operate at an energy-saving level.

But did you know that your home’s water heater also requires maintenance every year? Whenever fall arrives and you start thinking about planning for the coming winter, it’s the right time to also plan maintenance for your water heater.

Why Water Heaters Require Annual Inspections and Tune-Ups

It’s easy for people to take the hot water that flows from their taps and showerheads for granted and just assume that the hot water heater will always work when needed. But water heaters undergo a great deal of work stress during a year. The presence of water also causes them to rapidly wear down unless they have regular service from professionals.

Here’s what might happen if a water heater goes without maintenance:

  • Corrosion: This is a water heater’s #1 enemy. Although water heaters are designed to resist corrosion and rust for as long as possible, one that misses maintenance will be at a high risk of corroding when the anode rod fails. During routine maintenance, a technician will replace the anode rod if necessary.
  • Overheating and high pressure: Sediment that builds up inside the tank of a water heater will cause the tank to overheat and spike the water pressure inside. Technicians will flush the tank as part of maintenance if there is too much sediment.
  • Wasteful performance: Any type of water heater will gradually become more expensive to run if it doesn’t receive regular care. In only a few years, you could pay from 25% to 40% more to run the water heater than you should.
  • Leaks: Checking for leaks and fixing them is one of the basic steps of regular maintenance.

If you’re ready to have your water heater properly maintained for the year, call on Mallick Plumbing & Heating. We’re the service contractor of choice in Silver Spring, MD.

How Plumbers Do Leak Detection for a Home?

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Leaks are one of the more common, aggravating, and damaging plumbing problems a home can face. Even a small pinhole leak can destroy drywall and lead to other major issues—not to mention wastewater and drive up your bills.

However, leaks present a special problem when it comes to repairs: finding the leak in the first place! Unless the leak springs up in one of the few visible pipes in your home, you probably won’t know where leaks are located. This is one of the reasons that you must rely on experienced plumbing professionals to handle the repair work. Leak detection is an important service that plumbers offer. Using the techniques below, licensed plumbers can find exactly where leaks are occurring so they can accurately and quickly repair them.

Acoustic listening devices

Ground microphones and listening discs are among the basic tools that plumbers use to pinpoint leaks. Using sound technology, they can hear the noise of escaping water and dripping even through a layer of concrete.

Heat scanners

In areas that are too noisy or too deep for using acoustic listening methods, plumbers use scanners that pick up temperature changes. Escaping water causes temperature shifts that will show up on the scanners.

Video pipe inspection equipment

For the most precise leak detection, plumbers use a miniaturized camera mounted on long fiber optic cables. The camera relays images back to a monitor where the plumber can see the condition of the inside of the pipe. Not only does this show where leaks are, but it also provides the plumber with extra information that will make it easier to repair the leak.

Training

There’s one other invaluable tool plumbers have for leak detection: their own professional training. Licensed plumbers know enough about plumbing systems that they can rapidly narrow down the search area without requiring any special technology at all. That’s why you should only call on plumbers with the right experience.

Mallick Plumbing & Heating is the Service Contractor of Choice in Silver Spring, MD and Montgomery County.

The Advantages of Trenchless Technology

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In our last blog post, we mentioned trenchless technology as a method to repair or replace a damaged sewer line. If you wondered when reading that (or seeing this headline) “What’s trenchless technology?” then this blog post is for you. We’ll explain how trenchless technology works, and the advantages it offers to you when it comes to plumbing work.

Trenchless technology is line repair/replacement without all the digging

Trenchless technology is a type of lateral boring that was first developed for mining in the 1930s and then became popular for civic engineering since it allowed the laying of pipes and electrical lines under streets without disrupting the streets. The technology involves digging small holes at the two ends of the area where a pipe needs to be either placed or repaired. A hydraulic device attached to one end of the pipe then draws a pipeliner through from the other side and sets it into place. If the old pipe needs to be replaced, a pipe burster is then drawn through the pipe with a chain, which expands the pipeliner to replace the pipe entirely.

Why this is an advantage

The standard way to replace a buried sewer line is to dig a trench using excavation equipment. This is a lengthy and messy project, and it will leave the lawn and garden looking like an archaeological dig. Trenchless technology only requires digging two small holes (sometimes only one when the sewer line can be accessed from indoors) which are easily filled in afterward. The process is also speedy, usually requiring only a few hours. This also means that using trenchless technology is less expensive.

The short version: if you have access to a company that uses trenchless technology, there’s no reason to use conventional digging for your sewer or water main services!

Mallick Plumbing & Heating uses the best in trenchless technology. Call us for service today in Silver Spring, MD.

Why Your Drains Smell Bad (And What to Do about It)

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Nobody wants to have a house the smells unpleasant, for any reason. If you make a special effort to keep a clean house, but then find that foul odors are coming from one or more of the drains, it can be frustrating. There are various reasons for this to happen, and fixing the problem can be simple—or something that will require professional plumbers. Below we’ll look at the causes of bad smelling drains and how to get rid of them.

Dried-out p-trap

The p-trap is the curved pipe placed directed under a drain. The purpose of this curved pipe is to trap water to create a barrier against sewer gas flowing the wrong direction up the pipe and out the drain. If a drain isn’t used often (such as a sink in an empty guest room), the water in the p-trap will evaporate and allow sewer gas through. You only need to let water flow down the drain for a minute or so to restore the water in the p-trap.

Clogged drain vents

Your plumbing system has vents in it to prevent the build-up of pressure between the drains and the sewer line because of sewer gas. These vents allow the gas to escape up through the roof of the house. If these vents become clogged up, it will force the gas to take the easiest escape route it can find… which will be to force itself up through the water in the p-trap. Professional plumbers can track down where the vents need repairs and take care of fixing them.

Damaged sewer line

This is the most urgent problem since a sewer line that is broken or blocked will eventually cause sewage to back up into your home. If more than one drain is emanating foul smells, then it’s likely that a sewer line problem is the issue, and you need to call professional plumbers right away. Fixing or replacing a damaged sewer line is a major job, but our plumbers use the best in trenchless technology to do the work fast and accurately.

Mallick Plumbing & Heating offers drain cleaning to Silver Spring, MD, and the surrounding areas.

Here’s What You Shouldn’t Put Down Your Garbage Disposal

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If you have a kitchen equipped with a garbage disposal, you probably would find it difficult to imagine living without it. A working disposal makes it much easier to clean up in the kitchen after meals, and it helps to protect your drainage system by grinding down food waste so it flows easily down the pipes. (There’s also an environmental benefit, which is that garbage disposals keep organic waste out of the landfills by moving it to the sewage treatment plant.)

You can help keep your garbage disposal working without repair issues for many years by taking good care of it and keeping certain items out of it. Here’s a list of things that you shouldn’t put down your disposal:

  • Ice cubes: You may have heard that you can sharpen the blades of a disposal by placing ice down the unit and running it. However, there aren’t any blades in the disposal, only blunt impellers that send food waste against a grind ring. Not only do ice cubes do no good, but they’re also hard enough to damage the disposal’s components.
  • FOG: “Fats, oils, and grease.” These cooking substances look harmless when in hot, liquid form. But as they cool down, they change into waxy solids that can jam up the disposal. It’s best to pour FOG into a separate receptacle and remove it to the trash.
  • Food waste you can’t chew: This includes things such as meat bones and unpopped popcorn kernels. If your teeth can’t handle it, your garbage disposal can’t either.
  • Fibrous foods: Onion skins, celery, and other food with stringy fibers risks getting tangled around the mechanical parts of a disposal and damaging it.
  • Actual garbage: Don’t let the name “garbage disposal” mislead you into thinking that non-organic garbage can go into it. Paper, plastic, cigarettes, etc. belong in the trash can, not the kitchen disposal.

If you need repairs for your kitchen garbage disposal, call Mallick Plumbing & Heating in Silver Spring, MD.

How Professionals Handle Cleaning Drains

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Drain clogs: they’re annoying and they’re difficult to avoid. No matter how careful you are about what goes down the drains in your house, you’ll probably run into a tough clog at some point. It can be from a cap accidentally knocked down a bathroom drain, thick clogs of hair in a shower drain, or fat and grease along the inside of the kitchen sink drain pipe. Whatever the cause of the clogged or slow drain, you’ll need to have the blockage removed fast. The best way to do this is to call on professional plumbers for drain cleaning.

Aren’t there ways I can unclog the drain myself?

Yes… but the options are limited, and there are a few techniques that you shouldn’t attempt. A standard sink plunger can sometimes solve basic clogs, as can a hand-cranked drain snake. But these are at best temporary solutions, and if they don’t work, you need to call a plumber.

Do not use liquid drain cleaners to unclog a drain! These acidic chemicals are not only temporary at solving the problem, but they are also harmful to drains—not to mention people!

How our plumbers clean drains

When our professionals arrive at your house, they’ll use the best in drain cleaning equipment to scour the inside of the drainpipes to not only break apart the clog but also remove the debris that led to the clog in the first place.

Our main cleaning tool is the hydro-jetter, which blasts out water at high pressure to clean off the drainpipe walls in all directions. This is effective and safe for the pipes, and the level of cleaning means it will be difficult for the clogs to return. In fact, we recommend you schedule drain cleaning once a year so you can enjoy the most problem-free plumbing possible.

For great drain cleaning in Silver Spring, MD, contact Mallick Plumbing & Heating. We offer 24-hour service!

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