People often think of the garbage disposal in their kitchen sink as an appliance that will never need to be replaced. To them, it’s just a part of the structure of the kitchen, and until the day the kitchen gets a major renovation, the garbage disposal will hang around and keep doing its job.
This isn’t true, of course. No mechanical appliance can last forever, and a garbage disposal handles an immense workload, operating almost every day. Although a broken disposal can be fixed, at a certain point it will no longer be worth repairing and it’s best to have a new unit installed.
The question is, how long can you expect your garbage disposal to last?
When thinking of ways to make home improvements, you probably don’t first think about “plumbing upgrades.” We admit that it doesn’t sound terrifically exciting. But your plumbing is an essential part of your daily life, and upgrading older parts of it with fresh installations can make a huge difference. It can be a difference in convenience, or water savings, or problem prevention. Sometimes it can be all of these.
We don’t mean to imply you need to stare into the drains in your house as often as you can spare the time. We mean that while you go about your daily routines of cooking, showering, bathing, and cleaning, imagining the drains are just fine, they may be picking up debris that will create slow or clogged drains in the future.
Nobody wants to go through the trouble of replacing an old water heater. It’s a big project and costly, so homeowners will often settle for poor performance from an ancient water heater and high heating costs rather than take the step of calling a professional to install a new one.
Living in Arizona means we don’t have to deal with one of the biggest winter plumbing concerns: frozen pipes and burst pipes. But that doesn’t mean we get to escape all plumbing problems. Our homes can still experience flooding from busted plumbing and various other mishaps. There are three defenses you have against these flooding disasters:
Do you know that historians have extensive information about the plumbing system of Ancient Rome? The Romans were masters of civic engineering, and much of their original plumbing system to carry fresh water into the city and remove it through massive sewer systems still stands today. We even know they used lead pipes as long ago as 200 BC thanks to archaeological digs that turned up large amounts of lead in the soil.
Have you considered having water filtration installed for your house? Probably, since you’re reading this. People are searching for healthier water quality today because of the concern about pollutants entering the municipal water supply. Although water goes through treatment plants to remove harmful chemicals, bacteria, and heavy metals, many of those same impurities can enter the pipes carrying the water to homes and businesses. Aging pipes can also send pollutants into the water supply.
“Drain cleaners.” If this name makes you think of bottled of chemicals found on the shelves of stores, you’re not alone. It’s what most homeowners think of when they hear about drain cleaning for their home plumbing.
Think of this as a list of things we, as professional plumbers, don’t want you to do with your plumbing. We offer 
Flushing a water heater is one of the basic steps of cleaning the system. During a water heater flush, all the water in the tank is drained out so any sediment or other build up inside can be removed. In some situations, the tank will also need to be descaled to remove build up of limescale, one of the side effects of hard water.
