Your plumbing is one of the most often used systems in your home, right next to electricity. This means that it can be one of the costliest to deal with. However, this doesn’t have to be the case! We’ve pulled together a list of some of the best plumbing advice from professionals on how to save money when it comes to your home’s plumbing.
1. Avoid chemical-laden drain cleaners: This first tip is so important for the health and longevity of your drains, which translates to the health of your wallet. Try to stay away from store-bought commercial cleaners that rely on corrosive chemicals to clear clogs inside your drains. These corrosive chemicals will usually break down whatever is clogging the pipe, but they’ll also break down the integrity of the pipe itself over the uses. Try to use manual means or a bacterial drain cleaner to maintain your drains. Saving your pipes from corroding will save you the cost of having to replace them.
2. Install low-flow water fixtures: Certain fixtures in your home can work just as well with lower water pressure and flow. Things like your showerhead or your bathroom sinks can be switched to low-flow faucets to help save on water usage costs.
3. Turn off your taps correctly: This may seem like common sense, but you’d be surprised how many people need to hear this. You need to make sure that you are fully closing the taps each time you turn them off. A dripping faucet can add up in a pretty short time, 15 gallons a day to be exact, which leads to a crazy water bill.
4. Prevent buildup in your drains: This goes for all of the drains in your house. Keep foreign objects out of there as much as possible and clean them regularly. Even if your kitchen sink has a disposal, be mindful of what is going in there. Not everything is meant to get tossed in there. Your shower/tub and bathroom sinks need to be kept free of hair and soap scum as much as possible, and your toilet should never have anything but human waste and toilet paper flushed in it. Keeping buildup out of your drains will help keep clogs from forming, which will keep you from needing to call a plumber.
5. Protect your pipes from freezing: During the cold months, protect your pipes from freezing to save yourself a very expensive bill in the case of breakage and flooding. You can do this by keeping a consistent temperature in your home, allowing the air to circulate, and insulating any pipes connected to the outside.
6. Leaky toilets should be fixed: It may seem like such a small, mildly annoying issue, but the water cost can definitely add up here. The water required to fill up that constantly running toilet can waste up to 7,000 gallons each month. We wouldn’t want to see that on our water bill, do you? Repairing it as soon as you notice this issue will save you plenty of money in the long run.
7. Avoid DIY for big things: If you aren’t 100% confident in your ability to fix something, don’t even try. You could cost yourself a huge chunk of change if your attempt doesn’t work properly.
8. Have a pro come out for checkups: At least once or twice each year, have a plumbing contractor come and do a full check on your home’s plumbing. They will be able to identify things that could become a problem and fix them before they get worse, saving you from a bigger bill later on if the problem rears its head.
Thanks for following along with us during the article! We hope you’ve gotten something useful out of this list, and that we can help you save just a little bit of your hard-earned money in the coming year. The biggest takeaway we want to impart is this: DIY is not always better for your budget. It may seem like you could save a few bucks and handle it yourself, but some of those projects could become catastrophic if they go wrong. Better to call in the professionals and get things done right the first time!
