Frequently Asked Questions

Your water heater is actually a glass-lined tank. Depending on how hard your water is and what minerals are in it, they like to stick to the sides of the tank. That is what the anode rod is for; it’s a sacrificial rod. So all the hard water minerals are attracted to this rod, and it sacrifices itself for the life of the heater.
This rod needs to be checked and possibly replaced every three years, depending on how hard your water is, because when this rod is no good anymore, then these minerals start attaching themselves to your tank. That’s when you have mineral buildup on the inside of the tank, and you really can’t get it out. You also may wind up having deposits build up on the bottom; a gas heater is heated from the bottom, and this will decrease its efficiency. If you’re heating and you hear a bunch of popping, that’s what’s going on – all the calcium is popping up because of the heat underneath it, and you’re really losing water efficiency.
So to maintain it properly once a year, you need to drain it with a hose. Every five years, you want to replace the temperature and pressure relief valve. This is a pretty important piece of maintenance. This is actually what keeps the heater safe for your home. A lot of people think that heaters blowing up are mostly gas-related issues, but it’s really not. It could happen to gas or electricity. And this is a pretty big piece of how that can happen. Let’s say you had a thermostat mess up, and it starts heating the water. This water is pressurizing the tank. Let’s presume you have 60 psi of water pressure. That means that the water in this tank can get to about 287 degrees before it starts to boil. If this T&P messes up and it doesn’t open at 210 degrees like it’s supposed to, this water is going to get hot, and it’s going to keep increasing in temperature. If the tank ruptures while under that much pressure and this much heat, then all of this water (40 or 50 gallons) is going to turn to steam, and the steam-to-water ratio is 1:1600. Every gallon of water makes 1600 gallons of steam, and when the tank ruptures and 50 gallons turns to steam, you get an explosion. And that’s why it’s important to make sure you maintain and properly install water heaters.

A typical service call we get is garbage disposal making a humming sound and not doing its job. This is a common issue, but it’s also usually a simple fix. And we’re gonna go over that with you today. If your disposal is making a sound but not functioning, go underneath your kitchen sink. You might have a tool in your cabinet specifically designed for your disposal. If not, an allen wrench will work. It goes on the bottom side of it. Make sure the power is off.
Sick it in the bottom of the disposal, and you can manually free the rotor motor. And then hit the reset button. It’s a little red button. This will take care of the issue nine times out of 10. If that does not work and you can’t break the rotors free with this tool, you’re going to be looking at a replacement.

Hard water is often something that is very overlooked. Typical signs include spots on your dishes. Whenever your skin and your hair feel dry after showering, that’s a sign of hard water. Gross buildup on your showerhead, the base of all your plumbing fixtures, all that gross little corrosion. All of that can be mitigated by installing a softener on your home. Here at Plumbing Outfitters, we have plenty of options to give you soft water in your home and protect the quality of not only your plumbing fixtures, but the quality of your health and your family. So give us a call if you notice anything like this happening in your home and we’ll come out and we’ll take care of you.

There could be a couple of causes, and there could also be a simple, easy fix. One of the things that can be a cause of this is calcium buildup and deposits. Inside the fixture faucet are aerators that actually control the flow of the water coming out of the faucet. It prevents you from wasting a whole bunch of water when you’re using it. So one thing you can do is unscrew it and turn your faucet back on under the water, and it will clean all the gunk and debris out. Then put the washer back in, and it will easily thread back into place.

There are a couple of different things that can cause your toilet to run. One is a failed fill valve inside the toilet. The fill valve is actually what fills up the tank after you flush the toilet. The fill valve can begin to leak and fail if hard water components such as limescale or bits of trash get stuck. The other thing that you have to check is the flapper. Inside the toilet, the flapper is actually connected to the handle, and that’s what allows the water to go from the tank to the bowl and therefore flush the toilet. The flapper can fail for many reasons, but a common cause is chlorine and ammonia in the municipal water system can cause a breakdown.
Chlorine and ammonia are harmful to rubber working components inside the toilet, and it does cause them to fail and wither away. Water conditioning systems will solve these issues. The limescale buildup can be solved by a water softener. The chlorine and ammonia need a carbon filter. There’s another thing that can also cause your flapper to fail; everyone likes blue water… You know you flush the toilet, you get blue water in there by the dissolvable tablets…. And you think, “Oh, it’s clean, it smells nice.” In fact, there are actually bleaching chemicals inside those blue tablets that you can put deep inside your tank that will cause a flapper to fail. Therefore they are not recommended.
Our recommendation: instead of trying to put them inside the tank, put them inside the bowl, you still get the same result, and keep the bleach and chemicals away from the rubber components.

A few telltale signs that you may be having a slab leak. The first one I want to talk to you about is hotspots on the floor. This occurs if you haven’t been using water and you’re feeling the hotspot on the floor. This means you have a hot water slab leak. Hot water is running through the pipe constantly, and that’s why the floor stays hot. If you haven’t been using any water and the floor gets hot, that’s a sign you might have a problem.
If you ever see water coming out of a crack in a garage, or if you have concrete floors and you get a little surface crack and water is coming out of it, that’s a sure indicator that something’s going on.
If you are ever walking around the outside of your house and you see water coming off the exterior beam and pooling, that’s also a sign of either a problem in the wall or possibly on the pipe coming up. You will want to get that checked out by a plumbing professional.

It could be a very simple fix of just some calcium buildup inside the showerhead. We will show a quick video on how to take it off and then reinstall the showerhead. So with the showerheads, they just screw on and off. I like to put a paper towel around the head right here where it screws on and off so I try not to scratch it. Just grab some pliers and twist it counterclockwise, loosen it up, and unthread it. What can happen here is a little bit of gunk and debris can build up. You can just take it and shake it out or take the showerhead and run it underneath a sink faucet somewhere and get all that debris out. And then, when you’re done, you can just start screwing it back on. When it doesn’t turn anymore with your hands, grab your paper towel again and your pliers and just snug it up. And there you go. You’re done!

Occasionally soap, toothpaste, or hair can get clogged up in the drain
Here is a quick and simple homeowner trick that you can try to DIY. Turn on the sink and let it run until it gets hot. Pull up your stopper and let the sink begin to fill up. And as it begins to fill up, what you’re doing is creating head pressure. So when the sink is about halfway to three-quarters of the way full, put your hand over the overflow, and then as the water is still running or what this what the stopper back and forth. and what they can do is break up the soap scum hair replaced by creating a plunging action and breaking all that gunk loose, and you can do it for a minute or two. and then stop, turn it off, and see how fast it drains. This doesn’t always work, but it is something you can try in a pinch. And if that doesn’t work, give us a call. We’d love to come out and get you fixed up.

We are really trying to give our customers something that they could get a lot of benefits throughout the year without paying a high price. We came up with a program that would allow them to have a no-service fee, discount pricing, and priority scheduling, in addition to a double labor warranty. We also, most importantly, do an annual comprehensive plumbing system inspection, and that going to include everything from water quality tests to an annual sewer scope and water pressure tests. This is going to have immense value for our customers. The value of the whole package is over $1,500 We also give a $50 credit towards major repairs that you accrue annually with an active membership. The cost of this program is a one-time payment of $150, and it’s a one-year contract. There’s no automatic renewal. When your renewal comes up, we will always email and call you to see if you would like to continue with the renewal, but we do not automatically charge your credit card. Our guarantee is just to allow you that peace of mind that comes with offering a proactive plan to help maintain your system and increase the longevity of your plumbing. We are all about making our customers’ plumbing systems last longer and be more beneficial for them in the long run. If we can help you sign up for this program, just reach out to us or let one of our techs know, and we would be happy to have you as part of our New Standard Program.

Our software has incredible communication tools that allow us to send you a message when the technician is en route to you. You will receive a text message showing that a technician is on the way to your location. You can then see a profile of the technician and read an awesome bio about who he is and his license number with the Texas State Board. Then there’s a handy link that will take you to the GPS where you can track exactly where the technician is and how far away he is from your location. One of our other favorite things about this is it shows what type of reviews the technician has.