My lavatory won’t seal.

Bathroom sinks are called lavatories by plumbers.  Lavatories in the bathroom are also called basins.  People are accustomed to the lavatories holding water while they are shaving or using the basin to rinse or soak something.  There are times when the lavatory doesn’t hold water.  Now a days,  it seems more common then ever.  I want to list a few of the reasons why this could be occurring.

The more competitive lavatories are not formed well where the drain ring fits in. Thus the plumber has to use more putty to make sure it seals.  If you fill up the lavatory just over the drain ring and watch it carefully, you will see if the water is going out from around the drain ring or the actual stopper is leaking.  If the water is going out from around the drain ring, one would need to disassemble the pop-up assembly, clean off the old putty, install fresh putty generously and reassemble the pop-up assembly.  Then check it again for water leaking by the drain ring.  Hopefully that took care of it and your lavatory holds water.

If the water is leaking out by the drain plug and again you need to just cover the drain ring with water and watch to see where the water is draining by, then maybe the lift rod that pushes and pulls the drain plug open and closed is not pulling up all the way.  Some of the cheaper lavatory faucets seem to always skimp on the quality here with the pop-up assembly.  The lift rod may be plastic and flimsy or made from very thin steel that flexes too much and causes the drain plug not to be pulled down completely, allowing the water to leak by the drain plug.  If this is the case, You should buy a better quality lavatory valve that has a brass pop-up assembly.  Some of the cheaper brass pop-up assemblies don’t seem to open up all the way and this restricts the water draining out of the lavatory.  One of the better pop-up assemblies in brass is a Moen pop-up assembly.  It is cheaper though to buy the faucet with the brass pop-up assembly than to buy the Moen brass pop-up assembly by itself.

Sometimes the lever that holds the drain plug and makes the plug go up and down is just loose and doesn’t hold the drain plug down.  This can be very easily tightened. Then the lavatory holds water and your spouse thinks you are a hero.

Is Someone Stealing Your Water?

Have you ever come home from vacation and saw your water bill for that month and noticed that it was a lot higher?  Or do you just wonder if the neighbor you aren’t on good terms with is washing their car or filling their swimming pool with your water? Check in with your Sarasota plumbers at Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air to find out!

To prevent people from stealing your water while you are gone, could just be as simple as turning your water off at the main house shut-off valve.  But the thieves could just turn the water on and off and you wouldn’t know until the water bill came.

If you do turn off the water to the house while you are gone for a while, you want to make sure the main valve operates properly and easily.  To do so, if the main valve does not look corroded, turn the valve off and drain the system at a hose bib or a faucet inside the house.  If the main valve is working properly, the water will shut off. If it doesn’t turn off completely, call a licensed plumber in Sarasota to replace it with a quarter turn ball valve.  This type of valve can easily be turned off by anyone in the household.  Just make sure that everyone knows where it is and how to use it to turn off the water in case of an emergency.  Most of the main house valves are located outside the house.  this makes it very easy for thieves to turn your water on if you are gone.  Have a Sarasota plumber move the valve to the inside of the house if possible, to eliminate the possibility of anyone other than you turning the water on and off.

If you need to leave the water on so your caretaker can take care of your animals or plants, another option is to install hose bib locks on all the outside hose bibs.  Hose bib locks are simple locking devices that your plumber in Sarasota can provide or you can purchase online.  They simply screw on the hose thread of the valve.  The most popular style is the magnetic locking hose bib.  Using this device insures that no one can steal your water while you are away, giving you peace of mind.

Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air is your full service plumbing company that serves Sarasota, Bradenton, Lakewood Ranch, Osprey, Nokomis, Siesta Key, Longboat Key, Lido Key and the old Miakkia community, including Myakka City.

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Why does my Sarasota water softener use too much salt?

Water softeners in Sarasota are great.  Our Sarasota plumbing pros love them because they tend to work trouble free for long periods of time.  Their purpose is to remove magnesium and calcium from your water.  These are the minerals that create the hardness of the water.  Water hardness levels differ around counties and municipalities.  When choosing a Sarasota water treatment system, one needs to know the hardness level of their water.  Also, the softener needs to be sized for the amount of water the household will use.

When your water softener is built to specifications,  it is set up for that particular water sample.  The specs of the water test will determine the amount of resins needed and the size of the tank needed to provide soft water.  Then there are different salt level settings in the softener head to determine how much salt is going to be used during the regeneration cycle.   If the salt level setting wasn’t set at the proper level at start-up, the softener may use too much salt or not enough salt. Changing the salt level setting is fairly easy on most quality softener heads. However, some cheaper models will not have a way to change the salt levels.  A licensed Sarasota plumber would be able to help you at this point, if needed.

Before you call one of the many plumbing companies in Sarasota, make sure your water usage has been the same, and no hoses have been running for an extended period of time, as this would cause your softener to regenerate and use a lot more salt.

Another cause of your water softener using too much salt would be that the brain of the system, the head, is malfunctioning.  This will usually entail the help of a professional plumber in Sarasota County, due to the availability of parts accessible to the homeowner.

Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air is available to check your water softener if it is using too much salt.  We offer plumbing in Sarasota, Bradenton, Lakewood Ranch, Longboat Key, Casey Key, Myakka City and surrounding areas. Call us today for help with your water softener!

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My disposal leaks under the sink.

A common problem plumbers in Sarasota hear from their customers is, I have water leaking under my kitchen sink and it appears to be coming from the garbage disposal.

The first thing to do is to dry everything off so you can determine where the leak is coming from. When you have dried off the area, run some water and see if you can pinpoint the source of the leak.

Start looking at the bottom of the sink. Sometimes, the installer didn’t get the mounting bracket tight enough or did not use plumbers putty on the bottom of the strainer. If water is coming out from the mounting bracket, disassemble the disposal from the bracket and putty or tighten the bracket. Reassemble and test for leaks.

The leak could be coming from the branch on the disposal that excepts the dishwasher discharge line. Sometimes, this branch just corrodes and literally breaks or falls off.  If this happened to your disposal, a replacement is the only cure.

Another place disposals leak from is the seal on the inside of the disposal. Water will be coming out the bottom of the disposal. this leak is caused by age and/or someone using too strong of a drain cleaner.  The only cure is to replace the unit.

If no water is coming from around the disposal, then check the ‘p’ trap under the unit.  It may be corroded and causing the leak under the kitchen sink instead of your disposal.

In the past, I have heard customers refer to their garbage disposals as a garbureator. Forgive the spelling on that, I not sure that it is even a word, but it refers to what people call a garbage disposal.  (that was just some fyi).

If you need to disassemble the ‘p’ trap under the sink, and it has rubber washers, be sure to use new washers to prevent drips so you can rest assured your spouse doesn’t find any more leaks under the sink and you can be the hero. If you’re having trouble locating the source of your leak, call your plumbers at Wimpy’s for leak detection in Sarasota.

The features Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air, Inc. recommends for a disposal are; at least a 3/4 horsepower motor  that reverses itself every time you turn it on. Also a stainless steel shredding will give the unit a longer lifespan.

Call Wimpy’s for All Your Sarasota Plumbing Needs

If you need a Sarasota plumber, you should call Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air. We can help you make the right decision for you.

Pipe outside close to house is leaking

When you get a very high water bill for two months in a row and you have checked your toilets for them running constantly, and they check out fine, you need to go outside and look around.

Perhaps you have a hose connected to a hose bib, that was left on and the hose leaks.  Either the hose end is bad or maybe the hose washer fell out. Or it is spraying out around the handle or the hose bib screw on vacuum breaker.

Another possibility, is that someone left the hose running. A way to tell if you are using water is to look at your water meter.

Go out by the street and look for the water meter box.  Open the cover of the box. Sometimes there are two water meters in one box.  To make sure which one is yours, open the meter dial cover, then go open a faucet or let a hose run .  You will see a smaller dial inside the glass cover, called the leak indicator.  this leak indicator will turn if any water at all, is being used.  Once you have established which meter is yours, make sure everything is turned off inside and outside the house.  Then check the meter and watch the leak indicator dial.  If it moves, you are losing water somewhere and may need to call a plumber in Sarasota to help you locate the leak.

While you are waiting to see if the leak indicator moves, walk around your yard to check for wet or mushy spots in the yard.  This would indicate a leak in the main water line.

If you checked all around, inside and outside the house, you may have a leak under the concrete slab.  This would be a good time to call a Sarasota plumber to get their professional opinion.

Need a licensed master plumber to find your leak?  Call Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air, Inc..  (941) 322-1911. Owner Bubba Butler.  Family owned and operated in Sarasota for 40 years.  www.LoveYourPlumber.com

Kitchen sink won’t drain.

My kitchen sink won’t drain so I took apart the PVC  trap and rodded the drain two feet, but it is still backing up.  This is a complaint heard by many a Sarasota plumbing company.

Let’s list some of the reasons why a kitchen plumbing won’t drain and some possible solutions, so you don’t have to call a plumber for drain cleaning in Sarasota.

First, if only one side of your sink is stopped up, use a plunger to plunge the stopped upside while holding the strainer/drain plug down on the other side will normally clear the drain. It’s important to hold the other strainer/plug down, so the pressure of the plunger goes directly to the stoppage and doesn’t come up the open side and splash you.

If plunging doesn’t work, take out the water in the sink with a small bucket, sponge, or wet vac.  A licensed, professional Sarasota plumber would then lay drop cloths under the sink and surrounding areas to prepare for removing the p trap under the sink.  If your sink only has one p trap, remove it using a pair of large slip-joint pliers.  Have a bucket handy that will fit under the p trap, because you may get more water.  When you remove the trap and no water comes out on the top side, this is great news.  Look for the tee fitting that connects the other side of the kitchen drain.  A lot of times this plastic tee has a baffle inside it that creates a blockage when too much waste was put in the disposal.  Look inside the tee and remove the blockage by tapping it out or using a screwdriver to dislodge the blockage.  If you did indeed remove a blockage, reassemble the drain, making sure you put all the washers back in place, test the sink drain, and receive praise from your spouse.

If, when removing the p trap, the water came out on the low side, you will be glad you put drop clothes down like a Sarasota plumber would have done, because this next part could get messy. Now, you need to run a cable or what plumbers call it, a snake.  A 1/2″ cable would be the choice of plumbers in Sarasota with a variety of cutting heads that would clear your stoppage.  A 1/4″ cable is a little bit easier to use if this is the first time at using a snake.  If you rented the snake, get insurance on cable damage if they offer it.  Run the snake in a little at a time. You will feel it hit the obstruction. Work it back and forth slowly.  Don’t let it bind.  This is where the larger diameter snake is better suited. It is stronger and won’t kink.  If using a 1/4″ cable, don’t exceed 10-12 feet.  At that point, you will be in a larger diameter pipe and you may get the small cable stuck in the drain.  This isn’t good and you may have to call a plumber in Sarasota to get it out for you.  After you ran the snake 10-12′ pull the snake out, reassemble the drain, test it  Hopefully, you cleared the stoppage and you will be able to brag to your spouse and friends that you cleared your own kitchen sink stoppage without having to call a plumber.

Need a licensed master plumber for drain cleaning in Sarasota?  Call Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air, Inc. today!

Why a toilet runs periodically.

One of the most common complaints about toilets is that my toilet runs periodically or people hear the toilet turn on to refill the tank.  They say that the noise occurs for about 5-10 seconds.  When these people call a Sarasota plumber about this problem,  their licensed master plumber in Sarasota will ask them about their toilet or as plumbers in Sarasota call them, water closets.  The Sarasota plumber will ask them if they know the brand and age of their water closet.  This is so the plumber in Sarasota can determine which flapper or flush valve they need to have on their plumbing truck, so if they are going to be Lakewood Ranch plumbers they want to have the correct parts on their plumbing trucks in Sarasota.

The main cause for a water closet or toilet running periodically is normally caused by a flapper that is worn or deteriorated.  The water in Sarasota has an amount of chemicals that is used to keep our water safe and potable. Over time this causes rubber parts such as flappers to deteriorate or warp.  This causes the flapper not to sit on the flush valve flat.  The flapper would then allow water to leak by between the flapper and the flush valve.  Replacing the flapper will normally take care of a toilet that runs periodically.  Take care to match your old flapper with the new flapper as there are quite a few flappers to choose from for all of the different toilets out there.  A good plumber in Sarasota will carry a large variety of different  flappers. A Sarasota plumber or a Lakewood Ranch plumber  will carry a number of the same flappers on his plumbing truck in Sarasota, because if one toilet in the house is  running periodically, chances are the other water closets are the same age, so the other flappers should be checked and or replaced at the same time by a Sarasota plumber.  Make sure your plumber in Lakewood Ranch cleans off any residue that may be on the surface of the flush valve.

If the flapper appears to be in good shape, the surface the flapper sits on could be warped. This piece is called the flush valve. a good plumber in Sarasota carries these on his truck. The toilet tank needs to be removed to replace the flush valve.  There are many different flush valves to fit many different water closets.  A Lakewood Ranch plumber or a plumber in Sarasota can help you identify  which flush valve is the correct one for your toilet that runs periodically.

When your toilet runs periodically, call Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air, Inc.. Serving  Sarasota Florida as a family owned plumbing business since 1973.  We only employ  state licensed plumbers.

www.LoveYourPlumber.com

Bubba Butler

State license #CFCO57842