Style, Function, or Both? Tips for Bathroom Remodels in Sarasota

Are your plans for 2023 to finally invest in a bathroom remodel in Sarasota? If you’re ready to go, skip this blog and call your Sarasota plumbers to get started with your bathroom remodel today!

First things first. Set a budget for your bathroom remodel. This will determine everything.

If your house has cast iron piping below the concrete slab, and you are wanting to replace your original toilet, you should consider investing the money into having your main drain looked at with our sewer camera inspection services in Sarasota.

By running the sewer inspection camera, your Sarasota plumber can tell you what the condition of your waste line is and whether or not the new 1.6 gallon flush toilet will flush all the through your sewer line or cause continual stoppages.

You may not want to hear your lines are rusted, corroded and scaled, but it is better to know now, then when you get your bathroom all finished and the toilet stops up all the time.

It is usually more cost effective to do any waste piping under the slab, if needed, before the finished floor and cabinets are installed. And fortunately, Wimpy’s offers repiping in Sarasota – so we can take care of it all!

Now you can set a budget with no suprises during your bathroom remodel in Sarasota.

The next part is fun. Go to your local plumbing supply showrooms and see what is available. The sales professional can guide you through all the cool looking stuff from modern, contemporary, rustic, or just plain far-out. The sky is the limit, remember your 30 year old bathroom?  Pick something you like. It may be another 30 years before you go though this again.

When choosing plumbing fixtures and valves, pick quality name brands. This insures that down the road your Sarasota plumber will have the parts on his truck or will have access to them right away, if the product does have a problem down the road.

You should consult with a professional plumber to make sure what you are doing is to code and find out if any permits are necessary.

If you choose to hire Wimpy’s for your bathroom remodel in Sarasota, you can rest assured that we have your best interests at heart.

Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air would love to consult with you for all your needs surrounding bathroom remodeling in Sarasota. We want you to love your plumber!

My Shower Head Leaks, What’s wrong?

If your shower head still leaks when you turn off your shower or tub valve, You may need to call a licensed professional plumber in the Lakewood Ranch area to service your shower or tub valve.

Before you call a Sarasota plumber, here are a few things to check:

1)  Have you changed your shower head to a rain head or other large head?  These styles hold a lot of residual water that may cause you to think your valve doesn’t turn off completely.  If the valve is working properly, the water will stop dripping after one or two minutes.

2)   Think back to when the valve was new.  It probably worked very smooth and easy.  If it takes force to turn your valve on, or it is hard to pull in and out, it needs servicing.  Over time, because the water in Sarasota and Bradenton has lime and calcium minerals in it, these minerals create hard water.  This leaves deposits on the working mechanisms of your valves.  This causes your faucet to slowly freeze up and not work as smooth as it used to. This happens slowly over time.  the change is so gradual, that you don’t notice it, until the faucet doesn’t turn off or you can’t twist it or pull it.

3)  Have your Sarasota Plumber or your Bradenton Plumber check all of your faucets when he comes to your house.  As a professional he will know how the valve is supposed to feel and can make you aware of any potential problems.

4)  You will Love Your Plumber if he gives you an alternative to hard water, which is soft water.  Soft water will save you money on future plumbing repairs.

At Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air, we want you to Love Your Plumber.  We will check all of your valves and give you all of your options.  Call the professionals, Wimpy’s has Florida State Certified licensed plumbers at your service.

www.LoveYourPlumber.com or 941-322-1911.   Call today, Wimpy’s Plumbing always gives estimates and honest, second opinions.

We want you to Love Your Plumber!

Can My Sarasota Water Heater Flood My Home or Garage?

Can a water heater leak enough water to flood your home or a garage?  Absolutely. Anyone who has had to deal with a water heater repair in Sarasota from their system bursting at the seams will certainly testify to this. And, at Wimpy’s our Sarasota plumbers can help.

Here is a list of things you can check to help prevent a flood in your home or garage:

1. Check the pipes on top of your water heater and look for signs of corrosion or rust. Schedule water heater maintenance in Sarasota, FL and our plumbers will inspect this for you!
2. Inspect the tank for signs of rust.
3. Try to determine the date of the water heater. If it is over eight years old, you are probably out of warranty and overdue for water heater replacement in Sarasota.
4. Trying to get a few more years out of your water heater is like trying to get more miles out of bald tires on your car.
5. Look for signs of moisture around the bottom of your water heater and on the floor.

These simple steps may prevent the flood that you don’t want.

Also, if your water heater is not sitting in a safety pan, and it is on your living level,you should have one installed.  The Florida State Plumbing Code requires this under section 504.7.

The safety pan with a drain to the outside is just a good idea.

While most water heaters will just leak enough in the pan and drain to prevent damage, there are the water heaters that decide to just let loose and will flood no matter what preventive measures you have taken.

This is why you should take the time to inspect your water heater from time to time, or call your Sarasota plumbers for water heater services.

Although you can’t actually see the tank itself, just the outer shell, the warning signs you find, may just save you a big headache and a lot of mopping.

If you need help inspecting your water heater or finding out how old it is, just call Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air.  You will love your Sarasota plumber for helping you prevent a flood in your home. We service Sarasota, Bradenton and surrounding areas.

Water Coming out From Under Cabinet.

Water coming out from under the cabinet of your kitchen sink or your bathroom vanity is a sure sign of a plumbing problem.

Look at the picture of the pipe we recently took out.  The holes in the copper pipe, called “the waste arm” was the cause of the water coming out from under the cabinet.

This type of leak happens very slowly over time.  You may start to smell a musty smell before you see water.  Sooner or later, the last straw is going to break the camels back, so to speak.  Then you will start to get water on the floor when you use that fixture.

When you call a Plumber to come fix your problem and this happens to be the cause, make sure your Plumber replaces the entire piece of copper.  A Professional Plumber will always replace the entire waste arm. Because even if you only have a small hole in the waste arm, sooner, more than later the rest of the pipe will cause you a problem too.  After all, it is all the same age.  As the old saying goes, don’t be penny wise and pound foolish!

Your Sarasota Plumber or your Bradenton Plumber will use schedule 40 pvc pipe to replace the waste arm.

While under the sink, look at the connections to the sink itself.  If they look corroded, now is the time to make all new connections.  This will save you a line item on your honey dew list down the road.  Let your Plumber take care of this task for you.  He should have a fully stocked truck, like Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air trucks, at your house ready to tackle any plumbing problem you may have.

Neat, clean, honest and just plain Dependable.  Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air.

Call us today, Wimpy’s wants you to Love Your Plumber!  941-322-1911 or schedule on line at www. Loveyourplumber.com.

Saturday Afternoon Plumbing Nightmare.

You woke up Saturday morning feeling great!  Your spouse has a honey-do list for you. Being the terrific spouse you are, the list starts getting done.  One by one,  you are fixing all the little or big things on the list.  By the time you get down to the “fix leaking shower”, it is around 4;00.  Your thinking, this will be a breeze.  You find out that you will need to shut off the water to the whole house because there are no shut-off valves behind your shower.  Okay, not a problem. You turn off the water to the house.  Now you go inside and take apart your shower valve.  You remove the shower cartridge with the trusty tool that the hardware store guy sold you, but find out it only pulled the inner part of your cartridge out and left the rest of the cartridge in the valve.  Oh, Oh. Your breeze job just became a nightmare.  Now what are you going to do?  The hardware store guy didn’t tell you about this, did he?  Your spouse comes in to check on your progress or hears you swearing and wants to know when you are going to turn the water back on.  You don’t know, because there is a piece of the cartridge stuck in the valve.  And unless you get it out, the new cartridge won’t go in and the water to the house can not be turned back on.  You have friends coming over in a little while, and your little plumbing job has turned into a total nightmare.

You should call Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air.  We will try to walk you though the process of fixing it over the phone, or tell you if a special tool is required for whatever has happened.  You are not the first person this has happened to.

With today’s shower valves, some are very intricate, some are simple.  Some require special tools to disassemble or to remove broken parts, that are only available at a Plumbing wholesale house.

The safest thing to do with items on your honey-do list that involve plumbing is to call a Florida State Certified Master Plumber,  such as  Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air.  We serve the Lakewood Ranch, Sarasota, Bradenton areas, including Longboat Key, Casey Key, and the Old Miakka Communities.

All of our plumbing trucks carry the special tools needed to end your plumbing nightmare.  We want your spouse to love you and we want you to Love Your Plumber.

Allow us to answer your questions or do the repair for you. We are available 24/7. Call 941-322-1911 or visit www.LoveYourPlumber.com

Why Do My Pipes Bang When I Close the Faucet Quickly?

Why do my pipes bang when I turn off my faucet quickly, is a question plumbers get asked a lot.

Sometimes water pipes can make strange noises, creaking, whistling, just plain noisy or the most annoying, banging.  You ask yourself, why?  This is the first time your pipes have ever banged and it doesn’t sound healthy for your plumbing system. Your right. Banging pipes can be detrimental to your plumbing system and needs to be addressed.

The Florida Plumbing Code Statue # 604.9 addresses water hammer.  That is what pipe banging is called, water hammer.  The code states the following: the flow velocity of the water distribution system shall be controlled to reduce the possibility of water hammer.  A water-hammer arrestor shall be installed where quick-closing valves are utilized.  Water-hammer arrestors shall be installed in accordance with the manufacturer’s specifications.  Water-hammer arrestors shall conform to ANSI 1010.

Water-hammer arrestors are mechanical devices that never need recharging.

A plumber in Sarasota can also install air chambers in the walls behind each sink in the bathroom (plumbers call these sinks lavatories). To work properly these air chambers must be at the highest point in the system. The exception to this is if your water distribution system is PEX piping, this system doesn’t need air chambers.

An air chamber acts as a shock absorber for your water pipes. Faucets available today, are quick closing. When you turn a faucet off quickly, the flow of water is energy.  When the water is shut off  abruptly, it creates a shock wave of energy. The air chambers absorbs this energy, so the pipes don’t bang.

Air chambers over time get water-logged.  As your plumbing system is used, the air in the air chamber gets displaced with water. When the air chamber is full of water with no more air, the shock wave of energy produced by quick closing valves has no place to go. Thus, the pipes will bang.

How do you fix it?  The remedy is actually quite simple. You recharge the air chambers. Here’s how. First, turn off the water coming into your house. go around the outside and open all your hose bibs( Faucets your hoses are connected to).  Then, go inside and open all your faucets, hot and cold sides. If your faucets are single handles turn them to mix hot and cold.  Flush your toilets.  To ensure you break any air lock that may occur in the air chambers, blow air through the lavatory faucets through the spout.  You will probably hear the faucets sucking air. This noise will confirm that you have recharged your air chambers.  Turn off all the inside faucets, then turn off the outside faucets.  Now turn your water back on to the house and turn on all your faucets and let them flow until the flow is normal.

The banging went away. You fixed it!  Don’t tell your spouse that you read this blog written by Bubba Butler of Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air.  Let them think that you are their hero!

If your pipes are banging or whistling in Sarasota or Bradenton Florida, Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air can solve this problem for you or talk you through it. We want you to Love Your Plumber! Call 941-322-1911.

High Tech Showerhead from Kohler

Who likes to get into the shower and have a nice spraying showerhead?  Everybody!!  What do you get the person who has everything? A Kohler showerhead that plays music with bluetooth technology, called the Moxie.  Not only does the Moxie showerhead produce a really nice shower, it will play the music you want to hear.

The showerhead sprayface features 60 angled nozzles that deliver the full, enveloping spray you’ve come to expect from a KOHLER® showerhead.  Also, available with a water-saving 2.0 gpm or a 2.5 gpm spray, Moxie lets you save water without sacrificing performance. And the silicone sprayface of the showerhead makes it easy to wipe away mineral buildup.

The Moxie shower head, by Kohler, is a waterproof speaker with the quality that will match a Bose speaker.  The speaker sits inside the shower head, yet is easily removable to take with you anywhere to play your favorite music. It will showerhead will Sync your device enabled with Bluetooth® technology with the wireless speaker from up to 32 feet away, and invite your playlist, podcast or live broadcast into the shower.

The Moxie showerhead is rechargable  and lasts about eight hours on a single charge.  Music in the shower, not just  in the room. Wow!  Or just take it to the beach, on the boat, anywhere you go.  And when you get home, just put it back into the showerhead for a invigorating shower with your tunes.

Would you like someone to really like the gift you give them?  Something cool, different and useful.  Did I mention fun?  Get your Kohler Moxie showerhead, one for you and one for a friend. They will love you for it and you’ll be glad you got one too!

They come in some pretty fun colors; Navy Blue, Chartreuse, Retro Blue, Cherry Red and Original White. Check out Kohler’s Link https://www.us.kohler.com/us/Moxie%22-Showerhead-+-Wireless-Speaker/content/CNT16200089.htm or just give Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air a call at 941-322-1911 and we will bring you one right over!

How Do I Get A Stuck Snake/Sewer Cable Out Of The Pipe On The Roof?

Your spouse says that one of your honey-do chores on the “list” is to make your bathroom sink drain because it is completely stopped up.  You’re pretty handy, so you say to yourself, I can fix that drain.  You either go and rent a sewer machine of you have some sort of a snake amongst all your cool tools.  Then you say to yourself, I’ve seen professional plumbers get up on the roof and unstop drains, surely I can do this.  You put your snake down the vent stack on the roof and turn it on and you are making progress,  the snake is going through the pipe.

All of a sudden, it binds, kinks, twists up like a pretzel, and you realize that this may be a bad idea.  You try to remove the snake from the pipe by reversing the machine, but it just twists and kinks the cable more.  Now your cussing, right?

What do you do?  Well, first let’s back up a minute and see what we should of done.

Competent plumbers have three to four different size sewer machines with different size cables.  Experience, will guide their choice of the size of cable and sewer machine selection , based on the size of the drain pipe.  Also, a knowledgeable plumber in Sarasota will know what cleaning head to put on the end of the cable to best clear the stoppage in the drain line.

So, you did not have all of this information and you just used what you had or relied on what  the rental store guy told you to do, and now his snake or yours is stuck in the pipe.

Sometimes if you are lucky, you can put a pipe wrench on the cable and pull it out. Don’t be afraid at this point. Make sure you have eye protection on. You will have to pull on it very hard. It’s going to have to give, bust or bleed. Just be careful that you aren’t the one bleeding.

If it gives, breaks free, and you get all of your cable out, including the head on the end of the cable ,Great!  Now you can use a bigger cable and sewer machine to do the job right.

If the snake just stretched out and broke off in the pipe, then you need to get a professional plumber in Sarasota to access the situation.  The plumber may still be able to get your snake out of the drain or recommend accessing the pipe below the floor to get the broken cable out.

A lot of times, it is usually cheaper and faster to just call Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air, and have them take care of any plumbing problems that are on your honey-do list.

We are available to help you or to answer your plumbing questions. Call 941-322-1911 or schedule online.

Why Do I Run Out Of Hot Water Or Just Get Lukewarm Water?

Running out of hot water has happened to a lot of folks.  Why is it, that it happens at the coldest time of the year? Murphy’s Law or not?

If you currently have an electric water heater, and have had plenty of hot water in the past and now you are only getting lukewarm water, then this is an indication of a lower heating element not working.

There are several ways to confirm this.  First turn off the power to the water heater and remove both access covers, the upper and lower covers and check it with a voltage meter to make sure the power is off.

After confirming the power is off, to manually check the elements without an electric meter, just put your thumb or finger on the tank itself next to the element. If the  top element is working properly, the tank should be hot to the touch near the element.  Check the bottom element the same way.  If, next to the bottom element, it feels cooler than the top element, then you have just found out that your bottom element is not working and needs to be replaced.

Your plumbing professional would also use an electric meter to see if the element has continuity and if it is drawing the correct amperage and voltage.

Plumbers have to know a lot about a variety of different trades.  Electric being one of them, in order to properly diagnosis why you are only getting lukewarm water or no hot water at all.

Sometime, depending on your hot water usage, the lukewarm problem may only surfaces when the weather gets cold.  This is caused by the temperature of the incoming water being colder, due to the weather. If the bottom element is not working, the top element can’t keep up when you take a shower, due to the temperature rise necessary to keep up when the incoming water was warmer.

If you are getting no hot water at all, you will need to check to see if you have the proper voltage coming into the water heater. If the voltage is correct, check to see if the reset button on the top thermostat is tripped. If it makes a  definite click when you push it, it was tripped.  Sometimes this is caused by an electrical surge or a faulty thermostat.

If your electric meter shows no voltage, then you may have a bad electric breaker or a bad switch.

Your plumber in Sarasota should be able to guide you through the steps to check these things or schedule to come check it for you.

Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air is available 24/7 to answer your questions or come to your home to give you an estimate. Call 941-322-1911 or schedule on-line at www.LoveYourPlumber.com

Should I Turn Off My Water When I Leave My House?

There are a few folks who have gone through more than one flood in their lifetime from their plumbing system failing.   Usually, if you are going to have a leak or a flood, Murphy’s Law dictates that it will happen when you are gone.

Professional plumbers will always tell you to turn off the main valve to your house if you are going to be gone.  Gone for how long is the question.

Don’t wait until the day of your departure to see if your main valve turns off or not.  Chances are, it won’t turn off or it might break off, because it hasn’t been exercised.

This is why proper maintenance of your plumbing system is crucial to your homes health.  Maintenance is less work than paranoia.  At least twice a year you should turn your main valve off to make sure it works. But first,  you must know where it is. Make sure everyone in the household knows where the main valve is and how to turn it off.  A 1/4 turn lever handle ball valve is the easiest and most positive shut-off valve to have.

Now a days, nothing is a lifetime product, things need replacing.  Individual shut-off valves under each fixture  should also be inspected twice a year, making sure that you see no signs of corrosion and that they turn on and off properly without leaking or dripping.  1/4 turn valves are available as replacements for these also. They are much easier to operate.

While you are doing your household plumbing inspection, make sure to check your washing machine hoses.  If they show signs of rust, corrosion or have bubbles in them, change them.  Most plumbers prefer stainless steel washing machine hoses and supplies.  However, these should be changed every five years.

If no one is going to check your house every day while you are gone, then we recommend that you turn off your water.  Because if your water heater leaks, it is better to have 50 gallons on the floor verse thousands of gallons.  Also, you should turn off the power to your water heater if you are gone for more than two days. No “sense” in heating up the water if you are not there to use it.

Routine inspections and maintaining your plumbing system is by far, easier and cheaper than the consequences of one flood.

One should also be aware that if you are on well water, and have a lot of algae, debri, sand or just plain bad water, sometimes turning on and the water can flush this loose in the pipes and cause obstructions in your faucets and toilet fill valves.  What you should do is turn the water on slowly, especially if your system is not pressurized, and open up your largest faucet. Start by opening all of your hose bibs, and your bathtub faucet making sure the water comes out of the tub spout, not the shower head. After the water is flowing clean, then bleed off the other faucets and flush the toilets.

If you need help on your plumbing system or you can’t locate your main shut-off valve, schedule with us on-line at www.LoveYourPlumber.com or call Wimpy’s Plumbing & Air, Inc. at 941-322-1911. We would be happy to serve you.