Taking care of some end-of-summer plumbing maintenance can keep your home in top form and avoid tragedy over the winter.
Summer can be one of the hardest seasons on your plumbing, especially if you have kids. While children are home for the summer, all your home plumbing tends to see a lot more use and abuse. There’s more laundry, more showers, and more things going into your garbage disposal that shouldn’t. As summer comes to a close and kids head back to school, your plumbing will benefit from a check-up and any necessary repairs or maintenance to keep everything running smoothly. Performing end-of-summer maintenance will have your plumbing in good shape as we head into the cold winter months.
Inspect the Water Heater
One of the first things to do on your end-of-summer plumbing maintenance checklist is to inspect your water heater. Give it a thorough once-over, looking for leaks, cracks, rust, or anything else that seems amiss. Once you’ve looked it over, you should drain it to keep sediment from building up and causing damage. If there are any issues detected, be sure to repair them or call a professional to take care of the job.
Inspect the Garbage Disposal
Garbage disposals tend to suffer a lot of abuse during the summer months. Between kids who tend to do what they want and guests who aren’t aware of what to avoid sending into the garbage disposal, yours might need a little end-of-summer maintenance. You can do a little routine maintenance yourself, or have a professional come out to check it and snake the drain to clear out any build-up.
Check for Leaks
You might think that leaks are obvious, and if you haven’t noticed any signs of one, then there must not be any. Unfortunately, leaks can be very sneaky by starting out as a minuscule amount of water seeping out and slowly growing into a serious, noticeable leak that has already caused significant structural damage. Part of your end-of-summer maintenance should include checking for leaks around all of your plumbing. With everything having been in constant use, the wear and tear is a risk for pipe damage that leads to minor leaks.
Clean the Gutters
Trees don’t wait for fall to start shedding their leaves—they’ve been doing it all summer! While trees don’t dump so many leaves all at once in the summer season, they’ve been sending down leaves for months already. If you wait until fall to clean your gutters, you could find them full to bursting and risk late summer and early fall rains not draining properly and potentially causing damage to your home. Prepare for the onslaught of fall leaves by clearing out your gutters now.
Call Mahon Plumbing Today
If you still have more questions regarding your plumbing, we here at Mahon Plumbing are here to help. We have been serving the wider Baltimore area since 1994, so we have 25 years of experience to back up our fantastic service! Call us at our Baltimore location at 410-766-8566 or our Pasadena location at 410-636-7944. Be sure to keep up with us on social media by following us on Facebook or Twitter.