Posts Tagged ‘Plumbers’

Diagnosing an Upstairs Plumbing Leak

Diagnosing an upstairs plumbing leak can actually be a lot trickier than a lot of people may think. In fact, when I worked for Allstar Plumbing, one of the questions we asked every potential employee during the interview process was how to properly perform this diagnosis. Even when making the scenario fairly simple, almost everyone got it wrong. Here is the scenario that we gave:

“A home owner calls you out because they have a wet spot in their ceiling directly below the upstairs tub/shower. It’s getting worse over time. To make the scenario easier, we will eliminate the possibility of the leak coming from the toilet or lavatory sink. We will focus on the tub/shower combo. How do you go about diagnosing the source of the leak?”

Almost every single interviewee responded that they would cut a section of sheetrock out of the ceiling and look through the hole with a flashlight. Sounds reasonable, right? It’s the wrong answer! Here is why:

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Know Your Plumber Part 2

Hello again! In my last plumbing info article, I talked about the two different types of plumbers and the pluses and minuses of using each. I also revealed my opinion on the best kind to go for to deal with most plumbing issues. In this article, I am going to tell you how to make sure you are getting the best value for your plumbing dollar.

This article is going to focus almost entirely on up-sellers. These are complete plumbers, and the true plumbing professionals will be in this group. There are a LOT of impostors though, so I want you to know how to tell the difference. You want a professional working on your plumbing.

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Know Your Plumber Part I

An interesting thing happened today. I joined a plumbing forum. The forum rules said that I could have a link to my website in my signature, so I put the link to the PlumbingInfo.org home page. I went to the part of the forum where new members can introduce themselves and created a post that basically said, “Hello! Steve from California here. I am dropping in to say hello”. After several people from that site went to view this website, I was banned from the forum!

Just proof that most plumbers do NOT want you to be an informed consumer! They are afraid of you knowing what this site is telling you. My girlfriend assures me, however, that I am doing the right thing. Now, on to the topic at hand…

In this article, I wanted to cover plumbers themselves and how to know whether or not you have the right plumber for your plumbing needs. Most of you don’t know the difference, so I hope this helps.

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