If you have a leak and desire to fix your plumbing yourself, there are three natural laws that you need to remember.
These are gravity, pressure, and the fact that water will look for its location naturally.
If you understand these simple facts, you can save time on the repair, save trouble during the repair, and save money on the repair.
Knowing how your home's plumbing is set up helps you save trouble.
Home plumbing is made up of two basic systems.
The water both comes into your home and goes out of your home.
When it comes in, it is metered so that your supplier can register exactly what you use each month and often the shut off valve is located right next to this meter.
All the water is sent through the system by pressure.
If you want cold water, you can have that right away, but if you want hot water, the cold will need to be piped through a hot water heater from which hot is piped to all the major water outlets in the home.
Your home's plumbing also has drainage systems.
Instead of pressure, waste water leaves the home due to a down angle so that the natural law of gravity takes it to either your city sewer or back yard septic system.
This process may sound simple, but there are lots of air vents and collection traps in the system that aid in the process and may occasionally need to be cleaned out.
The vents allow for air to get into the system so that the waste flows out properly and the traps help keep the gases from the sewer from coming back into your home.
You find the vents in the roof and the traps in the fixtures.
If you have a clog in the trap, it often only requires only a tool called a snake to pull or push out the clog or a drain cleaning liquid to clean it out.
Sometimes, however, you may need to take the toile or sink off the floor to see exactly what the clog is and get it out by hand.
The supply and drainage system operate differently but are connected in one main way, the fixtures.
These are the toilet, sinks, bathtub, as well as faucets on the outside of your home.
These all both draw water into the home and expel used water from the home, but keep the systems separated.
If you are repairing any of these fixtures, make sure that you turn off the water at the source, teach your family how to shut off the water valve in case you are not home to take care of an emergency situation, and check with the city that you are served by to make sure that you follow any guidelines that are in place.
If you don't feel comfortable fixing any plumbing problem yourself, call a professional so that you can make sure that it is done right.