Inclement Weather is Not the Only Danger to Your Home
As a homeowner, you want to protect your investment, and you’ve been doing a great job: you’ve got insurance, you keep your home clean and free of clutter, and you take pride in dusting off that that gorgeous new flat screen over the mantle. Despite all of your effort, however, you might be missing an important step in home care: caring for your plumbing. Maybe you think that, as long as you aren’t flushing orange peels down the toilet or trying to shred a baseball bat in the garbage disposal, you’re doing well. The truth is that, while you may be careful not to do what you’re not supposed to do to your plumbing, you may not be doing enough to protect your plumbing. Your plumbing is vulnerable to a number of frustrating and expensive things, but there are things that you can do to protect your home and your wallet. Making sure to have your home inspected for leaks is the best thing that you can do to protect your plumbing, and making sure to insulate your pipes during harsh winters saves you the hassles of dealing with pipes that have frozen.
Leaks Can Cause Expensive Damage
Anytime water is dripping or flowing outside of its designated place, you have a leak. Water coming from a faucet or showerhead is not considered a leak, and is not dangerous to your home, unless left unattended. A leak directly from the pipe, however, is another matter that needs to be attended to. While you may or may not be able to prevent leaks, you can find out about them before they cause extensive damage by having your home inspected for leaks. If you don’t attend to a leak the moment that you suspect it is a problem, you’re risking the health of your home and of your household: one of the dangers of leaks is the mold that grows when the microorganisms that live in your home come in contact with moisture and warmth.
The Damage Categories
There are three main degrees of water damage. The higher the degree of damage, the more costly the repair, and the more likely you will be to be looking at permanent damage to your home. Category One water damage is the most common. In Category One, a source of clean water has overflowed, spilling onto floors. This still puts your home at risk for growing mold, but it is the easiest and least dangerous water damage that can happen to your home. Category One water damage can happen as a result of carelessness, or as a result of unknown blocks. Categories Two and Three both involve handling unsanitary water. In Category Two, your septic tank may be backed up, or an outbound toilet pipe may have ruptured, causing dirty water to enter your home. In Category Three, a sewer on your block may be malfunctioning, and overflowing. With Category Three damage, there is not usually much that you can do to prevent it from happening, but keeping your plumbing safe and clean is a good way to ensure that you will not bear the worst part of a difficult problem like that. In any situation, calling your local plumbing company to report leaks and damages from leaks will be the quickest and easiest way to find a solution to this problem.