Life Lessons, Courtesy of Mr. Rooter

Seven things Every Homeowner Should Know About Plumbing.

Story by Joseph Dobrian

Even the most dedicated do-it-yourselfer is better off leaving plumbing to the professionals. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't know the rudiments of the subject. Here are seven tips to keep in mind, courtesy of Mr. Rooter Plumbing.

LESSON 1: THE BIG ONE: PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE

You no longer have to take your plumber's word for it when he tells you your drainpipes need repair. Mr. Rooter can put a video camera down the pipes to show you just where the problem is, usually before it becomes serious. Homeowners should have this done at least every five years. David Frederixon, co-owner of a Mr. Rooter franchise in Southeast Minnesota, reports that on one recent video inspection, he discovered a two-foot break in the sewer line.

"We were able to fix the problem using trenchless technology, breaking up the old sewer line and pushing in a new one with very little digging," he reports. "The trenchless process doesn't chew up your whole lawn."

Mr. Rooter also advocates the use of BioChoiceES, a microbial treatment that will get rid of nearly all of a drain's accumulated grease. Diana Boley, co-owner of a Mr. Rooter franchise in Santa Ana, California, explains that this is usually done following a HydroScrub.

"A HydroScrub is like putting a bottle brush down your line," she says. "Your line will be about 98.5 percent as clean as it was when it was new."

LESSON 2: DUE DILIGENCE

"Before you buy any property, have your Mr. Rooter technician do a video inspection of the sewer line," urges Donald Lapierre, a Mr. Rooter franchise owner in Warwick, Rhode Island. "As many as 40 percent of the sewer lines in our area are loaded with root intrusion, many older pipes are fractured and cracked, and seismic shifts due to frost and vibrations can cause misalignments."

This is especially critical advice if you're buying a fixer-upper, which probably has old pipes. If you discover the problem too late, it could destroy your restoration efforts.

"We had one customer who bought an old house in a nice neighborhood and gutted it, put down beautiful imported marble flooring and so forth, but never checked the drain system," recalls Rick Joy, a Mr. Rooter franchise owner in Southwest Florida. "A video inspection before he bought the house would have cost him maybe $400, and the pipes could have been repaired easily, and not that expensively.

"Instead, when the problems became apparent, we had to uproot that marble and dig through the floor. The whole job cost $40,000, and there was a match issue when the marble was replaced. Cast-iron pipes have a life span—they corrode—and that life span is shorter if you're near salt water."

LESSON 3: DON'T DESPAIR

No matter how hopeless a situation might look, it probably isn't. You name it, and a plumber has probably fixed it—or recovered it—at one time or another.

"We had a lady flush a diamond ring down a toilet," Joy recalls, "so we went outside the house, excavated a two-foot section of the sewer system, put a screen on the pipe, then used our HydroScrub (water cleaning technology) to scour it. The whole job took upwards of six hours, but the ring was caught in the netting when the HydroScrub washed everything through."

Sometimes you don't have to resort to the HydroScrub. Boley tells the story of a job where her crew was about to use a similarly complicated procedure to extract a rubber connector, when the homeowner intervened.

"He was a champion fly fisherman," she recalls, "and he got his fishing rod, put a line down the sewer with a lure and a bobber, caught that connector, and pulled it out. I wouldn't have used that technique in the field, but he was determined." BUT…

LESSON 4: DON'T DO IT YOURSELF

"One of the biggest mistakes you can make is going to a home center and renting your own drain-cleaning machine," Boley insists. "Not only can it be dangerous, but most of the time it won't be long enough, or powerful enough. Some people call us after they've used that machine for the fourth time in two weeks.

"Commercial drain cleaner is another big no-no. It has harsh chemicals and can be very toxic. I've heard of cases where someone poured cleaner down the drain, then pushed a snake down there and got sick from breathing the fumes. Use it as a preventative if you want to, but eventually it'll hurt your pipes."

Also, Boley advises, don't install your own garbage disposal. It's hard for a nonprofessional to align the pipes correctly, and if the drainage plug isn't removed, debris can get trapped in your dishwasher and cause a major flood.

LESSON 5: KNOW YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES

Check your local laws to see who's responsible for sewer lines that encroach on public property.

"One of our customer's main sewer line had multiple breaks, located under a city storm drain that had eroded the soil and undermined the roadbed," Lapierre recalls. "In Providence, that's entirely the owner's responsibility. To fix it, we had to dig 12 feet into a major road, the police had to cordon off the area and redirect traffic. The whole job cost $21,000, and the customer had to refinance his house. If we'd had earlier notice of the problem, we could have done a reline using trenchless technology and avoided the excavation—and a lot of the cost."

LESSON 6: KNOW HOW TO SHUT THE WATER OFF

"Shutting your water off is something most people don't think about, but everyone needs to know how to do it," Boley insists. "On older homes, you'll usually find one shutoff valve below the spigot near your front door, in the basement where water service enters the house or in an interior closet of the house."

Any plumbing inspection should include a check of the emergency shutoff valves at all faucets and toilets, Boley adds. Often—especially behind the toilet—these can corrode to the point of becoming inoperable, and often become brittle and break off.

LESSON 7: DON'T SEND G.I. JOE TO THE RESCUE

"Anything you can think of, we've pulled out of a drain," says Frederixon. "I'm talking pork chops, cauliflower, and in one instance, about 20 pounds of potato peelings that were stuffed down a garbage disposal and ended up clogging the whole system. Guests can knock something in the toilet and flush it down and be too embarrassed to say anything."

"One customer's daughter accidentally flushed a Barbie doll down the toilet," recalls Boley, "and her brother flushed G.I. Joe after her—to save her. As it turned out, we had to rescue both of them."

JOSEPH DOBRIAN has written on technology, home improvement, and contingency planning issues for Kitchen & Bath Business, the New York Times, The Economist, and many other publications.