Saddleback Plumbing Heating & Air Blog: Archive for February, 2014

Why Mechanized Snakes Work Better Than Over-the-Counter Snakes

Tuesday, February 25th, 2014

When plumbing clogs arise, people tend to turn to plumbing snakes to correct them. They’re easy to use and much safer than chemical cleaners, and they can usually fix the problem with a little elbow grease. Here in Trabuco Canyon, drain cleaning services offer mechanized snakes, which are often a superior choice to the store-bought snakes you might be used to. Here’s why mechanized snakes work better than over-the-counter snakes.

As you may expect, store-bought snakes utilize a one-size-fits-all approach, which means that it’s designed to handle a wide variety of clogs. Unfortunately, that might not be sufficient to deal with the specific nature of a given clog, and even if it is, you might end up inadvertently damaging your plumbing in the process. Mechanized snakes, in contrast, typically offer interchangeable heads, allowing the plumber to tailor the snake to the exact nature of the clog. Not only does that help the snake do its job more quickly, but it can prevent inadvertent damage to the clog in the process.

Then there’s the issue of forced. Over-the-counter snakes usually rely on cranks or plain old-fashioned elbow grease, which again may not be sufficient to handle the task at hand. A mechanized snake, deployed by a professional, can exercise just the right amount of force to break up the clog while still keep in your pipes undamaged. When you add that to a fitted head, it makes the use of a mechanized snake the clear chose over store-bought models.

That isn’t to say a store-bought model is completely useless. Indeed, in mild cases, it can function perfectly adequately, but like a lot of things, you get what you pay for, and for all but the most basic clogs, mechanical snakes work better than over-the-counter snakes. Drain cleaning services along with a host of other resourceful plumbing services are offered by the experts at Saddleback Plumbing. If you’re having problems with a tough clog or in need of other plumbing repair in Trabuco Canyon, pick up the phone and give us a call today. We’ll take care of it with the latest technological advances, used by experienced pros who know how to do the job right.

Continue Reading

3 Things to Consider When Replacing Bathroom Plumbing

Thursday, February 20th, 2014

You can choose to have bathroom plumbing replacement done for a variety of reasons. Some homeowners choose to have a full pipe replacement for older pipes during a bathroom remodel, when the pipes are exposed, either to make the remodel design more flexible or because the pipes are too aged. Other times, you’ll need replacement done to put in new fixtures, such as tub, sink, or toilet. Whatever the reason, here are three things for you to consider when it’s time for replacement work for your Lake Forest, CA bathroom plumbing.

For excellent plumbing services, from your bathroom to your kitchen and all other rooms in your home, you can depend on the professionals at Saddleback Plumbing—serving Orange County since 1981.

1. Replacement material

If you have a house older than thirty or forty years, you probably have galvanized steel plumbing, which was the dominant material for indoor plumbing since the close of the 19th century. For newer homes, you probably have copper pipes. When it comes to pipe replacement, you have the option to go for copper (if you have steel pipes), or plastic pipes such as CPVC and PEX. These three each have advantages and disadvantages, so check with your plumber about your options and their costs to help you choose the one that will work best for you.

2. Replacing one component will often involve replacing others

Whether you are installing a new low-flow toilet, a sink, or a whirlpool bathtub, placing upgraded components in your bathroom often means that other components must be upgraded as well. A professional plumber can survey your bathroom’s needs before replacement and determine what work needs to be done to ensure that all fixtures in the bathroom will work their best.

3. Use only licensed, professional plumbers

Bathroom plumbing replacement is neither a “do-it-yourself” task nor work for amateurs who claim to be plumbers. There are few places in a home that depend on the proper flow of fresh and waste water as much as the bathroom, and poor pipe replacement can mean substandard material, faulty connections, leaking, low water pressure, and even serious damage to the flooring. Make sure you call on experienced plumbing professionals for this job: you’ll save time, money, and disastrous future problems.

Having replacements done for your bathroom plumbing by a professional plumbing service in Lake Forest, CA can mean enhancing your daily routine with more advanced components and better water pressure and flow. But that success depends on having the right plumbing contractor doing the work. Make sure you call a qualified and experienced plumber when the time comes. Give Saddleback Plumbing a call today for fast and professional service.

Continue Reading

Can I Move My Sink During a Kitchen Plumbing Remodel?

Wednesday, February 19th, 2014

One of the best ways to enhance your home is with a full kitchen remodeling. The kitchen is often located near the center of a house, and will usually become an informal gathering place for family and guests.

Although the outer appearance of your kitchen will be on your mind during remodeling, how much of the vital hidden workings, the plumbing, can you change? Specifically, can you move your sink during a remodel, or must the remodeling work around the sink’s fixed location?

The simple answer is: Yes, you can move your sink during a plumbing remodel. But you’ll need special assistance with it.

Contact Saddleback Plumbing when you want extensive work on your kitchen plumbing by an exceptional plumbing service in Laguna Hills, CA during your remodel.

Everything and the kitchen sink

An experienced plumber will know all about how to plan moving a sink during a plumbing remodel. One of the key ideas during remodeling is to retain the kitchen’s “footprint,” that is, the basic layout (L-shape, U-shape, etc.). It is still possible to retain that footprint while moving one of the major appliances. In fact, some appliances can be shifted without changing their plumbing hook-up. A good example: you can have your sink moved to the other side of the dishwasher because the hookup for both doesn’t depend on whether the sink is on the left or the right of the dishwasher.

Consult with your plumbing professional regarding how you want to renovate to relocate the sink, and he or she can discuss the options for you that will work best with the remodel and how much the changes will cost. Often the plumber will have ideas for moving the sink that hadn’t occurred to you, and which will save time and money, as well as mesh easily with the plans of the remodelers.

Saddleback Plumbing can help you

If you do wish to move your sink during your upcoming kitchen plumbing remodel, have a professional plumber involved early on to work with the remodelers and determine the most effective way to move the sink. This will make the job easier for everyone and result in lower costs and a faster job. Contact Saddleback Plumbing when you want remodeling for your kitchen plumbing in Laguna Hills, CA.

Continue Reading

The Original Valentine’s Day Greeting Cards

Friday, February 14th, 2014

It’s hard to imagine Valentine’s Day without the traditional greeting cards, whether accompanying a gift of flowers and candy, or sent between children in a school room. For commercial greeting card companies, February 14th is as important to them as the December holidays, Easter, and Mother’s Day.

Valentine’s Day as a celebration of romantic love predates printed greeting cards by a few centuries. In fact, the reason that sending romantic greeting cards became popular was because of the most un-romantic thing you can imagine: a reduction in postage rates.

In 1765, Parliament authorized the creation of “Penny Posts” that used a uniform rate of one old penny per letter throughout Great Britain and Ireland. Printers took advantage of the ease with which people could send letters to each other on Valentine’s Day by crafting cards with love poems on them. Many of these verses were collected in 1797 in the book The Young Man’s Valentine Writer, which was a resource for the lover with a romantic soul but not the most confident poetry style.

By the mid-19th-century, the Valentine’s Day greeting card was flourishing across England. Although people still followed a tradition of creating handmade Valentine’s Day cards from lace, ribbons, and flowers, commercially produced cards now overtook them. In 1835, the English post office mailed 60,000 valentines. As production expenses dropped, the English card manufacturers branched out creatively with humorous and sometimes vulgar cards… many of which we would find startlingly familiar in the 21st century. One of the common jokes on these cards was to design them to look like marriage certificates or court summons.

Across the Atlantic, the United States was slower to embrace the popular British custom. It wasn’t until 1847 that a U.S. printer mass-produced greeting cards for Valentine’s Day. Only two years later, American journalists noted how rapidly people in the country had embraced the tradition, turning into a fad that has never died down. The woman who printed the first U.S. Valentine’s Day card, Esther Howland, is today recognized by the Greeting Card Association with the annual “Esther Howland Award for a Greeting Card Visionary.”

The greeting card industry certainly has reason to thank Ms. Howland. Her idea of going into business printing romantic greeting cards, which came to her after she received a traditional English valentine when she was 19 years old, now sells 190 million cards in the U.S. every year. That number doesn’t include the smaller exchange cards used in elementary school classrooms, which would swell the number to 1 billion. (Who receives the most Valentine’s Day cards each year? Teachers!)

Whether you send out Valentine’s Day cards—handmade, store-bought, digital—or not, we at Saddleback Plumbing hope you have a happy February 14th.

Continue Reading

Can Zone Controls Be Installed with an Existing Furnace System?

Wednesday, February 5th, 2014

You may have heard of zone control systems, which divide your home up into individual sections which can be heated and cooled one at a time. It’s an incredibly versatile tool – allowing you to set one temperature in the kitchen and another in the bedroom, for instance – and by letting you shut off the heat in rooms you aren’t using, it can save you a great deal on energy costs. On a more abstract level, it can improve the resale value of your house, which may offset some of the cost of installation. Here in Irvine, furnace technology reigns supreme, which may appear to present a problem for installing a system such as this. Most people associate zone controls with ductless HVAC systems: multiple small units scattered throughout the home. Can zone controls be installed with an existing furnace system? In point of fact, they can.

The key to zone control is compartmentalization, which allows you to adjust the temperature in one area without affecting any other areas.  That wouldn’t seem possible with a traditional central furnace, which distributes heated are via a system of ducts. The solution is to install valves and shutters within the system itself. The valves can be placed at key locations in the ductwork, with multiple thermostats installed to let you control each one. The air handler and a few other components need to be modified as well, but the duct system itself remains intact, giving you an efficient zone control system without having to uproot your existing system.

In most cases, the installation process takes less than one day, provided it’s performed by experience professionals. In Irvine, furnace installation services like Saddleback Plumbing can install zone controls with an existing furnace system. We’ll thoroughly inspect your home and draw up a plan for installing the system, then explain every step to you before performing the operation with professionalism and care. We’ll treat your home like it was ours and are completely dedicated to your satisfaction at every stage. Give us a call today to set up an appointment for your next heating service in Irvine.

Continue Reading