Saddleback Plumbing Heating & Air Blog: Posts Tagged ‘Irvine’

4 Truly Terrifying Plumbing Problems

Monday, October 16th, 2023
Scared woman covering mouth with hands

Halloween is just around the corner and with it comes many fun activities. From carving pumpkins to planning Halloween costumes, there’s a lot to enjoy during the “spooky season.” 

But it’s also a time of year when slow-bubbling issues caused by the excessive use of your plumbing system over the summer can boil over like the contents of a witch’s cauldron. Don’t let a plumbing mishap spoil your enjoyment of Halloween. Let’s look at four potentially terrifying plumbing problems you could face this fall.

Continue Reading

Important Questions For Kitchen Remodels & Plumbing

Monday, April 3rd, 2023
couple-looking-at-tile-samples-in-store

So you’ve decided it’s time to remodel that outdated bathroom in your home. The planning stage is an exciting one as you start looking at fixtures, flooring, and tiles. You might have had a reality check or two as you realize that you do have a budget that you’re trying to adhere to. 

It’s important to take longevity into consideration. After all, some poor choices from the past are possibly what has led to the need for a bathroom remodel in the first place. You’ll need to plan the entire project well to make sure you’re getting the maximum return on your investment, not just in expense but in ensuring that your new bathroom will meet your needs for years to come. 

In order to get the most out of your bathroom remodel, ask yourself these important questions before starting your project.

Continue Reading

Sump Pumps in Orange County: What You Should Know

Monday, February 6th, 2023
sump-pump

The song goes, “It never rains in California.” Well, that certainly hasn’t been true this year! We’ve received some record-breaking rainfall in southern California this winter. Although it doesn’t rain here often, when it does rain, it can rain a lot. 

When you combine this with the fact that California doesn’t have a great system in place for collecting rainwater, it can spell disaster. Areas that have been burned by wildfires are prone to flooding because the soil can’t absorb the rainwater. Far too often, the result is flooding in homes’ lower levels. When heavy rains strike and your home is prone to flooding in its lower levels, you could have a very serious problem on your hands.

Continue Reading

How Can I Stop Paying So Much For Heating This Year?

Monday, November 1st, 2021
money-in-the-piggy-bank

We’ve started to have our first brushes with colder autumn weather, and even some rainfall. Although we don’t have to deal with the full chill of winter that strikes many other parts of the country, we still need our heating systems to run at key times. And wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t have to pay for the occasional heat we need?

Of course, this is impossible. Heat is a form of energy, and powering a gas or electric heating system costs money. If you dread having to use your heater each winter because you don’t like what it does to your utility bills, we have some potentially good news: you might be paying more each year than necessary. Because Southern California residents aren’t as used to running central heating systems, they often make errors that lead to higher costs. 

In this post, we will look at several ways you can curb heating costs—both small tips as well as bigger jobs that our professionals can help you with.

Continue Reading

Does Your Water Main Need Repairs? These Signs Can Tell You

Monday, September 6th, 2021
water-pipe-break

Without a water main, you don’t have a working plumbing system. Plumbing requires water, after all. If the water main to your house becomes damaged because of age, corrosion, tree roots, earthquakes, construction, or clogs, you may soon have no freshwater in your house at all. Not a good time!

Handling repairs for a home’s water main is a major job for your plumbing in Irvine, CA, but you can relax when you know you’ve got a team like the one at Saddleback ready to help you. We offer fast and effective repair service for water mains and sewer lines. To help you know when to call us for assistance, look over this list of signs of a water main in jeopardy.

Continue Reading

Why Water Might Leak From Your AC

Monday, July 26th, 2021
water-droplets

You may expect to see water leaks coming from places like beneath your sink or around the edges of your shower. These are places where there’s plumbing, and where there’s plumbing there can be leaks.

But water leaking out of your air conditioner? You might not have thought about that occurring. Yet you can see the water starting to puddle around the inside cabinet of your central AC. Why is this happening? Where is the water coming from? Do you need it repaired?

We’re going to look at why water might start to leak from your air conditioner and what to do about it. In most cases, you’ll need professional air conditioning repair in Irvine, CA. Our team is here, ready to help you solve whatever cooling system troubles you have.

Continue Reading

An AC That Isn’t Cooling Enough? Here’s What Might Be Happening

Tuesday, June 1st, 2021
woman-before-fan-in-house

The temperatures are warming up, summer is almost here … and your air conditioning system is already disappointing you. 

You don’t want to go through the summer with an air conditioner that is struggling to keep up with the heat. If you’ve noticed that it’s taking too long for the AC to deliver the comfort you want, or the AC isn’t getting the house to its regular level of cooling, you may need to look into air conditioning repair in Irvine, CA from our pros. 

There may be a simple explanation, so we’re going to climb a ladder of possibilities, from the simplest to the most complex, to see what’s causing the AC’s capacity problem.

Continue Reading

How We Can Make Your Allergy Season Less … Sneezy

Monday, April 19th, 2021
woman-with-allergies

The break between winter weather and spring weather isn’t a sharp one in Southern California, at least not as sharp as in other parts of the country. But there is a change, and the warmer weather is enough to start the spring bloom in plants. Nice as the warmer temperatures are, that plant bloom brings something else with it that isn’t as nice—allergy season. 

If you have sensitive allergies or asthma problems, then spring can often be unpleasant. Spring allergies can bring sneezing, coughing, watery and itchy eyes, dry itchy skin, headaches, nausea, and asthma. Many spring allergies resemble the flu or the common cold. The source of many of these problems is tree and grass pollen, and it can be hard to get away from them, even in your house.

There are several medical ways to alleviate the problems of allergy season. But we can offer you indoor air quality solutions to lessen allergy season. You only need to call us and we can find the best way to help.

Continue Reading

I Have Hot Water in My Home—But Not in the Shower!

Tuesday, December 15th, 2020
shower

Waking up to a cold shower in the morning: that’s one of the day-to-day nightmares we’re all afraid of. And even during a mild Southern California winter, the idea of having to get through the morning after you face a surprise cold shower, or even a lukewarm one, is a pretty unpleasant one.

Usually, when people think of their shower losing its hot water, they connect it with a loss of hot water to the entire house. If you have a shower that isn’t warming up or won’t warm up at all, you’ll probably first make the assumption that something has gone wrong with the household water heater. Often, this is the problem and you’ll need to call technicians to fix it. 

But what if only one shower has lost hot water? If you find that you’re still getting enough hot water at other taps, what has happened to the shower?

There are several possibilities, and you’ll probably need to call for professional plumbing in Irvine, CA, not to fix the water heater but to fix the shower’s plumbing.

The Broken/Worn Down Mixing Valve

What’s most likely happening is a problem with the shower’s mixing valve. The mixing valve is a control valve that creates the balance in the flow of water from the hot water line and the cold water line and blends the two together for your desired shower temperature. This valve can wear down over time or even break, and no fiddling around with the shower handles will be able to provide the right hot-cold mix.

You can’t see the mixing valve because it’s set behind the shower wall among the pipes, and we don’t recommend you try to access it by dismantling the faucet handle or anything else that requires you to take out wrenches and other tools. This repair requires professionals, who may need to replace the entire mixing valve. 

Failed Anti-Scald Device

You may have a device inside installed into your showerhead designed to prevent a surge of extremely hot water from creating a scalding hazard. This anti-scald device, also called a “hot limit stop” or “rotational limit stop,” is found in many modern faucets, and if it is set too high or it breaks, it may prevent almost any hot water from coming through the showerhead. The showerhead will need to be dismantled to fix or reset it. We recommend calling a plumbing technician to do this, since making an error with this device can create a scalding hazard, and not all showerheads come with this device.

There are a few other, less common possibilities, such as a broken cartridge in a point-of-use filtration system or cross-connected pipes. It’s best not to guess at what could be wrong, however. If you want your hot shower back as fast as possible, the quickest route is to call us and schedule plumbing service. Going DIY with your plumbing in general, and any plumbing connected to your hot water supply specifically, is a bad idea!

Saddleback Plumbing Heating & Air has served Orange County since 1981. Schedule plumbing service with our technicians today.

Continue Reading

How a Professional Cleans Drains and Clears Drain Clogs

Monday, January 13th, 2020
drain-with-chain-plug

Drain clogs are one of the most common plumbing problems homeowners face. They’re “ordinary” in the worst way—they crop up often and can bring daily activities to a halt until resolved.

The standard way to zap a clog is with a sink plunger. A hand-cranked drain auger (a.k.a. drain snake) is another option that can work in some cases. A third choice many homeowners make is to pour a bottle of “drain cleaner” into the drain to eat away at the blockage. No matter what the labels on these bottles of drain cleaners promise, they are terrible for drains and for you. When you need a third option to clean a drain and clear a clog, call a plumbing technician in Irvine, CA.

Continue Reading