Each house has a main shut off valve. This valve is normally located outside the house where the water enters the building. The valve turns off all the water to all of the fixtures. Operating this valve is highly recommended when you leave your home for days. That’s because if a plumbing fixture fails while you’re away (it does happen), flooding will not occur.

• Gate Valve (upper left)  This main shut off valve has a round handle. The gate valve pre-dates the ball valve and often needs replacement. Operating this valve will require many rotations to the right. The gate valve is an old design and out of favor with professional plumbers.
• Ball Valve (upper middle)  This valve operates with a lever handle which stops all flow with a quarter-turn. This type of valve creates a positive seal with a stainless steel ball and is the easiest to operate. The ball valve is the best choice to replace the gate-valve.
• Double Check Backflow Assembly (upper right)  Double check backflow preventers are installed outside homes all over Sarasota County. They are usually located near the water meter at the property line. Each backflow includes 2 shut off valves that will stop all flow of water. They are also quarter-turn ball valves that are durable and easy to use.

Below are a few photos of emergency shutoffs. Knowing their location in your home is important.

Emergency shutoffs isolate individual fixtures and are under each kitchen sink, each toilet and each lavatory. Turn the handle all the way to the right to shut off the water and control runaway leakage. Alert home owners save themselves a bundle when they operate these shutoffs quickly to avoid water damage. Emergency shutoffs should be closed and reopened from time to time to ensure a positive seal. Neglect this simple chore at your peril as you may find the valve too stiff and corroded to operate – just when you need it most!

We’ve proven this time and again because we use a drain camera to inspect and diagnose sewer lines that frequently stop up. Our camera takes the guess work out of our repair work, allows for minimum invasive demolition and produces a video that only a plumber (or maybe a cardiologist) could love.

Our plumber was called out to a home in Nokomis recently that had a history of repeat stoppages. The house was stucco on block construction with a low pitch roof and awning windows that indicated 60′s – 70′s construction. Our plumber suspected he was dealing with cast iron pipe and after cleaning the drain, he ran a video camera through the sewer line to check it’s condition.

The sewer video showed about 3 feet of collapsed cast iron under the floor. Using the locator feature with our camera, our plumber pinpointed the exact spot of the defective pipe under the floor in the master bath between the toilet and the shower. This gave our guy the ability to estimate a price to replace the defective cast iron pipe and fittings and put things right. We replaced the old cast iron with sch 40 PVC and expect it to last a lot longer.

The video camera.

It’s a shame when you see an awful plumbing job that costs a lot of money. It’s just too bad. Here is an example of pipe lining (also called pipe coating) that is worthy of our Hall of Shame. The 2 sections of pipe shown here were removed from a home in Sorrento East in Nokomis. We were hired by the homeowner here to remove and replace this botched job. Whoever did the pipe lining used so much material and cured it so poorly that the system had a limited flow rate and repeated leaks before it had to be replaced.

Underground water leaks (slab leaks) in copper pipe present an ongoing problem to a lot of homes in our area. Once you have a slab leak, it’s likely you’ll have another, then another and so on until the water lines are replaced or repiped.

If you elect to reline your existing copper pipes, refer to the picture above and think it over.

A local plumber recently held a competition among 4 popular brands of toilet tissue. The best rating was given to the tissue that dissolved the quickest in a solution of pure H2O.

The test was performed by immersing 20 squares of each tissue in a flower vase full of water. Each sample was periodically agitated by an agitating expert, Brenda Brown (pictured above). Within 2 minutes, the Angel Soft was breaking down and 2 hours later it had degraded to a uniform solution, winning the competition. Second place went to Great Value, a product which dissolved at a slightly lower rate. 3rd and 4th place went to Charmin and Cottonelle respectively. Both took more than a day to degrade.

Why does this matter? That’s because paper that won’t efficiently degrade in water remains in building drains, sewers and septic tanks. If your home was constructed before the 80′s, your original drains are most likely cast iron and the interior walls of this pipe build up with oxidation much like plaque builds up in the walls of arteries. This build up literally traps toilet tissue occluding the pipe. This can cause stopped up drains and the expensive mess that comes with time. You could save this aggravation by switching to Angel Soft.

• Don’t overload the disposer or cram the grinding chamber full. Let the water run continuously as you process the waste in small batches.
• DO NOT process bones in the disposer.
• Don’t pour grease down the drain. Blot it up with paper towels and treat grease as garbage.
• When your disposer jams, check the reset button on the bottom of the unit.
• Clean up your disposer by grinding a few lemon wedges or introduce a half cup or so of baking soda.

Leland Plumbing has steadfastly carried In-Sink-Erator food waste disposers since day one, cause Mother needs your love, not your kitchen mess.  We like their reliability and no-questions-asked warranty.

I’m not the only one who sees the Legacy Trail as a local treasure. Go out on the Trail yourself and check out the folks on bicycles, or the walkers and runners and skaters. A lot of them feel the same way.

The Trail can only be navigated at human speed. At this pace, with no car in sight, time and space seem to bend as you make your way from Sarasota to Osprey to Laurel and Nokomis, and over the new pedestrian bridge to Venice. You have to leave your car behind, but you will be rewarded.

That is why I’m happy to report that our plumbers in Osprey recently completed phase 1 of our project to bring water to the Legacy Trail. We have installed a water line from the eastern end of Bay Street to a soon-to-be-installed water fountain for Trail users. Our work was permitted and included the installation of a hulking 2″ backflow preventer at the meter.

All of our labor was donated as part of an on-going  commitment to pay it forward in our community.

This work would not be completed without the help of others, including Dennis Marlin, who donated his time and equipment, saving us hours of shovel work. Big credit is also due the Friends of Legacy Trail who dreamed up this idea and furnished all of the materials. Special thanks to hard working visionary members Bruce Dillon, Steve Christian and president Mike Gippert (who managed to glue his feet to the ground!).

While some green ideas make simple sense, such as really using those recycle bins or (since we’re plumbers) installing water saving fixtures and faucetry. Other green ideas make little sense at all.

Consider the tankless electric water heater. They don’t do much to save energy, particularly when they are used to replace existing tank type water heaters. Tankless uses a lot of electricity whenever the hot water is turned on. As a result, upsized wire and circuit breakers must be installed for these heaters to work. Add together the labor and material along with the electric upgrades and a typical tankless electric water heater installation runs about $1,500.

Florida Power and Light spokesman Craig Muccio notes that existing water heaters account for $20 of the average FPL bill. He calculates heat loss (which the water loses as it is stored in the tank) at 7%. That means a tankless water heater in this “average” scenario would save $1.40 a month, leading us to the bottom line: Tankless electric water heaters will wear out and need replacement long before they pay for themselves in energy savings.

So while we can’t say these units are green, we can say that our plumbers have installed many electric tankless water heaters all over Sarasota County. Our customers enjoy 2 major benefits. The first is these units store no water, and when they fail there is little likelihood of water damage. Secondly, these little heaters hang on the wall and take up very little space. For folks in small homes and condos where space is at a premium, tankless is a wise option.

For example, our plumber in Sarasota was called out to a home for a toilet repair in the master bath. This toilet was not properly secured to the floor and rocked left-to-right. Our plumber began a routine diagnostic sequence which included disconnecting the water supply and removing the closet bolts in order to pull the toilet and inspect the closet flange (a fitting that secures the bowl to the floor and makes a watertight seal to the drain.)

Our plumber struggled to pull this toilet and gave a mighty tug only to have the toilet snap back to the floor like a rubberband. This chipped the toilet bowl and it was ruined. Talk about unexpected!

Our plumber discovered that the bowl had been set to the flange with silicone cement. The silicone made the toilet snap back and break. A professional plumber would never set a toilet bowl with silicone as it dries completely, losing the pliability needed to remove the toilet in the future. Some misguided soul (read knucklehead) had used the wrong material before we were called out.

We replaced the broken toilet bowl at no charge because that’s the way we do business. Our customer authorized the replacement of the broken closet flange. And our plumber set the bowl right this time – with acrylic latex caulk.

The quick answer is…not yet. If you have an electric heater (we estimate 92% of Sarasota County households do) inspect your circuit breaker panel and see if the breaker has tripped. If so, flip it back on and check the water temperature in a half hour or so.

Those who are handy and adventuresome could go a step further and disconnect the electric at the heater. Using a phillips driver, remove the top access plate on the side of the heater. Pull the insulation aside, and you will see a small, bright red reset button. Push the button and if you hear a click, say hallelujah!

If these cheap, money saving fixes don’t work, you are better off hiring a professional plumber. He or she will have the tools and the know how to test the 2 elements and 2 thermostats and replace them as necessary.

These repairs can be costly and your money may be more wisely spent by replacing your old water heater with a new one. Ultimately the old tank will fail and the resulting leak, if unnoticed, can do a lot of damage. If your water heater is old enough to be a teenager, we recommend replacement. Those of you who can tolerate inconvenience and catastrophy might choose to wait it out.

We call it a tiolet tune-up, and our plumbers repair tiolets all over Sarasota County every day. Generally our tune-ups replace your existing ball cock and flapper (these items are properly known as the water control valve and the flush valve seal). We also inspect, and sometimes replace, the tank lever handle, the emergency shut off valve and the water supply tube, if needed. This year we have rebuilt nearly 700 toilets, all are backed by our rock-solid 1 year warranty.

Some people (you know who you are), can perform their own toilet tune-ups. You need a pair of channel locks and a couple of adjustable wrenches. When you shop for a replacement ballcock and flapper it is important to know the toilet manufacturers name and best if you bring the worn-out parts with you. There are hundreds to choose from, and your toilet won’t flush properly until you find the perfect part.