Plumbing questions

Usually where the supply enters the house: a crawlspace, a garage, a basement or a utility closet. On a slab house it is sometimes only at the street meter, which needs a meter key. Find it now, turn it to check it actually moves, and turn it back. A seized shutoff discovered during a burst pipe is the difference between a wet floor and a flooded house, and we will point yours out on any visit if you ask.

No, and the difference tells us where the blockage is. One slow fixture means the problem is local, in that trap or the branch behind it. Several fixtures on the same side of the house means the branch line serving them. Everything backing up, with the lowest fixture worst, means the main line out to the sewer. If flushing an upstairs toilet makes a downstairs shower gurgle, that is a main line blockage.

Tree roots, almost certainly, and it is very common in older Raleigh and Durham neighbourhoods. Clay and cast iron laterals have joints, roots find the joints because that is where the moisture is, and they grow into the pipe as a fine mat that catches everything passing. Cutting them restores flow immediately but does not remove them, so it recurs on a cycle of a year or two. A camera inspection tells you whether the pipe itself has failed, which is the difference between an annual clearing you can live with and a lateral replacement you should plan for.

Please do not. Consumer drain cleaner is caustic, it rarely clears anything more than a partial soap blockage, and it sits in the trap waiting for whoever opens it. It also makes our job more dangerous, so if you have used it, tell us when we arrive rather than after we have opened the trap. Enzyme-based maintenance products are a different thing and are genuinely useful on a kitchen line, used regularly rather than as a rescue.

If the tank itself is leaking, no, and not by anyone. A steel tank has a glass lining; when that lining fails the steel corrodes from the inside, and by the time water appears the wall has gone. There is no patch, no sealant and no weld that is safe on a vessel holding hot water under mains pressure. Water at the base is usually the tank. Water at a fitting on top, at the relief valve or at the drain valve is usually not, and those are all repairable.

Photograph the label on the side of the tank and send it to us. It carries the model, the serial, and encoded in the serial the date of manufacture. Most tanks carry six to twelve years, and we replace a good number of tanks free under a warranty the owner did not know they had. That photograph also tells us which parts to bring, which is the difference between a same-day fix and a second appointment.

It is the better long-term product and the wrong emergency purchase. Tankless never runs out, lasts roughly twice as long as a tank and takes a fraction of the space, but it needs new venting because it is a condensing appliance, and usually a larger gas supply line because it fires at several times the BTU. On electric, the load is frequently beyond what a domestic panel can carry. Replacing a failed tank on a Tuesday afternoon is not the moment; a planned replacement is.

Yes, annual descaling, and it is routine maintenance rather than a defect. A tankless heat exchanger runs water through narrow passages and Triangle water will scale them up over a few years. A unit that has never been descaled will underperform and eventually error out. Tankless units report error codes, so read the display and tell us the code when you book.

It is a supply line leaking in or under the concrete slab, which is how many Triangle houses are built. The signs are indirect: a warm patch on the floor, an unexplained jump in the water bill, the sound of running water with everything off, or damp appearing at the edge of a room. By the time flooring lifts it has usually been leaking a while. We locate it acoustically before opening anything, because the alternative is a series of holes until one is in the right place.

If it is polybutylene, yes, eventually. It was installed widely between the late 1970s and mid 1990s and is common in Triangle housing of that era. It becomes brittle from the inside and fails at the fittings, so one failure means others are coming, and insurers are increasingly unwilling to cover a house that still has it. If you have had two or three supply leaks in a couple of years, the pattern is the diagnosis and repiping is the answer rather than a fourth repair.

No. Three to six days on site for a typical Triangle house, with water off during the working day and back on every evening, so you can stay throughout. We tell you the morning we will shut it off. Running new PEX from a crawlspace or a loft reaches most fixtures without touching a wall, and a good layout cuts the access holes by more than half. We patch the drywall ready for paint but we do not paint.

An ordinary outdoor tap holds water in the pipe right at the wall, and a hard Triangle freeze splits it. You usually find out in spring, when you turn it on and water appears inside the crawlspace. A frost-free sillcock puts the valve seat well inside the heated envelope so the exposed section drains, and replacing one is the cheapest burst-pipe prevention available. Disconnect the hose in winter either way, because a connected hose defeats even a frost-free tap.

The gas meter is the dividing line. Everything on the house side of it is ours; everything on the utility side, including the meter itself and the service line from the street, belongs to the gas company and they will attend it free of charge. If the smell is outside near the meter or in the street, that is the utility and only the utility. Whatever the location, leave the building and call the gas utility first; the safety procedure is the same and it is set out in full in our emergency questions.