Saving Lives & Property

At some point in your adult, you may probably have to deal with the occasional issues on your water heater. Thus, it would be handy to know the basic do-it-yourself tips on how to do a proper water heater repair.

When you know how to repair a water heater, you wouldn’t have to deal with not having hot water. This is especially beneficial if you don’t have access or get in touch with your local plumber right away to fix the water heater problem.

Routine Maintenance Can Help Avoid Water Heater Repair

A water heater is a piece of machinery. And like any other machine, your trusty water heater needs routine maintenance.

If you keep noticing that you are constantly running out of hot water or there’s no hot water altogether, the thermostat may not be in working order anymore.

Fortunately, most problems at home can be remedied with a simple DIY routine – and that includes a water heater repair.

When you go the DIY route, you can save money and time with simple fixes. If the plumbing problem, you obviously need to call a professional to fix the issue or risk adding more to the damage.

However, if all you need to do is replace the water heater thermostat to repair your water heater, we’ve outline simple DIY steps for you to follow.

Please remember always to use caution when you’re around or handling electrical wires.

How Do I Know When to Get a New Thermostat?

This is a valid question. After all, you wouldn’t want to be rummaging through the water heater equipment if nothing can fix yourself.

If the water heater is not working as it should, it’s usually always because of a faulty thermostat. Many homeowners should be able to fix it if they know what to do.

When it comes to thermostats, water heaters have two. T

he first one is at the top, while the second one is at the bottom.

It’s not very likely that the two thermostats will not work at the same time.

However, it’s highly recommended to replace both the water heater thermostats even if only one starts to die.

If it’s the top thermostat that’s not working anymore, the entire equipment will no longer wastewater. On the other hand, if it’s the lower thermostat that begins to fail, the water will only get lukewarm until it runs out quickly.

If you access to the manual of the equipment, read through it to know what you are about to deal with. If you don’t have it anymore, don’t fret.

You can go to the manufacturer’s website and search for your water heater’s model and brand. Usually, the manual is available to download from the website.

How to Do a Water Heater Repair by Yourself

The first thing you have to do is to test and check the two thermostats. You will need an ohmmeter/voltage or a multimeter. These devices can check if the thermostats are actually broken.

Before you buy a new water heater to replace the broken one, you have to make sure you’re buying the correct device.

While most thermostats are easily interchangeable, it would be best if you take the broken one with you to the hardware store.

You can show it to the store clerk to make sure that you’re buying the right piece of equipment. Generally, water heater thermostats are reasonably priced, so you don’t have to worry about a costly water heater repair.

Here are the quick steps for a DIY water heater repair.

• Shut off the power.
• Open the tank. Use a screwdriver.
• Remove the old thermostat. You don’t need any special tool for this removal.
• Install the new thermostat. This step should be easy if you follow the procedures that come with the new thermostat.

If you’re the manager of owner of buildings that are zoned and constructed for commercial purposes, especially if you’re involved in warehouse or other large industry management, you need to know about industrial plumbing repair.

Commercial plumbing isn’t the same as residential – we’re talking about tens or even hundreds of thousands of gallons being pumped through a single location at a single time.

That’s nowhere near what it’s like to plumb a residence, so you can’t afford to be a property owner or manager who doesn’t understand the difference.

Underground (Main System) Plumbing

Most residential homes have a basic plumbing system that runs underground from the city’s main water pipes to the internal pipes in the house. Of course, commercial buildings have a similar structure, but it is far more complex, to account for the numerous pipes and tons of water flow going into and out of the building.

The mechanical joints under the building, the soldering, brazing, and fusion methods that are used on larger and more solid industrial piping, are more intense, requiring different training and certifications from your industrial plumbing repair team.

General Building Plumbing – Boiler Room

Your home likely has an electric or gas tank-type water heater, but an industrial building will have an industrial boiler. These large, complicated pieces of equipment are heavy-duty, multi-level pipe structures and carefully engineered water control systems that include storage tanks, boilers, and house pumps.

When something goes wrong in your boiler room, don’t even think about trying any amateur approaches to the problem – you’re dealing with pressures and temperatures that are far greater than any residential system. You need an industrial plumbing repair tech who is not only qualified on boiler systems in general, but on your specific type of boiler system.

General Building Plumbing – Sprinkler & Emergency Systems

One of the most water-needy things in your building may not even use water regularly, but it needs to be standing with a ready supply at all times, is your sprinkler system.

If you have a sprinkler throughout your building that uses water (as opposed to a chemical or waterless system), talk to your industrial plumbing repair tech about how to make sure that the system is maintained and ready to work at a moment’s notice.

It can be the difference between a saved business and a lost one.

General Building Plumbing – Bathrooms

Sure, bathrooms seem simple enough. But don’t let appearances fool you. If you’ve worked on your bathroom in your house, you know the basics of what it takes to make industrial plumbing repairs in business bathrooms, but you still have to consider the differences between them.

Fixture Types and Placement

For one, business bathrooms tend to include more fixtures than residential bathrooms. When you have a row of toilets, which are often touchless or motion-sensor activated, you can encounter different issues with the water flow and piping needs than in a home. The same idea goes for a row of sinks.

Second, there are different types of fixtures. While most homes have floor-mounted toilets that require a closet flange, businesses often have wall-hung toilets which need to be installed with a closet carrier behind the wall.

In addition, depending on your building’s needs or regulations in your area, you may need a lavatory chair carrier for your wall-mounted toilets (urinals) and you may need to install solar or other power-monitored tools to automatically conserve the water usage in your building.

Don’t Let Industrial Plumbing Repair Wait

Water can be one of the fastest-damaging elements to any business. If you see a leak, if one of your sprinkler system detectors alerts you to moisture, or if anyone reports an issue with condensation anywhere in the building, check it out immediately.

Little water problems turn into big water problems very quickly, so always make sure you have the right industrial plumbing repair team on your side.

A plumbing business gets extremely busy – from running daily operations to going on location and servicing different customers. In today’s post, we’ll share some helpful tips to promote your plumbing business online.

Plumbing business owners don’t always have time to utilize the internet when promoting their name. Thus, hiring the services of a professional online marketing company is usually the best course of action. However, it’s always good to have a basic understanding of the digital marketing landscape as you delve into it.

Referral Marketing Can Help Your Plumbing Business

This approach can leverage your current customers to get new ones. Here are some best practices on plumbing customer referral marketing programs.

Always Provide Remarkable Customer Service

Your customers will refer (or not) your business based on how they were treated as a customer, the service they received, and how their issues were handled. A positive experience will encourage your customers to recommend your business to their friends and family.

Some essential parts of exceptional customer service include promptness, punctuality, going above and beyond what customers expect you to, making sure you have clear and transparent communication, and cleaning up and organizing the site after the job.

Unlock the Power of Social Media to Boost Your Plumbing Business

Mostly everyone nowadays is on social media. It’s no wonder many businesses utilize it for their referral marketing programs. Use social media to ask your current customers for referrals.

Social media sites are not just online places that people aimlessly browse or keep up with friends and family. Proper social media marketing may take time and effort, but the rewards are worth it.

In fact, up to 75 percent of consumers expect businesses to have an excellent social media presence. It elevates their trust in a brand that knows how to present themselves on social media platforms.

You can work with a social media marketing company to put out Facebook or Instagram ads for you. You’d want to focus on those two sites since they are the more popular ones today.

It’s not enough to simply post social media updates on your business profile page.

There are strategies and techniques in place for you to properly leverage these platforms and get customers.

Encourage Reviews

Most customers don’t go out of their way to post a review online – unless they get an extremely negative or positive experience. It’s the regular, satisfied customers that you want to encourage to share their experience online.

Here are some ways you can ask customers to review you.

• Ask politely and professionally.
• Remind them on review sites (Yelp, Yellow Pages, Google) or social media.
• Ask them to post a review on Google Maps. This will help your online search engine rankings.

Involvement in the Community

Participating in local community events is a fantastic way to get your brand out there. Not everyone is going to be looking for a plumbing business every day. However, by getting your company involved in regular community events, you’re making sure that the local public will remember your name.

Email Marketing

This type of marketing is still one of the most highly effective ways to promote your products and services consistently.

Since the recipients of your email newsletters have initially opted in to receive emails from your business, it shows that they have an interest in you.

Sending out consistent email newsletters is one of the most cost-effective ways to make sure your brand is in the minds of your clientele. However, there’s a balance. You wouldn’t want to send too many that they choose to unsubscribe from the email list.

Video Marketing

This type of marketing is one of the emerging trends in promoting a plumbing business – or any kind of business for that matter – and this marketing strategy is here to stay.

An average internet user spends about 10-15 hours every week watching online video content. Spending on video content for your plumbing business would be a wise investment.

Youtube is the prime source for publishing videos. Several factors will affect the cost of video marketing, but it shouldn’t be as expensive compared to putting up a billboard in your town.

Consult with a trusted online marketing company to know how much advertising dollars should go into your video marketing ventures.

Connecting your new water heater is only a fairly difficult task. The important ideas to remember are to take the actions in their proper order and to know that you are facing both water and power issues. Rather than overlooking the instructions, read them, avoid making assumptions, and, when in doubt, do not wait to call an expert. With that said, this guide features traditional water heater installation issues to be aware of.

Disruption from Power Source Must be Near and Lockable

For your safety, the first concern must be to deal with power. When operating on an electric water heater, you must have a way to guarantee the power stays off for the duration of the work being conducted. When the breaker panel is near the water heater, then utilizing the water heater circuit breaker is enough to finish this.

But, if the panel is not in view, you require to have a breaker, a disconnect switch, or a pull-disconnect box situated near the unit. Outside of those possibilities, you still can ensure the power shut off by utilizing a locking device that you can place right onto the water heater breaker switch placed in the central panel.

Protect Electrical Cords in Conduit

As old-fashioned systems give way to modern tried-and-true methods, you do not usually see a cord and plug to a nearby wall box within sight of the water heater anymore. But, if this is how your unit is attached, be certain to preserve your cord inside the usual flexible electrical conduit. For units that are connected in a separate chamber or an attic, this is not required.

Accessibility is Necessary

Out of sight does keep things out of mind, and this is no less accurate when it’s about water heaters. The lifespan of water heaters is about ten years, give or take. You should anticipate requiring to obtain the unit at some point. Even tankless models require maintenance at some point.

So, if it is housed in the loft, there should be decent ways in the form of a hard floor at least twenty four inches wide that runs to a thirty-inch square platform in front of the unit, not more than twenty feet from the hatch of the loft. At this opening, you have to need to have a switch to the water heater with a light source near the unit connected to a plug.

With Gas, Location is Everything

Except your gas water heater is housed in a dedicated place, it must never be locked. Housing a gas water heater in a bedroom, storage room, bathroom, or individual closets raises the danger of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Specific enclosures have thick weatherstripping with a self-closing door and combustion air from an external source. One would expect several things to go without saying, but it is shocking how, with gas, it bears repeating that flammables require a small clearance. You require at least six inches from a single-wall alloy vent or one inch for Type B double-wall.

Leaks are Very Rare with New Water Heater Installation

Since you are working with connections at both the cold-water inlet and the hot-water outlet, these are the apparent culprits for water leaks or drips. Sometimes leaks are connected with the connection around the Temperature and Relief Valve, or TPR, which can be repaired or tightened.

Checking the Power

A multimeter and circuit tester are useful if you want to check the power. You must take care to turn off the breaker when you reach the panel on the unit under the insulation and the cover.

The supply wires are normally the top two wires but examine your manual for assurance. Reconnect the breaker to check for voltage. Most household water heaters run on 220/240 volts. If it is not making the precise energy, this could be a problem with your home’s installation and a great time to get an expert electrician.

These are not all of the problems that you must be careful of when fitting a water heater. When placed inappropriately, there is potential for severe explosions, electrical shock because of flooding and the probability of contaminated water.

Be ready to get the needed building permit and final municipal inspection after fitting a new water heater in your residence to satisfy current security standards. There must be no short-cuts in the water heater installation.