Choosing a Professional Plumber

At least once every year, you need to check your plumbing, pipes can clog up, water can get infected, and leaks can spring. When any of these happen, you need to call professional plumbers you can rely on.

It is also a good idea to have your plumbing checked to see that everything is in order. Also, in case of extreme emergencies, you need plumbers who will provide you with the service you need. The question then is, how do you know who to call?

Many plumbing companies claim to be the best, of course they will. And in a place like Reading, you can be sure there will be many companies who say their number one. But how do you find competent plumbers in Reading? How do you find a professional plumber in Reading who can cater to all of your needs? Here are some basic tips to help you find one.

1. Pricing

Money is always an issue. You want a company that has the best bang for the buck. Plumbers in Reading will provide you with reasonable price quotes for whatever task you have in mind. Be it a small leak underneath your kitchen sink, to a busted toilet pipe that caused a flood from the second floor; they will give you a competitive prices that guarantee quality results.

2. Experience

Who would you rather choose? A plumber reading an instruction manual as he works, or one who has experience in handling your plumbing needs? It is always a good idea to see how long a company has been around to scope their abilities. Instruction reading plumbers have a knack of messing up when confronted with a problem that is not in their manual. Plumbers in Reading has plumbers with numerous years of experience that can be depended on.

3. Safety Guarantee

Safety should be a very big concern. It is not a good idea to readily assume your plumber will act professionally when confronted with accidental injury, and property damage. Ask questions to see how a company will handle incidents that were not part of the plan. The Plumbers in Reading company has a top-notch safety guidelines that are strictly followed and in the rare case of a mistake, they are ready to handle it.

4. Clean up

Why spend more money on cleaning up after them? Look for the plumbers who include clean up as part of their contract. You are already paying them to do a job that will sometimes get surrounding areas dirty, the least they can do is clean up after they are done. A competent commercial and residential plumbing company such as Plumbers in Reading ensures that you do not spend more than you need to.

5. Insurance

A qualified plumbing company will not hesitate to show you its insurance policy. Make sure they are fully insured. Check if they have liability insurance and workers' compensation. Needless to say, you are putting yourself in danger if you hire a plumbing company with no insurance. Plumbers in Reading shows you its insurance policy up-front, no need to ask. We want you to know that it takes its work seriously and covers all the basics.

How to Unclog a Toilet Without Calling a Plumber

Toilets are one of the things those of us in modern society tend to take for granted, until they don't work. Since most of us have eliminated the outhouse as an option (no pun intended), when our toilets don't work things can get ugly in a hurry. The good news is that unclogging a clogged toilet is something anyone can learn to do.

There are a lot of different shapes and styles of toilets but, with a few exceptions, they all work about the same. Water is released from the tank (many commercial toilets use a special valve instead of a tank) into the bowl to flush the waste into your drainage piping. Basically pretty simple, right?

The two main problems that happen with toilets are the toilet running (the water not shutting off after flushing) and the toilet bowl plugged (not draining or stopped up). While a running toilet wastes water and can be annoying, if you have a toilet bowl plugged it's a little more urgent. On a scale of 1 to 10, maybe a 12! In fact, one Google search term study calls most people's #1 plumbing problem a plugged toilet.

Anyone can learn how to unclog a toilet. It just takes a little patience and the right tools. The first thing you need to fix a plugged toilet is a toilet plunger. These are a little different from a sink plunger, which is looks sort of like a rubber bowl on a stick.

A toilet plunger is designed specifically to direct the force into the waste outlet of the plugged toilet bowl. The business end of a toilet plunger looks sort of like a ball with an opening to fit into the waste outlet of the toilet. One type that is very effective has an accordion like design and is all plastic, including the handle.

The way a toilet plunger works is by filling up with water and then pushing that water through the stopped up drain. When unclogging a clogged toilet, the idea is to plunge up and down a couple of times so the plunger fills with water and then jam the open end, sometimes called a force cone, into the waste outlet in the plugged toilet and start plunging. You may have to pump the plunger up and down several times to clear the blockage.

When you are learning how to unclog a toilet you may need to be fairly aggressive with the plunger. The key is to force the water in the plunger through the waste outlet of the toilet, dislodging the blockage in the process. If you don't splash a little out of the bowl you probably aren't plunging hard enough. Ever wonder why plumbers charge so much?

This will usually be all you need to do to fix a plugged toilet. Sometimes, however, a plunger just won't do the trick. If you've plunged a while with no success you might need to try another approach. It's time to pull out the closet auger.

A closet auger is a special tool that can be used to clear an especially stubborn plugged toilet. A closet auger has a short drain cable, or snake, inside a metal tube that is bent on the end to aim the cable into the waste outlet of a toilet bowl. The cable is just long enough to get through the toilet and is connected to a handle the same length. You can get one of these at your local hardware store for as little as $10.

The way to use a closet auger is to pull the handle all the way out, insert the business end into the outlet of the toilet bowl that's plugged and crank it down into the bowl, making sure the cable goes into the drain. When the bowl drains, flush the toilet while you're pulling the cable back to help clean the cable. It's a good idea to flush some toilet paper through a couple of times before you put your auger away just to be sure.

With the growing focus on water conservation more and more communities are requiring toilets that use less water per flush. In spite of the best efforts of the toilet manufacturers to increase performance, this is likely to continue to make our most common plumbing problem a plugged toilet. So you might as well go ahead now and learn how to unclog a toilet yourself. You'll be glad you did.