DIY Home Improvement Guide

Plumbing Tips from an Atlanta Plumber

Homeowners everywhere can benefit by learning a few plumbing tips that can help avoid a call to your local plumbing company. Whether you are trying to avoid the need to call an Atlanta plumber or a plumber somewhere else in the country this information can save you serious money.

Tip #1: Make sure that all of your drains have screens. This is a very important but often overlooked way to prevent the need to call a plumber. Without screens drains can become clogged with hair and debris from the sink. This is not only true for sinks but for bathtubs as well. This simple tip can prevent home-owners from unwittingly creating a problem that could easily have been prevented

Tip #2: Make sure that you own a good plunger and know how to use it properly. Simply put, a plunger is a plumbers best and most useful tool. While plungers in most home are common many homeowners do not always know how to use them properly. Take the time to learn how to ensure that you have a proper air tight seal around the waste line of a toilet and plunge forcefully several times to remove blockages. There are lots of resources available online that can give homeowners useful plumbing tips like how to use a plunger properly.

Tip #3: Don’t make a bad situation worse. Now it would be great to avoid calling a plumber in every situation but that is simply not realistic. There will come a time when you need to call a plumber and when you do you shouldn’t do anything that can make the problem worse. Recognize your limitations and when the situation calls for it, get professional assistance.

These simple plumbing tips can not only help the average home-owner save lots of money, but can help make that house feel a little more like home.

Designing A Kitchen Part 2: Planning Utilities

This post is part deux of our series on kitchen design.  It might be a good idea to read part one first, Kitchen Planning, before diving into this post.

Using the existing layout of your kitchen will cut down on the need for planning utilities, but not eliminate it.  New appliances may have their hook ups in different spots than your old ones, or they may have an entirely different fitting altogether.  Either way, using the original layout is much easier than designing a new one.

If you are creating a new kitchen from scratch, I recommend tackling it on your own only if you’re an experienced DIY’er.  Getting these things right the first time is extraordinarily important.  You don’t want to figure out that you have a gas leak inside the wall after it’s been closed, or have a faulty wire in the ground after it’s been tiled over!  So if you know what you’re doing, more power to you; if not, it’s a good idea to hire some help.

Things To Consider When Planning Utilities

Whether you’re doing it yourself, or are hiring someone to help, it’s important to know how everything works and what your options are.  Having a pro help out is awesome, but it will be even better and go more smoothly if you know what they’re talking about!

Propane And Natural Gas

When buying gas appliances figure out where the hookups are and where the lines run.  This is going to have a huge impact on where you place your appliances if you don’t want to change the entire gas scheme of your kitchen.  Quite often older appliances will use a different connection than the new fancy one you just bought, so you may need adapters or fittings to make it work properly.

Never, ever forget that gas explodes!  Always keep the gas off when working on things like this.  It’s always a good idea to have a pro do the connecting of appliances, or at least have them check your work, to make sure that nothing is going to blow up.  Also, if you aren’t comfortable working with gas, hire a pro.

Electricity

There is a whole lot of electricity running through your kitchen.  Everything from the toaster to the lights has to be considered during the planning phase.  In most remodeling jobs you’ll just use the existing wiring layout and add a few outlets as you need them, but overhauls require a lot of work to get everything right.

Don’t forget that large appliance need special outlet to be plugged in.  Dishwashers, refrigerators, and electric stoves/ovens require 220 volt outlets.  Most ovens require a special outlet that allows it to draw major power to heat up then reduce it to keep the oven warm.  Either way, that has to be worked into your plan.

While it doesn’t blow up, electricity is still very dangerous.  I recommend having a pro come check your work at the very least, if not doing the job for you to make sure that it’s safe.

Plumbing

Once you understand how plumbing works it’s fairly simple, but you probably won’t have that kind of familiarity until you complete a big job like a kitchen.  Both your sink and dishwasher have to be plumbed in.  The sink will need both hot and cold water, as well as a waste pipe.  Most dishwashers get all of their plumbing from the sink, but that isn’t always the case.  Some plumbing jobs, especially extending the waste pipe, will require you to notify your local building inspector.

Order Of Operations

You can put all of this together however you want, but I really don’t recommend it!  Getting the work done in your kitchen is a lot like getting dressed in the morning.  You put on your underwear and socks before you get to your pants and shoes, doing that in a different order will still get you dressed but…

So, the order that this all goes down in is as follows:

  1. Electric
  2. Plumbing and gas
  3. Walls, ceilings, and floors
  4. Cabinets
  5. Counters and backsplash
  6. Sink and dishwasher
  7. Stove, oven, and microwave
  8. Exhaust hood

There you have it!  On paper it doesn’t really seem that hard!  Be smart and cautious in all of your decisions when remodeling your kitchen.  The extra planning will take more time, but it will help ensure that you get the job done properly and stay within your budget.