Updated February 5, 2024

When people talk about “spring cleaning,” they could mean anything from cleaning out and then rearranging closets to scheduling a complete home carpet cleaning. They might just mean cleaning up the inbox on their email and getting rid of old files. There are plenty of ways you can clean up the clutter in your house and life during spring, and here’s one we’d like to suggest you may not have thought of “spring cleaning” for your plumbing in the greater Des Moines, IA metro area.

The Actual Cleaning: Drain Cleaning

This is our biggest recommendation for improving your plumbing in the spring: call our plumbers to arrange for complete preventive drain cleaning. This is one of our specialties as professional plumbers. We offer extensive drain services, including drain snaking, to clear out buildup from drainpipes around the house. This will prevent clogging in the future and stop other drain troubles, such as bad odors and drain flies. We recommend drain cleaning as an annual service, and if you haven’t had it done yet this year, spring is as good a time as any!

Making Checks on Your Plumbing

There are several checks to make on the plumbing that will help you catch troubles early on. You can then schedule repairs before the problems become worse.

• Toilet leaks: You might have leaks between the tank and the bowl of your toilet and not realize it. Because the toilet uses the most freshwater of any appliance in the house (often accounting for 40% of all indoor water use), you want to be sure that it isn’t leaking. To test for leaks, put a few drops of food coloring into the tank, then wait for half an hour. If the dye has seeped down into the bowl, you leak. Call a plumber for repairs. (If you want to improve this spring, replace an older toilet with a low-flow model.)
• Faucets: Even a faucet that only drips once per minute can add up to hundreds of gallons of water wasted over the year. Check on all the faucets in your house, including ones in rooms that don’t receive frequent use (like guest bathrooms). If there are water droplets in the bowl, the faucet is leaking and should be fixed.
• Exposed piping: The majority of the piping in your house is hidden from sight, so it’s hard to notice if there’s leaking (although we’re about to get to that). But you should make a check on all the pipes that are exposed, such as drainpipes under sinks. Look for signs of escaping moisture as well as corrosion. Call for plumbers if anything looks wrong.
• Hidden leaks: How can you check for hidden leaks? It’s not difficult: take a reading off your water meter, then don’t use any water in the home for at least an hour. This includes shutting down all water-using appliances. Check the meter again to see if it’s risen. If it has… you’ve got hidden leaking somewhere. Our plumbers can perform leak detection to find out where they need to repair the plumbing.

If you want a Service Provider who will treat you and your home like their own, then call Golden Rule Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Electrical: “We Obey the Rules to Live By!”

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