Your home is the investment of a lifetime, and it takes a lot of looking around to find the house that welcomes you. It involves a detailed inspection to ascertain its livability on all accounts. A difficult one is plumbing, which tends to be out of sight. You need a licensed plumber to do that inspection and give the A-OK for the house purchase.
The licensed plumbers are formally trained to handle any plumbing repair or maintenance task. Plus, they have extensive experience in their respective jobs. You need their help when buying a house that older than 50 years.
Inspecting a potential new house becomes relatively easy with experience. You’ll know where to look for faults and how to check for them. After finding the problem areas, you’ll have the choice to reject the house or negotiate for a lower price to cover the cost of repairs.
You may inspect the home on your own, but your experience won’t suffice, especially in cases of hidden problems like plumbing. Then, having a professional plumber to help you out will work wonders and save you from a wrong purchase.
How It Helps
A house’s plumbing system is a complex network of press and associated accessories that run in some of the most hard-to-reach places of a building. This complexity increases with the age of the house and if it’s part of an apartment block. Your everyday home maintenance-related knowledge could fall short in identifying deep-seated problems in a short time. A licensed plumber with many years of experience will recognize the hard-to-detect faults most likely to be present.
Sewerage System Problems
Maybe, it’s not the first thing that comes to mind when you think about plumbing inspection. But, if ignored, it could be the first thing that wreaks havoc in your new home. And in the case of sewerage, prevention is always better than cure; you don’t want to be dealing with the nasty stuff that protesting sewerages tend to throw back at you.
The main problems that sewerages have are:
- Blockage:
The drains of the house get treated like they are the ideal dumping ground. Anything and everything gets shoved into the drain pipes in hopes of getting rid of them. Not every one of those attempts ends up a success, though.
Objects, including waste, can get stuck somewhere down the line, blocking the flow through it. Before long, you’ll have your toilet and kitchen sink regurgitating wastewater back at you. Such blocks are hard to detect if they are deep within the line. A plumber will know soon where and how bad the problem is and can help with its cleanup.
- Tree Roots:
The silent villains of sewerage problems, tree roots growing through the pipes pose a threat to it. They grow with little indication, causing pipe blockage, destruction, or both.
Tree roots are hard to detect and notoriously tedious to get rid of, especially if the growth is minimal. A plumber has the tools to check for them and root them out of the system too.
- Leaks and Breakages:
Old drain pipes lose their structural integrity over time, springing leaks that release the dirty water in the vicinity. They can be hard to detect if hidden. The same with breakages: cracks and critical failures could require a complete overhaul of the system.
It’s best to have a plumber go through the drain pipes of the building and give you its actual condition.
Water-Dependent Appliance Problems
Your prospective house might come with appliances like water heaters, tanks, dishwashers, etc., dependent on water for their functioning. Their condition depends on how well it was used and maintained by the present owners and for how long.
Old or poorly maintained ones are bound to spring leaks sooner or later. Such leaks can harm the walls, flooring, and other parts of the house. Worse, they could cause electrical problems that could be fatal.
Letting a plumber inspect them will give you crucial information about their condition and safety level. They could even have a new one installed if need be.
Condition of Accessories
Showers, faucets, sinks, bathtubs, toilet bowls, and more are the must-have plumbing accessories in a house. They too age and start giving problems, that too if not maintained well.
Your plumber will know if they are indeed out of shape or are about to be and agree to get them back in order.
A new house could mean a new beginning for you and your family. It shouldn’t get marred by old plumbing problems. A licensed plumber can see to it that you won’t suffer that way.