subject: Taking Good Care Of Home Plumbing [print this page] There are lots of unexpected surprises that come with buying a house, especially your first house. If you are used to having a landlord to come and fix your problems you will be in a for a rude awakening.
Plumbing is something that inevitably goes wrong in almost every home at some point in time. If you are not savvy with fixing things you should ask your friends or family for a good plumber in the area before an emergency.
If you have the name and phone number of a good plumber you will be a lot less stressed when something breaks, bursts or leaks. Make sure that you ask your friends or family about the plumber's work ethic and history.
You want a plumber that you can trust. There are a lot of plumbers that can take advantage of people's lack of knowledge in the field.
Just like many mechanics's get a bad rap for over pricing work on car's many plumbers get a bad rap for over pricing the price of pipes. You have to make sure that you are not being taken advantage of when you call a plumber.
The simplest way to make sure you are not being taken advantage of is to call multiple plumbers in the area and ask for a rough estimate. If the majority of the numbers are within the same range and a few are much higher you know who you should avoid.
There are a lot of honest plumbers out there and finding one in your area should not be too difficult. If you cannot get any advice from friends or family there are many other places that you can look.
You can start by doing things the "old fashioned" way and looking in the Yellow Pages of your phone book. Although this is quickly becoming outdated there are a lot of businesses that still advertise in the phone book.
If you want a more up to date way to find a plumber you can just search for plumbers in your area on the internet. This may not give you the most accurate results but at least it will give you some phone numbers.
You may want to look through a lot of the pages of the search engine. The results on search engines are able to be manipulated and you should not trust that just because a plumber is on the first page he or she is the best quality plumber.
Recently there have been websites that have decided to make directories for states and cities. They will include the name phone number and, when applicable, the address of the plumbers in the area.
Many of these directories also have a place where people can write reviews about them. Because the plumber will not own the website they cannot get onto the website and manipulate the ratings that people will write about the plumbers.
If you can find one of these directories you will be able to find a plumber that meets your needs very quickly. Once you have found a plumber you may want to call and have them take a quick look at your plumbing system and diagnose any problems.
If they can find obvious problems, you may want them to fix them as soon as possible. You have to have a lot of trust in the plumber when he or she comes if you are going to have them fix something that you do not see problem with.
The best thing that you can do when this happens is to write down exactly what the plumber says is wrong and tell him that you will call him back at a later date to fix the problem. In the mean time you should call at least two other plumbers and set up appointments just to get their opinion.
If the other plumbers end up agreeing with the first plumber call him or her back and make an appointment to have your plumbing problem fixed. You know you can trust this plumber after the ordeal as well.
Before you get to know a plumber you want to make sure that you'd o not leave him or her in your house alone. Although many plumbers are honest and respectful of your home you do not want to have something stolen.
Owning a home can be a big responsibility. Make sure that you take the time to set yourself up with a plumber that you trust to help you take the best possible care of your home.
