You may never have had to repair plumbing leaks, but if you live long enough, you will. Most college students have a horror story or two of leaks in their apartments, and if you are a homeowner, having a big leak is the nightmare you hope you never have. So how do you prepare or avoid? First, you need to never let it get to the big leak stage if you can help it. Start inspecting your home now so you can find problems before they become big, expensive fixes.
If you want to avoid expensive bills, you should find and repair plumbing leaks when they are small. How do you do that? Well, your home will give you some signs it is having problems.
- Do you have a musty
smell in a room? If the room is one you
don’t use frequently, visit it. Try to
get to every room in your home on a regular basis. If you have that one room in
the basement that you store stuff in, take the time to go in and air it out. If you have a constant musty or damp feeling,
you need to look at your pipes. - Are your water bills
higher than you expect? Most of us get
used to how much water we use, year round.
If that changes noticeably with no obvious cause, you might have some
water leaking constantly that you don’t know about. - Can you see damp patches
on ceilings or upper walls? Damp patches sliding down walls? Maybe you step in
a carpet area that is always damp.
Always, always investigate damp. Wherever you find it in your
home—investigate it. - And the obvious
one—black mold or mildew. Those are
clear signs that you have a problem.
If you have any of these, investigate and repair before they turn
into much larger, more expensive problems.