Every year, your grass starts growing again, and you struggle to keep it healthy and weed-free. This year, arm yourself with a little knowledge and keep your grass lush, green, and pristine through the hot summer months. Now, we know we’re plumbers and not landscapers, but all it takes is a little information and willingness to get some dirt on your hands.

The first step is to aerate your grass once it has started growing in the spring. Once aerated, simply top-dress the lawn with a light compost or topsoil. Even if you don’t aerate your lawn, you can top-dress it after trimming it a bit shorter than you typically do.

With regard to cutting the grass, in order to maintain the health of your lawn, you should research the ideal height of the type of grass you have. Ideal heights range from half an inch to as tall as 3 inches. Cutting your grass too short can prevent it from out-competing weeds, thus making the weeds more prevalent. Conversely, keeping grass cut regularly ensures that you clip off the tops of weeds before they can seed and spread in your lawn.

If, in spite of your valiant efforts, weeds do appear, it’s important to know that you should address different types of weeds differently.

1) Broadleaf weeds (weeds with… wait for it… broad leaves, often low to the ground) should be sprayed with a broadleaf weed killer, using the smallest applicator possible to avoid spraying unnecessary chemicals all over the place.

2) Perennial grassy weeds resemble grasses, and spread through seeds and extensive roots, making them unaffected by broadleaf killer and resistant to pulling up. As a result, the only effective way to deal with them is to use a nonspecific plant killer, applied judiciously to avoid killing all the grass, too. The best way to do this is to wear a cloth glove over a rubber glove, then dip the cloth glove in the plant killer and wipe from the bottom of the weeds to the top.

3) If you find crabgrass in your lawn, there are three things you can do:

a. Hand pull the crabgrass out of the lawn,

 

b. Let it go until the next spring (crabgrass dies completely in late fall) and use preventative measures before it returns, or

 

c. Use post-emergence crabgrass killer, which is formulated to leave your lawn alone. This strategy is only effective until late summer or early fall, when seed heads form on the crabgrass. After this, you must use one of the previous two strategies.

Aerate each spring, mow regularly and to the proper height, and use the right strategies to attack weeds, and your lawn will be the envy of the neighborhood. All it takes is a little knowledge and a little effort. Who knew?

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You have a swimming pool for fun and relaxation, right? Don’t end up not using it halfway through this summer because the water’s greener than your grass! Pools can seem like too much work to keep up, but in reality, there are 3 categories of upkeep necessary to maintain your pool. As long as you stick with it regularly, you can prevent calamities and enjoy crystal-clear water for the whole summer.

1) First, check your pool’s chemistry frequently. During the warmer months, you should be checking your pool’s chemistry twice a week, and once a week when it’s cooler out. This may sound like a pain, but checking frequently allows you to make minor tweaks when a number is slightly off, rather than trying to swing things back into gear after waiting for things to go way out of whack.

For example, allowing the pH of your pool to swing .5 in either direction seriously impairs the efficacy of the chlorine in the water, which exposes it to bacteria and other little nasties. Allowing the water’s alkalinity to stray from the recommended range of 80-140 PPM can affect the water balance, and prevent sanitizer from working to its full potential.

As an aside, you should also avoid adding chemicals to the pool during the day. You’ll get the most out of them if you add them when the sun isn’t out.

2) Second, clean your pool properly. You should clean the skimmer basket and lint pot as regularly as you can because debris can prevent proper circulation of water, and stagnant water increases the risk that bad things will develop. Additionally, you should brush the walls and tile in your pool frequently. Buildup in these areas can promote algae growth, which you don’t want, and if you go too long without cleaning, the buildup can calcify, and you’ll end up paying a professional to come remove it.

Conversely, there’s one thing that owners often do too frequently: backwashing. If you backwash your pool’s filter too often, you’re wasting water and preventing the filter from doing its job properly. In most cases, you should only backwash your filter when its pressure gauge reads a specified amount over the reading for “clean.” Typically, this is 8-10 PSI.

3) Third, keep up with the general care of the pool and its surrounding area. You should run your pool’s pump 1 hour for every 10 degrees the pool’s water temperature has reached (so, for example, an 80 degree pool’s pump should run for 8 hours). If a pump or drain piece is broken or missing, you should fix or replace it immediately. Small problems like this often turn into big hassles later, when lack of circulation or failure to drain properly leads to algae or other issues.

Also, you should ensure that the space between the deck and the pool is properly sealed. If it isn’t, water can travel underneath the deck, causing rot or mold and a big, big headache.

Overall, maintaining a pool is about consistency. As long as you keep up your maintenance strategy, a clean pool should only require a series of small chores. It’s when you start skipping the small chores that your pool turns into a big pain.

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It’s a common gag on TV and in movies: a family member is showering, someone flushes a toilet, and a bloodcurdling scream echoes forth. These days, such a scene is less likely to happen, thanks to the introduction of a device called a pressure balance valve. These devices are now mandated to prevent injuries, but plenty of older homes lack them. In case you’re interested in installing one or replacing the one you’ve got, we thought we’d give you a run down of how pressure balance valves work and what you should know about them.

The first distinction to make is between balancing spool and diaphragm style pressure balance valves. A balancing spool shifts in response to a change in water pressure, whether on the hot or cold side. For example, if the cold water pressure weakens, the spool shifts to allow less hot water through, preventing the user from being scalded by a sudden shift to solely hot water. A diaphragm style valve uses a centered diaphragm between the hot and cold water inlets to achieve the same result. A shift in pressure on one side causes the diaphragm to shift and impede water flow on the other side. These systems both work well, but one thing to consider is that the diaphragm style tends to clog less than a balancing spool. If you often have sediment build up in your plumbing, this is something you might wish to consider.

The next distinction to consider is whether the valve is cycling or non-cycling. With a cycling valve, you simply adjust the temperature to where you’d like it, and that’s that. You can’t adjust the volume of water at all. With a non-cycling valve, you can adjust the temperature and the volume, giving you just a little bit more say in your shower. An additional factor to consider is how much specificity a valve offers in its temperature adjustment. If the range is very short, a small adjustment might result in a larger change in temperature than you desire, and we all know what it’s like when you can never get the water to the right temperature. Annoying, that’s what.

Lastly, consider the flow rate a valve can handle. The range of flow rates available varies from about 4.5 to 9 gallons per minute, and what you need is highly dependent on your shower setup. A lower flow rate will suffice if you have a standard single showerhead, but may not if you have multiple showerheads or you frequently fill a tub. Make sure you check that any valve you buy can handle the amount of water you require of it.

And once you’ve found the ideal pressure balance valve, it’s probably a good idea to have a professional install it. We considered providing a how-to, but we’d generally prefer not to start our blog posts with “first, make a hole in the wall.” This is probably a project for someone with experience, and if you need it, Baker Brothers is here to help.

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Is your washing machine filling sluggishly, water dripping instead of pouring? Chances are, the problem lies in your inlet screens. These screens catch particulate in the water supply to your washer, but often, after remodels or city projects, sediment or other matter is shaken loose, and makes its way downstream to your washing machine. From there, it builds up in your inlet screens until water can hardly make it through. Fortunately, it’s a simple fix, so let’s get to it.

1) First, shut off both the hot and cold water, and disconnect the water lines from the back of the washer.

2) Next, using needle-nose pliers, carefully remove the inlet screens from the inside the connectors on the washing machine. Be gentle with them, twisting lightly as you pull to ease them out. They’re very delicate and easily bent, but they’re also inexpensive and easily replaced if you damage them, so don’t worry too much.

3) After you’ve removed the screens, clean any debris out of them, using running water and a toothpick, knife, or other instrument to pick particles out. If the debris is really stuck on there, you’ll probably just need to buy new screens. Because they’re so cheap, it’s better to replace them than worry too much about getting stubborn bits off.

4) You’ll likely have bent the screen out of shape by this point, so straighten it out the best you can before replacing it.

5) Once you’ve replaced the inlet screens, check just inside the mouth of the water supply hoses for similar screens. Some hoses have them, some don’t. If yours do, remove and clean them just like the others. If they don’t, don’t.

6) Finally, reattach the water supply hoses, turn the water back on, and ensure there aren’t any leaks.

With the water’s path cleared, your washing machine should be filling like it did when it was brand new. If you notice that it still isn’t working properly or find yourself in water up to your knees, call Baker Brothers.

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Hard water is the name for when your water comes out of the tap a little closer to a solid than a liquid, like little rocks! Ouch! Just kidding. Hard water is simply water with high mineral content. It isn’t harmful to your health, or painful, but it can be harmful to your pipes (and how your coffee tastes, if you’re into that). It’s less effective at dissolving soap, which can lead to dry skin. Also, it creates “scale” deposits in your pipes, which can restrict water flow. Nobody wants that.

DO YOU HAVE HARD WATER?

The easiest way to tell if you have hard water is to look for white buildup around faucets or showerheads, and around drains in sinks or tubs. In hard water, instead of a lather, soap forms a white precipitate known as “soap scum.”

If you’ve looked for soap scum and you’re still not sure whether you have hard water, you can purchase a kit to test your water. Such kits are inexpensive and generally simple to use, varying from a test strip to a vial, to which you add a water sample.

A SIMPLE FIX FOR SCALE AND SOAP SCUM BUILDUP

If you have scale or soap scum buildup on your fixtures, it’s very simple to fight it. First, dip a toothbrush in white vinegar and scrub away any visible encrustation. Next, for a faucet, fill a plastic bag with white vinegar and tie it on the faucet so that it’s fully submerged. Leave it submerged for several hours or overnight. For a showerhead, first remove it from the wall, so you don’t spill the vinegar on yourself while you’re attaching the bag. Then, leave it to soak.

As far as cleaning tubs, toilets, or sinks goes, find a cleaning agent, such as CLR, specifically suited to removing lime deposits, and clean as you normally would.

After cleaning any of the above, let the water run for a few minutes to ensure the vinegar or cleaner is fully rinsed out. Depending on the level of scale or scum buildup, you might notice the difference immediately.

If your water has very high mineral content, and the buildup is too much to prevent with the regular maintenance described above, you may wish to consider installing a water softener, which filters your water before it enters your pipes. For a bigger job like this, call in Baker Brothers to help you out.

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While this isn’t, strictly speaking, a plumbing topic, we see a lot of mold and mildew in bathrooms and knew we could help. Bathrooms cook up molds and mildews like no other room in your house because they have the two crucial ingredients readily available: heat and humidity. Hot shower or bath water is the culprit, and if not addressed, mold can spread through walls, ceilings, and floors, wreaking havoc on your health, the aesthetics of your bathroom, and your pocketbook. Rather than quit taking hot showers (or showering altogether), there are 5 easy steps you can take to ensure mold doesn’t evict you from your bathroom.

1) The first and most important step is to pay attention to your bathroom. Simply giving the whole room a once-over from time to time might help you catch the problem before it spreads. Even if you do nothing else to prevent mold or mildew, this can save you time, money, and exasperation in the long run.

2) Promote ventilation and circulation in the bathroom when showering or using hot water. Turn on the exhaust fan, and make sure to leave it on for a few minutes after you’ve finished showering to get all the excess moisture out. Open windows and the door, too, if practical, to allow moisture a few more paths to escape.

3) Allow your shower curtain to fully dry between showers by stretching it taut right after you get out. Folds in the shower curtain retain pockets of moisture, and act as little hiding places for things you don’t want near you in the shower. Also, make sure there’s good airflow at the bottom and sides of the shower curtain, so that moisture can be wicked away, instead of pooling at the bottom of the shower or tub.

4) Maintain your drains. If your drain gets clogged, the standing water just incubates molds and mildew in your shower or sink. If you need some tips on unclogging your drain, check out our post on the subject: Unclogging a Slow Shower Drain.

5) Clean your bathroom with an antifungal cleaner. Make sure to get all your surfaces with a cleaner that prevents molds and mildews as a backup to drying everything out. You can never have too little mold in your bathroom.

All in all, preventing bathroom mold and mildew is very simple, and shouldn’t take too much effort outside of your typical routine. Just make sure that everything in the bathroom gets good and dry, and you shouldn’t ever have to worry. If you have any questions or a stubborn drain that you can’t unclog yourself, give Baker Brothers a call.

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Water pressure is probably one of those things you don’t think about until something’s wrong with it. Typically, that means when the pressure is too low, and you can’t rinse your dishes, or get the shampoo out of your hair. But high water pressure can be problematic too- causing leaks, damaging your pipes, and wasting water. Sure, you want a nice blast of water to wake you up in the morning, but taken too far, it can put the hurt on your pocketbook instead. To make sure you don’t get stuck with the bill, here’s a little background info on water pressure problems, and some steps you can take to monitor your water pressure.

The biggest source of water pressure problems is the municipal water supply. Because the same supply tends to be used for everything from fire hydrants to commercial buildings, it is often sent out at a higher-than-recommended pressure for your home. In order to test your water supply’s pressure, you can purchase a simple water pressure gauge at the hardware store. Just attach it to a hose spigot and run the water through it. It’s recommended that the water pressure for your home be no more than 80 psi.

If your water pressure is coming in a bit hot from the municipal source, the easiest fix is to buy a pressure regulator. This does exactly what it sounds like: protects your pipes from damage by cutting the pressure down before the water enters your home. Installing a pressure regulator is a topic unto itself (maybe a blog post for a later date!), but suffice it to say that a regulator installed at the water meter will protect the supply line to your home, as well as your pipes, from the possibility of expensive damage.

One last thing to note on pressure regulators: they wear out over time. So, if you have a regulator and you think your pressure is still high, test it. If your regulator has given out, that might still be your problem.

But low water pressure might also be your problem. If your water pressure varies, it might be the municipal source varying it. Some water pressure gauges can note variance in pressure, and you can use them to track when the variances occur. This problem usually ceases relatively quickly- in days or weeks. If you live in an apartment or other multi-resident building, other occupants’ water use might affect your pressure, as well as clogged pipes. If this is the case, other than clearing clogged pipes, there may not be much you can do. Just try to use the water when the other occupants aren’t, if possible. Last, and least likely, an old water pressure regulator might cause varying pressure. This is a rare problem, and you should call a plumber to help out with this one.

So next time you peel your eyes open and step into your shower’s torrential downpour, take a moment to consider whether the pressure is too much. It might save you down the line. If you have any questions, or need some help installing a regulator, give Baker Brothers a call.

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Drip. Drip. Drip. Among the most ominous household sounds, a leaky faucet strikes instant fear in the hearts of many. It shouldn’t, though- a faulty o-ring or rubber washer causes most leaky faucet issues, and it’s usually a quick fix you can handle yourself.

Troubleshooting a leaky faucet shouldn’t require any tools you don’t already have: channel locks, screwdrivers (Phillips head and flat), needle nose pliers, and maybe a wrench. You’ll probably need to purchase some inexpensive parts that depend on the type of faucet you’re working with.

Before you begin, note whether the faucet is a single or double handle model. Most of the process is very similar one way or the other, but there are some distinctions.

1) First, turn the water supply to the faucet off, using the valves located under the sink. Turn the handle clockwise to close the valve and cut off the water supply. If you’re dealing with a double handle model, you first need to determine which handle is leaking by turning off one valve, checking whether it stops the leak, and if it doesn’t, turning off the other. Once the water is off, plug the drain to prevent screws or other pieces from escaping into the abyss.

2) Next, remove the faucet handle. It will be screwed in place, and the screw may or may not be covered with a plastic or metal cap. A flathead screwdriver might come in handy to remove the cap. Once unscrewed, lift (or possibly pry) the handle out of place. You’ll come upon a nut, which holds the valve assembly in place. Using a wrench or channel locks, unscrew the nut, then remove the valve assembly.
Here’s where the differences between single and double handle models come into play. For a single handle model, proceed to step 3. For double, skip to step 4.

3) A single handle model can typically be fixed by replacing the o-ring. Simply go to the hardware store and purchase a replacement ring (make sure you bring it with to ensure you get the correct replacement). If a replacement o-ring alone does not do the trick, you may need to replace the valve assembly, which is as simple as removing it as described above and replacing it with the new one. After you’ve done this, move on to step 5.

4) With a double handle model, after removing the valve assembly, you’ll want to look for the rubber washer on a small spring. If that mechanism looks to be the problem, you can buy a new one at the hardware store and replace it. If there is no separate washer/spring assembly, you must replace the entire valve assembly.

5) Once you’ve replaced the valve assembly, reassemble the faucet. Make sure you’ve fully tightened all the screws, because loose screws can lead to leaks, too. Turn the handle to the OFF position, unplug the sink, and turn the water supply back on to test your work. With any luck, you should be leak-free, and leak-free is the way to be.

These steps should fix most leaky faucets. If you have followed the steps and they didn’t work, or you now have a miniature geyser erupting from your faucet, give Baker Brothers a call. We’ve seen it before.

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Do you step into the shower each morning, look at the showerhead and think, “this thing needs to go”? Whether it’s corroded, weak, or simply ugly, replacing your showerhead is as simple as it gets. First, you have to choose the type of showerhead you want, and the choices are nearly endless. There are multi-setting and single-setting heads, “shower towers” with multiple heads, aerating showerheads that inject air into the stream to make it feel more substantial, handheld heads, and rain showers. This choice really comes down to personal preference, but we will say that shower towers obviously use a lot more water, and some people complain that rain showers don’t have the oomph they seek in a showerhead.

Once you pick out a new fixture, stop at the hardware store and buy yourself some plumber’s tape (known as “Teflon” tape, but not actually made of Teflon). Simply follow the steps below, and within minutes, you’ll have a great new showerhead. Then you’ll be ready to look for something else to upgrade.

1) First, gather your supplies: the new showerhead, the plumber’s tape, a towel and a wrench, and make sure the water is turned off. It isn’t necessary to shut the water off for the whole house—just make sure it isn’t running.

2) Next, unscrew the showerhead. This may require a wrench if the showerhead is corroded or screwed on very tightly. Clean the threads of the exposed pipe with a damp cloth or paper towel to remove any residue from the plumber’s tape that held the showerhead in place or corrosion.

3) Then, apply the plumber’s tape to the exposed pipe. Be sure to wrap the tape clockwise around the pipe. If you wrap it counterclockwise, it will come off as you screw the new showerhead on, and you will be very angry. With each loop around the pipe, cover half the width of the previous loop of tape, to ensure a tight seal.

4) After applying the tape, screw the new showerhead on. You might be able to do this completely by hand, but if it requires a wrench, make sure you first wrap a towel around the fixture to avoid scratching it.

5) Last (hopefully), turn on the water and ensure it isn’t spurting out of anywhere it shouldn’t be. If it is, you might need to go back and start the taping process over again.

It’s as simple as that! Now you’ll be free of that junky old showerhead and ready to move on to replacing your toilet with one of those talking Japanese models. Or not, but you can dream…. If anything goes wrong, Baker Brothers is always here to help. Just give us a call.

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Have you ever run the dishwasher and come back to find water spouting all over your sink, countertop, or even the floor? Did the water come from the strange protrusion next to your faucet? Bet you always wondered what that thing did (before you found out it floods your kitchen). “That thing” is actually called an air gap, and it prevents wastewater from siphoning back into the dishwasher, which can occur when sinks become clogged and no air gap is present. Without an air gap, contaminated water could be sucked back into the dishwasher, dirtying your clean dishes and making you ill.

HOW AN AIR GAP WORKS

In a properly functioning air gap, the dishwasher hose attaches to an input on the air gap, and the water is expelled out the end. Gravity pulls it downward into the hose, which carries it to the garbage disposal. The gap where the water falls downward through the air instead of a hose functions to prevent siphoning, and thus prevent backup into the dishwasher. Over time, food can clog an air gap, preventing water from flowing. Alternatively, when a new garbage disposal is installed, the installer forgets to remove a knockout plug from the input to which the water line is attached. Either of these situations is quite easy to fix, and below we’ll show you how.

HOW TO FIX AN AIR GAP CLOG

One of the most common reasons for an air gap clog is failure to remove the knockout plug from the input where the water line enters the garbage disposal. This blocks the water from entering and causing a backup. To solve this, simply detach the water line from the garbage disposal, insert a screwdriver into the input and tap it with a hammer to pop the knockout plug out. Before using the disposal, be sure to reach into the garbage disposal and take the knockout plug out.

For softer clogs, pop the cap off of the air gap, and place a cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels over the hole. Blow through the top with a good amount of force, and any material should come loose. If this doesn’t work, though, you can use either a long bottle brush or a wet/dry vacuum to remedy the issue. Using a bottle brush, simply extend it down the air gap (not the line from the dishwasher, but the line leading into the disposal) and twist it until the debris in the line comes loose. Or, with a wet/dry vac, place the hose over the air gap, turn it on, and wait forty seconds to a minute. By that point, anything in the air gap should be sucked out.

Ultimately, with a few simple steps, you can prevent contamination of your clean dishes from whatever evil microbes lurk in your sink, and that can’t be a bad thing. Always remember that if you have further questions, Baker Brothers Plumbing is here to help.

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