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Month: December 2021

Dos And Don’ts For Hiring A Plumber | Callahan, FL

Posted on by Justin Lucas
Photo By bearsky23 at Shutterstock

If you’re a homeowner in Callahan, FL, or anywhere in the country, it’s inevitable that you’re going to need to have a plumbing expert come to your house at some point in your life. Over time, pipes tear or rust, blockages occur and fixtures and devices simply become unable to do the job you need properly, requiring a plumber to come to figure things out before things get out of hand.

However, making sure that you hire the right plumbing expert for the job isn’t always an easy thing to do. There are unfortunately several less-than-great options for plumbing help, and if you bring the wrong plumber in to perform work on your home, you’re going to end up paying for it in the long run. Here are a few do’s and do not do’s when it comes to hiring a plumbing professional for your home!

Do Check Their References

When you consider a plumber to work at your home, one of the first things you’ll want to check is their references from other customers. You’ve got two reliable ways of getting a good picture from reviews, with the first being to just ask your potential plumbing company if they can provide a few reviews from other Callahan, FL customers.

Not only will this give you critical information about the service you can expect, but it will also tell you what kind of person you’re dealing with based on their response. A reliable plumbing company will be happy to offer you references from several different companies because they’re proud of the work they did and want to be transparent with potential customers. A plumbing professional who won’t be forthcoming with references, on the other hand, is likely someone who doesn’t have much of a positive history with their customers.

Your second way to get reliable references is to go to a review site and see what other customers are saying. This won’t always be the easiest way to get references because people don’t always give their full names, but if someone is willing to stand behind what they say, there’s a good chance you can trust the information.

Don’t Forget to Get an Estimate

A written estimate isn’t just a plumber’s assessment of the kind of work that they’ll need to perform at your home. It’s also a chance for you to take a look at the work that they do and make sure that you trust their efforts.

When they go into a room, do they tell you exactly what they’ve spotted and what they think they’re going to have to fix if you hire them for the job? Does your potential plumbing company explain things to you in a clear, concise manner, or do you find yourself having to ask questions about every other thing that they tell you? Do they give off the impression of someone who knows what they’re doing and has seen jobs like yours many times before?

When you get an estimate, a plumbing professional will be taking a look at your home, but you need to use this time to take a look at them and their process. The way that they perform their estimate will be indicative of the quality of work they perform, so make sure that you’re paying attention while they’re in your home.

Do Consider Their Personality

During the estimate, you’ll also get a chance to look at the personality of who you’re hiring in how they interact with you. This is where the way they treat you really matters because it tells you exactly how they’re likely to treat you when you’re a customer.

For example, when they tell you something, do they do it in a respectful manner, treating you as a functioning adult who doesn’t know the industry as well as they do but still knows the basics, or do they talk to you in a condescending way about your plumbing? Does your plumber seem open and friendly when you have questions for them, or do they give the impression that you’re wasting their time when they could be getting back to work? Are they both professional and pleasant to deal with, or do they give the impression that they’re not taking the job seriously enough?

Remember, you’re the one hiring a plumber when you choose to enlist professional help, which means you should treat this as if you’re hiring for any other job. You need to consider if their personality and their professionalism would be a good fit for any plumbing jobs you might have in your home.

Don’t Choose a Plumber Without Comparing

Unless you’ve got a true plumbing emergency and you need professional help right away, you should be able to take the time to compare two or more options before choosing the right one for your needs.

Shopping around is almost always a good idea, and it’s true with selecting a plumbing company as well. Comparing multiple options can help you decide who you trust to do the job right the first time, whether that’s because of their professional demeanor, the tools they bring to make sure they’re prepared, or the thoroughness of their detailed estimate.

If your plumber does their job right, you might not need to worry about that part of your plumbing system for multiple decades, and in some cases, you might not need to worry about it until the time comes to sell your house. That’s just one of many reasons why you need to compare plumbing options and make sure you have the right one for your family.

At Bert Norman’s Plumbing, we’re proud of the work we do and strive to bring the same professionalism to every plumbing job we perform in Callahan, FL, and everywhere in Nassau County. If you’re in need of a plumber to fix something with your drains and pipes, give us a call. We’ll make sure the job is done the right way so that your plumbing problems are a thing of the past!

Reasons To Call A Plumbing Service Right Away | Jacksonville, FL

Posted on by Justin Lucas
Photo By DIGIcal at istock

Whether you’re a new homeowner in Jacksonville, FL or you’ve owned your home in Duval County for years, it’s important to know what to do when a repair issue happens at your house. Knowing who to call and how quickly to call them can be the difference between solving the problem before it has a chance to get worse and having to shell out thousands of dollars to repair the damage caused by not fixing the issue in time.

For many plumbing-related issues, calling a plumbing service is something that you need to do sooner rather than later. There are certainly a few plumbing concerns that you can solve on your own schedule, but for the majority of your plumbing work, you need to call someone over right away to keep things from getting worse. If you spot any of these problems, there’s no time to waste; you need a plumber at your home immediately!

Sulfur Smell

In a situation like this, a plumber should actually be the second call that you make. Your first call if you smell sulfur coming from your faucet is to call your water supplier to find out if there’s a problem with the groundwater or elsewhere in their system. That’s because sometimes after storms, sulfur can mix into the groundwater and produce that unpleasant smell. The good news is that if this is the case, you’ll usually be fine with just flushing the water through your faucets in your home.

But if your water supplier tells you that everything is fine, then you need to call a plumbing service as soon as possible, because that’s a sign that there’s something really wrong with your water. You might have an issue with your hot water heater if you only smell sulfur from the hot water tap, or the problem could be with the water softener. In either case, you need to bring in a plumbing expert as soon as possible to examine your system and determine potential problems. Whenever there’s a weird smell coming from your water, that’s not the time to waste time waiting on contacting a plumber for help.

Discolored Water

Depending on the color of the water, the discoloration can be a sign that you’ve got a serious problem with your water and shouldn’t drink it at all, or it can be a sign that you need a plumbing service right away, but your water is still safe to drink. Red or orange water might not be attractive to look at, but they actually won’t cause any health problems if you choose to drink them. That’s because these colors are caused by rust buildup in your water, which is harmless to our bodies. However, you’ll still want to call for a plumbing expert right away, because rust-colored water can stain your clothes in the laundry. If your water is pink, that’s also not a reason to panic, as this is a sign of a harmless organism in your water. You’ll need to call for assistance, but you can still drink your water until help arrives.

The time that you need to both call a plumbing service immediately and avoid your water is when your water is blue, blue-green, or black. Blue water is a sign of your toilet water mixing into your drinking water supply, which can be incredibly harmful. Black water brings its own problems, as this happens when you have mold in your water supply. Blue-green water can also cause gastrointestinal issues, as it occurs when you have corroding copper pipes in your plumbing system. In all cases, do not drink the water at your Jacksonville, FL home until a plumbing service can make repairs.

Stains on the Walls

Your walls hide much of your plumbing system, so if you’ve got a stain slowly appearing on your walls, that’s a sign that something is seriously wrong with your plumbing. Specifically, that’s a sign that you’ve got a tear in your pipes somewhere, and as soon as this sign appears, you’ve got to call a plumbing service right away.

Allowing water to pool in your walls can cause major damage to the drywall, resulting in water pouring onto your floors, carpet, and more. In this case, you’ve got two choices: wait for this to happen once the walls burst or get a plumbing expert on the job immediately to get inside your wall and replace the old pipes. Bringing in a plumber can allow an expert to break into your walls and repair the pipe before the accumulation of water can cause serious damage to the rest of your home. However, this is a situation where time is of the essence; once the wall breaks, you’re going to need emergency plumbing services in your home as well as some major reconstruction to your house.

Leaking Pipes

When it comes to your plumbing system, there is no such thing as a small leak. Any visible leak, even one that’s only a couple of drips, needs to be repaired right away to prevent future damage to your pipes. When your pipes start leaking, they become much more susceptible to breaking or coming apart, which can cause a serious emergency in a matter of minutes.

Even if your pipes hold together until a plumbing service arrives, you don’t want to wait too long to call for an expert’s help. Small leaks can still cause water damage to your home, so as soon as you notice a drip, it’s important to call for help right away.

Whether it’s leaking pipes, a strange smell in your water or another serious issue with your plumbing, Bert Norman’s Plumbing is here to get things back on track. When something is off with the plumbing in your Jacksonville, FL home, our plumbing service will make full repairs and prevent further damage to your home. Give us a call today to have our team get to work on your home’s plumbing system!

Plumber Tips: Benefits Of Maintaining A Water Heater | Jacksonville, FL

Posted on by Justin Lucas
Photo By Inna Kot at Shutterstock

A water heater is essential for any home. Without them, you would have to use cold water in your bathroom. Although scheduling the maintenance for your water heaters may not be on top of your to-do list, there are several reasons you should add it.

Enlisting the services of a professional to maintain your water heater accords you many benefits that you would not get otherwise. Here, you will learn the benefits of maintaining your water heater system as a homeowner. Continue reading to discover what benefits you are missing out, by not scheduling a routine water heater system maintenance with a plumber.

Improve the Energy Efficiency of Your Water Heater System

Minerals settle at the bottom of the water heater with time. This makes it more difficult for the water heater system to heat your water. Inevitably, it also reduces the amount of water available for heating, lowering the supply of hot water to your home. It happens if you use traditional tank systems rather than tankless ones.

The performance and efficiency of your water heater depend on whether you maintain it well. If you rarely service the water heater, it will not perform effectively. It may fail at any moment, and instead of your shower water is hot, it is lukewarm. The water may turn cloudy because calcium sediments have accumulated at the bottom of the water heater’s tank.

When maintaining your water heater system, the plumber removes any buildup of minerals within the system. Removing these sediments from the water heater ensures that your system can operate with more efficiency. Thus, get a constant supply of hot water for your various uses at your home.

Keeping the Warranty Active

Annual water heater maintenance is necessary for your manufacturer’s warranty to remain active. Your warranty only remains active when you adhere to the maintenance schedule as per your product manual. Otherwise, your warranty can be voided.

If the warranty is void, you cannot use it. Hence, if the water heater system breaks within the warranty period, you cannot use the repair services extended by the manufacturer to your advantage. You have to prove that the water heating unit had annual maintenance. Enlisting the services of a professional plumber can help keep the heater system’s warranty.

Early Identification of Issues That Need Repairs

Routine maintenance of your water heater can help you identify problems that need repairs. Besides removing the lodged sediments from your water heater system, a professional plumber can also help you identify parts of your system that need repairs early.

Early identification of a problem in the plumbing system can help you prevent financial losses, health risks, and property damage. So, you can expect the heater repairs you may need in the future and prevent a total breakdown of the system. Understanding the water heater system’s health can help homeowners plan financially for their water heater needs. Therefore, they can avoid unexpected expenses later or total system failure.

Thus, enlist the help of a professional plumber to be aware of your water heater system’s health. If you live in Jacksonville, FL, Bert Norman’s Plumbing can help you solve your water heater problems. Our plumbers are trained professionally and capable of handling all your water heater problems.

Reduce the Water Expenses

Although there are many benefits to water heater system maintenance, reducing water expenses is probably the most significant benefit. Water bills can sometimes escape high depending on your uses and location. Keeping the bills at a minimum is the ultimate goal for people using municipal piped water.

As the professional plumber removes the buildup from your system, the efficiency of your water heater improves. Therefore, its operational cost is reduced because the water heater does not have to hark too hard to provide you with hot water.

You get to enjoy a reduced cost of water heater ownership. It stems from the fact that your plumber can identify and repair the minor issues with your water heater before they can escalate to professional water heater repair requests.

With tough economic times, saving every available dollar is the aim for many. Adding the maintenance of the water heater to your to-do list is vital. It can make the difference between saving some dollars or spending vast amounts of money on full-blown repairs to your water heater. If you live in Jacksonville, FL, call us to inspect, repair, and advise you on all matters related to water heaters.

Increase Your Water Heater System’s Lifetime

Water heater systems last for years. A professionally maintained water heater system can last for over 20 years. Depending on which type of water heater system you installed, it can even last longer.

You can only get this type of longevity by having an annual repair and maintenance schedule for the water heater system. If you do not have an annual maintenance schedule for your water heaters, they are highly likely to break down totally or need premature replacement.

Spotting the minor issues that need repair and removing the minerals attached to the walls of your water heater increase your water heater efficiency. By addressing these issues early, you effectively prevent total damage to the system.

Consider having a professional plumber contact on your phone. They will inspect and repair your system, ensuring that you do not have to use the money on replacements prematurely.

Guarantees Safety

A water heater can pose many dangers to your home. It happens in case the water heater is about to malfunction. Failing water heaters may explode, resulting in fires, bodily harm, death, and structural damage.

Leaking tanks, anode rods that are rusty, and faulty or failing pressure valves can cause the water heater to explode. All the damages above are costly, and you cannot quantify the loss of life—better remaining safe than being sorry. Hire a professional plumber to inspect, maintain, and repair your water heater today. You will stay ahead of the situation and avoid explosions or fires caused by the water heater.

Professional Water Heater System Maintenance Services Near You

As we have seen above, maintaining your water heater can go a long way in reducing your energy and water bills. However, you cannot achieve such without the services of a professional in water heater maintenance.

Do you live in Jacksonville, FL? Bert Norman’s Plumbing offers water heater installation, inspection, repairs, and maintenance. We help homes avoid high expenses in repair costs and costly breakdowns. Such problems can render the water heater systems unusable.

Call us for emergency water heater services at 904-225-5888 and get $15 off for your water heater repair. We repair and replace all types of water heaters to ensure that you have a seamless flow of hot water in your home while also ensuring the longevity of your water heater. A customer is our most invaluable asset, and we treat them as such.

The Most Serious Plumbing Emergencies Your Plumber Faces | Fernandina, FL

Posted on by Justin Lucas
Photo By AndreyPopov at istock

Indoor plumbing is probably one of the most underappreciated innovations of our civilization. Without it, it is hard for you to imagine how you would handle wastewater from your home, let alone how you would get clean water into your house. Given the importance of your home’s plumbing system, plumbing problems can lead to serious inconveniences and even affect your family’s health and hygiene negatively. As such, most plumbing situations call for urgent repairs. However, no matter how quickly you want to see your plumbing issue fixed, you should never be tempted to try DIY plumbing repairs. Therefore, you need to be in touch with a professional plumber to be sure that you have someone you can trust to help you respond to any plumbing situation in your Fernandina, FL home. Below are some of the most serious plumbing situations that should prompt you to seek the immediate attention of a professional.

Burst Water Pipes

A water pipe can burst due to a number of reasons. For instance, if there is some excavation job on your property, your water pipes can get damaged. Similarly, a pipe can burst due to shifting ground or even tree roots encroachment. But whatever the cause might be, a burst pipe can cause several serious problems in your home. For instance, it can lead to a severe fall in water pressure in your house or even cut off your home from the public water supply line. Furthermore, if a burst pipe is not fixed immediately, it can cause flooding, which can then damage your garden and even your house. To prevent such eventualities, you need to call an emergency plumber as soon as you notice that you have a burst pipe within your property.

Malfunctioning Water Heater

The water heater is an integral part of your home’s plumbing system. Its role is to ensure that your house has a constant supply of hot water for cleaning, washing, cooking, and bathing. Therefore, if your water heater is broken, failure to get it fixed immediately might force you and your family to take cold showers and perform house chores with ice-cold water. If the water from your hot water is too hot for your liking, but the thermostat settings seem okay, this is also a sign of a malfunctioning water heater, and it is even worse in the sense that it might end up hurting your family. Given the importance and the sensitivity of your water heater, you need to ensure that you make a call to your plumbing company as soon as you realize that the water heater is misbehaving.

Clogged Drains

Drains form a section of your plumbing system that is responsible for discharging wastewater from your house into the public sewer or a septic tank somewhere outside your home. Therefore, there are so many things that go down the drains, including hair, oils, greases, soap scum, and even food particles. As these materials attach themselves to the sides of the drain pipes, they can create clogs that can prevent wastewater from leaving your house. This means that the wastewater might end up overflowing your sinks and even flooding your bathrooms. Unfortunately, this will make your bathroom and sinks unusable. The good news is that professional plumbers have the right tools and skills to ensure that such clogs are removed quickly and in a way that does not endanger your plumbing system. On the other hand, trying to remove a drain clog on your own might involve the use of rudimentary drain cleaning methods that can potentially damage your plumbing system. In a nutshell, given the importance of your home’s drains, drain clogs are serious plumbing situations and they must only be addressed by professional plumbers.

Blocked Toilets

When you flush your toilet, you expect the wastewater and all its contents to rush out within the shortest time. However, when your toilet is blocked by paper or some other foreign material, this will not happen. Instead, the wastewater will fill the toilet bowl and create a mess that you certainly do not want to see. In addition to making your toilet unusable, this can also cause a foul odor in your home. As such, a blocked toilet is one of those plumbing situations that cannot wait to be resolved another day, meaning that you will need to call a plumber to your Fernandina, FL house as soon as you notice that your toilet is blocked.

Frozen Pipes

Frozen pipes are some of the most serious plumbing situations a homeowner can face. The issue occurs when cold temperatures cause the water in the pipes to freeze. This can have several devastating impacts. For instance, water seems to expand as it freezes, and therefore, your pipes might be put under pressure that could cause them to crack. Besides, blocks of ice in your water pipes could effectively cut off your home’s water supply. To solve this issue, you need the assistance of a professional plumber. Professionals have the necessary tools and skills to help you fix frozen water pipes and quickly restore the supply of water to your house. They can also help you improve your pipe insulation to prevent the pipes from freezing in the future.

The Takeaway

As you can see, given the importance of your plumbing system, most plumbing issues that you will face will need to be attended to urgently. But since your plumbing system is highly complex, it will be impossible for you to fix most of them, and therefore, you need to be in touch with a professional plumber. If you are looking for a reliable plumber to help you deal with the most serious plumbing issues you might face in your Fernandina, FL home, Bert Norman’s Plumbing is an excellent choice. We have a highly experienced team of plumbers you can trust to solve any plumbing issue, no matter how complex it might seem. Feel free to contact us today for more information about our company and services.

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