Stretching your energy dollars further

By now, you’ve probably heard something about the benefits of tankless water heaters. Compared to traditional water heaters, these pieces of equipment have plenty of positive implications for your home’s energy bills as well as the general state of your utility areas. While installing a tankless water heater isn’t rocket science, it does help to keep a few commonsense tips in mind as you embark on this money-saving project.

How Do Tankless Water Heaters Work?

Also known as “continuous flow” heaters, tankless water heaters live up to their name. Instead of taking in heating and storing water from an incoming main line, tankless water heaters deliver powerful blasts of heat that warm up the water that flows into a structure from outside without halting its movement. Since stored water has much more time to lose heat than rapidly flowing water, this dramatically reduces the amount of energy that … Read Full Post »

Settling the score in the kitchen and bathroom

When you think about plumbing problems, your first thought probably involves your home’s toilet. For multiple reasons, toilets tend to cause a host of visible problems with relative frequency. Meanwhile, temperature swings can cause poorly insulated pipes to burst in your basement or under your yard. However, there’s another class of plumbing problems that doesn’t get the attention it deserves: leaks, breaks and clogs in kitchen and bathroom sinks.

Clogged Sink Drains

This is a common problem in the bathroom and kitchen. Although a slow drain may be little more than an inconvenience for intrepid homeowners, clogs can eventually cause damaging backups. Worse, they may even result in burst or leaky pipes underneath your sink. To prevent these negative effects, attack the problem as soon as it becomes apparent. If you don’t want to use harsh drain-opening chemicals, opt for a handier approach. Simply remove … Read Full Post »

Whether you’re the go-to neighborhood handyman or can’t tell a tire iron from a toilet seat, you probably don’t give your DIY skills enough credit. With a little preparation and a lot of discipline, it’s possible to execute many straightforward plumbing upgrades and fixes without calling on a professional or buying special tools. We outline three simple tasks that take less than half a day and leave your home in even better shape.

Upgrading Faucets with Aerators and Other Water-Saving Devices

If your home suffers from low water pressure or has wasteful, outdated faucets, you don’t have to replace your entire piping system. Instead, tack a simple aerator onto your faucet head to increase the perceived speed at which water shoots out of the tap. You can buy aerators at most home improvement stores, and installing them simply demands some manual twisting or clipping.

If you’re more interested in sprucing up your faucet’s … Read Full Post »

How Tankless Water Heaters Can Improve Your Austin Home

To the extent you think about your water heater at all, odds are that you think of a big, bulky contraption with a large tank that stores hot water. Thanks to modern technology, though, you can get rid of the tank and save plenty every year.

Unlike an ordinary water heater, a tankless system heats water on demand. As soon as you turn on a faucet or start up an appliance that uses hot water, cold water flows into the heater. The system warms it up directly using gas or electric heat, then pumps the hot water right where it’s needed. As soon as you shut off the hot water, the system shuts down, too.

The biggest upshot of such a system is that there’s no power wasted heating up water that you don’t really need. A tankless heater gives you exactly as much … Read Full Post »

Every day, you might be making some simple mistakes that could be destroying your plumbing. As much as you might like to become best friends with the plumbers in Austin, we’d like to offer some helpful tips to avoid major plumbing disasters.

Some plumbing issues are just annoying, while others can actually pose a hazard to your family’s health. Minor issues quickly escalate into expensive ordeals if not dealt with properly. Follow these tips to avoid learning the hard way.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Hair clogs are a common cause of blocked drains in showers, bathtubs and sinks. Avoid brushing your hair right over the sink, and always put the hair from your comb or brush directly in a trashcan. When washing your hair, be mindful of the hair that you lose, and gather it after each shower or bath. Keep a small trashcan nearby so that you can quickly dispose of the … Read Full Post »

Don’t let your hot water heater drain you out of house and home

How much hot water do you use each day? You’re probably not running your tap nonstop, so what is your water heater doing the rest of the time?

If it’s the normal, tank-type variety, it’s probably pretty busy. Nobody puts in a requisition for hot water. With no idea of when you’re going to want it, your heater must stand at the ready, keeping the water continually toasty in case you make a request.

It does this by making steady demands on your energy supply. If it didn’t keep working around the clock, the water in the tank would not remain hot for long.

What if you never had to waste energy keeping your water hot? What if you could heat it on demand at the moment you need it?

With a tankless water heater, that’s exactly what you can do.

The Workings … Read Full Post »