Roto-Rooter | Trusted and Recommended since 1935

Professional Plumbers—Your Friends From Roto-Rooter

August 30th, 2012 by

Do you have a lot of friends? Are your friends there for you during a crisis? Do you consider your local plumbers to be your friends? The folks from Roto-Rooter are there for you day or night, seven days a week. We will even come in the middle of the night if you have an emergency. Just like your loyal, close pals, you can rely on your friends in the plumbing business when you need us most.

Because your home is full of plumbing fixtures and appliances, you risk having problems occasionally. Fortunately, those plumbing fixtures are hardy and last a long time. However, sometimes they break. After all, they are mechanical devices, which are prone to wearing out and failing over time. There are some things you can do to prolong the life of your plumbing implements, however. Here are a few tips:

Water Heater Maintenance

Flush your water heater every few years. At the same time, replace the anode rod in your tank. This is the device that helps prevent corrosion in your heater tank during normal use. Some plumbers call it a sacrificial rod because it sacrifices itself to calcium and minerals so they don’t attack the metal tank. Once the anode rod has disintegrated, there is nothing to protect the steel tank from these corrosive minerals. It is also a good idea to check your water heater every few months to make sure the top vents are unobstructed and to make sure there is no debris that has collected around the tank, especially near the burner. Never store paint cans or fuel near a water heater tank.

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Water Heater Leaking: Plumbing Solutions and Repairs

August 23rd, 2012 by

If you notice your water heater leaking, you need to call Roto-Rooter and have one of our technicians look at the possible causes. It could be a loose fitting on the water supply or it could be a split in your tank caused from corrosion. An experienced technician will evaluate the possible causes and advise you what your best options are for solutions. If you need a new heater, he or she will discuss all the newest ones available and will help you decide what would be the best for your home, taking into consideration your hot water needs and your budget. If you have a hot tub, numerous showers and tubs, and a large number of home occupants, he or she will help you find the largest capacity heater for the installation space you have available.

A Roto-Rooter technician can assist you with many different things. He or she is sure to be an experienced repairperson and installation guru on anything that has to do with plumbing. He or she can install or fix your pipes, your sump pump, your water heater, or your air conditioning and furnace. He or she can unclog your drains, install a new food disposer, and fix your toilet. There is really no plumbing job too big or small for a Roto-Rooter technician.

Perhaps you have a major drain clog somewhere in your pipes. You do not have the tools necessary to unclog the drain and nothing you have tried seems to work. Your kitchen sink is backed-up and you are getting frustrated. When the Roto-Rooter technician shows up, he or she will evaluate the layout of your plumbing. He or she will provide you with an estimate of how much it will cost to clear your drain and will review each detail and explain the unclogging process and answer any questions you may have.

The first thing the technician will do is bring out a large, commercial snaking machine. This is a motorized machine that has a flexible rod (cable) with a claw-like feature on the end. He or she will put the rod into your drain and push it in until it bumps against the clog. The technician will then start the motor and the rod will begin to spin. With the rod spinning, he or she will push it further into the drain. The claw will rip through the clog and your drain will suddenly be free!

You can rely on your friend in the plumbing business when you find your water heater leaking, your drains clogged, your toilets running, or any other malfunction or break of your plumbing fixtures and appliances. We are just a quick phone call away!

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Save Yourself From a Big Headache: Call Roto-Rooter

August 16th, 2012 by

Have you ever pulled the stopper of the bathtub up and then come back a half hour later to find the water hasn’t gone down the drain like it is supposed to? You pull up the stopper all the way out and clean out all the hair and gunk and still, the water won’t drain. Next you pour in some heavy duty drain cleaner and hope and pray for the next half hour that it will do the trick. Well, that didn’t work either. Now you are out digging through the garage looking for you plumbing snake or plunger. If the clog isn’t very far down you may be in luck, but if it is, save yourself the further expense and headache of do-it-yourself solutions and call Roto-Rooter to come and do a plumbing repair in Gainesville.

If you have an old home, you may have all kinds of surprises when it comes to the plumbing. It is common to find new fittings attached to old and numerous leaks. While it won’t always be inexpensive, think how great it would be to have all your plumbing replaced. Roto-Rooter doesn’t just do plumbing repair in Gainesville, they can contract to redo your whole system if necessary. It can be designed to flow better than the previous one. The design of your plumbing is very important. A bad design and you will have a toilet that overflows regularly and has to be vigorously plunged over and over.

To avoid getting extensive water damage when your pipes break, it is vital that everyone living in your home, from teens to adults, knows where the water main shut off valve is and how to turn it off. It may not be in an obvious place. Sometimes it has even been found in the master bedroom closet. Don’t assume that people know what to do when they see water flowing over the floor. Sit down with your family and teach them. It will save a lot in clean-up time and expense if it is caught early.

Water damage is expensive to fix and so the sooner water is removed and the area dried out, the better. The smell of mildew in the carpet will drive you right out of the house. If your carpet has been flooded, get a powerful utility vacuum and get all the water sucked out of it that you can. Pull back the rug and remove the pad. It will need replacing. Then use industrial fans to get the carpet dried out quickly.

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Roto-Rooter: Your Plumbing Professionals

August 9th, 2012 by

When you purchase your first home, it is very exciting. There is no landlord dictating that you have to have white walls. If you want to paint every wall in the entire house blue, that’s your decision. No one is going to get snarky with you if you hang up a lot of pictures or stain the hardwood floor mahogany. The other side of this coin is that if something goes wrong with your household plumbing in Gainesville, there is no one but you to take care of the problem. It is up to you to fix it yourself or call Roto-Rooter to get it fixed professionally and reliably.

While the responsibility for the upkeep of you home may seem heavy, it makes you feel good to know your grass is mowed, the gutters are clean, the paint is fresh, and all its systems are in perfect running order. It is easy to forget some of the jobs that need to be done. Have you ever moved out of a place and had to spend hours cleaning the stove, washing the windows, getting marks off the walls, sprucing up the yard, and weeding flowerbeds? You swear you are not going to let yourself get behind in your next place but it happens to the best of us.

Now that the job of home maintenance is yours, it is wise to make a list of all the things that need servicing, repair, and regular maintenance. Don’t try to tackle it all at once. Make yourself a calendar for a year and schedule all these tasks on it. Spread out evenly over twelve months so all those things like painting the fence, staining the deck, changing the filters on your heating and cooling system, or aerating the lawn don’t become overwhelming.

If you sit down every month and look ahead at what is coming up, you can schedule your service visits early and have them done at your convenience. Your service technicians will keep your furnace, water heater, and air conditioning unit running properly and you won’t have your air conditioner blowing hot air in August. It’s a long wait for a repairman during that time of year. When emergencies like a broken pipe come up, quickly get them taken care of by calling Roto-Rooter . Problems with your plumbing in Gainesville warrant immediate action.

When you ignore little problems, they can turn into big, expensive fixes. If you notice a slow leak under your sink, don’t wait around until it is more convenient for you to take care of it. Water damage is costly to fix.

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The Low Down on Plumbing

August 2nd, 2012 by

Have you ever suspected that there was more to something than what you were being told? Yeah, we have all felt that way at one time or another. However, have you ever thought this way about the plumbing in Gainesville? Probably not, right? Should you be thinking there is more to the plumbing here than meets the eye?

In reality the plumbing underground beneath any town or city is a bit of a mystery. It is rarely seen by the general population but there is an amazing underground network of water supply lines and sewer lines mapping the city and connecting most every structure.

It is fascinating to public works plumbers some of the things that they encounter working on the infrastructure of an underground municipal plumbing system. Of course, these are facilities that city employees work on most of the time, but occasionally they will call in help from plumbing companies like ours. Roto-Rooter has been privileged to go and help cities them from time to time with municipal plumbing systems. These are amazing systems that usually work like a charm when maintained properly – just like the plumbing in your own home. For most people, it’s out of sight and out of mind. But regular maintenance by a qualified professional plumber will keep it humming along without a problem.

The infrastructure plumbing in Gainesville is an incredibly complicated maze of pipes, valves and drains. But without regular maintenance, it would break down, present health risks to the citizens and become unreliable – again, just like the plumbing in your home or business.

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For Faucet Repairs, Call Roto-Rooter

July 23rd, 2012 by

Your home is your castle. Coming into your castle are pipes containing water. Those water supply pipes are very reliable and seldom have any problems. However, occasionally they do break and/or leak. It is our job to fix those breaks and leaks, thus preventing your castle from potential future flooding. Our experienced technicians know tub, toilet, pipe, and faucet repair in Gainesville. Roto-Rooter will respond anytime, day or night, to help protect your castle.

Plumbing is a task that people often shy away from. After all, few people want to address sewer problems or clogs in their pipes. Fixing problems in these areas can be messy. Frankly, most people just prefer calling in the professionals in order to avoid what they consider distasteful. Your friends in the plumbing business do not mind getting messy. We like what we do and we do it well. We will tackle any job, big or small.

Take a moment and think abstractly. Envision all the intricacies of your home. What you see on the inside is a beautiful structure decorated with all your favorite décor. On the outside, your castle is painted in your favorite color and has a roof made with long-lasting shingles or tiles that protect you from the environmental elements. However, what you don’t see are all the pipes, wires, and other utility fixtures hidden in your walls and under your floors.

These fixtures supply you with all the amenities that you expect and rely upon. These include water coming in from your city’s potable water supply. You probably do not give much thought to that until it is shut-off or stops working. When you can’t get a drink of water or take a shower, suddenly, you appreciate that comfort. What about your drainage system? When you turn on your tap, the excess water disappears down your drain. It travels in a pipe probably located under your foundation to a main sewer stack located at some juncture under your house. This is attached into your city’s main sewer line which is buried in the street outside your home.

Like an efficient machine, all the amenities in your home work very well, until something breaks or clogs. That is when you call Roto-Rooter. At the first sign of a problem, give us a call. If your sink faucet is leaking, we will perform faucet repair in Gainesville and resolve the problem. You can count on our experts who will fix or install your plumbing correctly.

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Finding the right Water Heater Repair Guy

July 16th, 2012 by

The old saying goes something like this, “When Momma’s not happy, ain’t no one happy.” Well, you can also add to that saying, “when there is no hot water, momma ain’t going to be happy and when she’s not happy ain’t no one going to be happy.”

Running out of hot water is no fun. When this happens you will need to know how to find the right plumbing company to do your hot water heater repair in Gainesville. Here are some tips on how to do just that.

  1. First of all, we are Roto-Rooter and we do hot water heater repair. We would be remiss if we did not boast of our own talents. Of course we would like you to call us to come and do this for you. You can skip the rest of the tips if you just call us.
  2. Find out how soon any company can be there. Hot water is crucial to so many functions in our day to day lives. The right Gainesville plumbing company is sometimes simply the company that can be there the soonest.
  3. Do a little research on the internet to find out more about the different plumbing companies in the area. Study their websites and see if they list water heater repair as something that they do.
  4. Look for online reviews to have a sense of what companies may not be good to work with. Of course, you need to remember to take any online review with a grain of salt.
  5. You can ask around at the local hardware house who they would recommend. Talk to the other customers in the store as well. You would be surprised how willing others are to share what they think.
  6. If you are buying a new water heater to have it installed, ask the people who you are buying it from who they would recommend.

There are many ways to determine which company is going to be your best to do your hot water heater repair in Gainesville. Taking the time to determine which company is going to best for you is worth the time and effort.

One of the reasons we would suggest that you consider us to do your hot water heater repair is our years of experience. Roto-Rooter is a well established company in the industry and we have a track record of great service since 1935. We are also in your community and can therefore make it out the same day on most occasions.

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Calling for Plumbing Repair

July 9th, 2012 by

When you have a plumbing problem how do you go about finding a plumber to call to fix it? Do you search the internet for something like, plumbing repair in Gainesville? Do you look in a phone book under plumbing or perhaps search an online phone book? Do you ask a neighbor or family or friends? How do you find that plumber to do the plumbing repair at your home?

The truth is that everyone approaches this very differently. Most of us  put off trying to find a plumber. Some people delay because they don’t have the money for the repair and others delay because they think they can fix it themselves. In the end, it is better to call sooner than later. Consider that schedules are often made up for the day on that day unless you’re calling a true 24/7 plumber like Roto-Rooter. But with ordinary local plumber there are often some calls from the day before that are at the top of the list, but then they fill up the schedule with calls that come in that day. The sooner you call in the more likely you will see them that same day to make the repair.

Second, we all want to know how much things cost and that is one of the first questions that we all ask when we make a call to the plumber. The truth is, this is hard thing to pin down because there are so many variables. You may want to approach this topic by looking for reviews on them, in particular on their pricing. You can also ask around to see if people you know have used different plumbers for the same repair and find out how much each paid.

Lastly, we all are in the same boat in that we have decided to call a professional for plumbing repair in Gainesville. Once they get there, let them do their work. Sometimes we are so worried about the cost of something that we get in our own way of having the plumbing issues in our home solved. Get out of the way and let the professional get the work done. You will be happier with the outcome this way and so will the plumber.

Calling a plumber can be tough for some people, but in the end you will be glad you did and glad that you do not have to worry about that anymore and are protected by a good guarantee.

 

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Plumbing Repair Ideas from Roto-Rooter

April 30th, 2012 by

Homeowners are a different breed of people in this day and age. With more people turning to rentals, townhouses, condos and timeshares for the bulk of their living accommodations, homeowners remain the primary source of household maintenance. When the yard needs taking care of, there’s no landlord or condo service to take care of it for you, it’s all on your shoulders. With so many demands, you have to worry about, wouldn’t it be nice to have someone keep up on your plumbing? Roto-Rooter has been around since 1935 helping customers just like you solve their water issues and stay one step ahead of serious problems from even developing. To know more about plumbing repair in Gainesville, we’ve decided to share a little knowhow with you, our customer, in an effort to help educate people and enable them to handle the little things that come up now and again. After all, it is the out of control issues that arise from small things.

  • Clogged drains. They buildup as you go about your business and then all of a sudden are clogged. When this happens, don’t fret, there are a few little things you need to do to get things back to normalcy. First off, use a screwdriver to pull the crud free that is clogging the drain. In bathroom drains it is always hair, dirt, and soap scum that has clumped together to form a pretty gnarly situation. In kitchen drains, usually small food particles, grease, and soap scum have bunched together and stuck to the drain. After you get out as much as you can, use a little pipe cleaner available from Roto-Rooter to strip away anything else lingering. Do this every month or so and clogged drains will be a thing of the past.
  • Frozen pipes are a bit more serious as they are expensive to fix and can lead to serious flooding in your house. In the winter when the temperatures start to drop, exposed pipes begin to freeze the water inside. While that’s not a common problem in Gainesville, the fact is that our pipes here aren’t insulated as well as those in colder regions so when we do get freezing temperatures, the damage tends to be much more widespread. What most people don’t realize, though, is that the trapped air is what causes problems. As the water expands and presses on the trapped air pockets, the pressure eventually pushes the air hard enough to burst through pipes causing cracks or even shattering it altogether. To prevent that from happening this winter, make sure to beef up the insulation in your walls and also wrap any exposed pipes as best you can.

For more information about plumbing repair in Gainesville, give Roto-Rooter a call today.

 

 

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Find Your Main Water Valves, Prevent Plumbing Problems

March 13th, 2012 by

Have you ever woken up in the morning to the feeling that something is just not right? When you investigate the cause of this feeling of uneasiness, you find that a pipe has broken in your home and water is going everywhere. These events cause great anxiety and, in many cases, the whole day is ruined. However, Roto-Rooter is always on stand-by to help with these types of plumbing problems in Gainesville. We are always ready to help and can be called anytime, day or night.

Plumbing is considered by some to be a task that is very undesirable. After all, some people just cannot bring themselves to dealing with sewer or drain problems or even broken pipes. Many of these types of circumstance require the response of professionals with years of experience in fixing and installing all kinds of plumbing.

Whenever a break occurs in a pressurized water pipe, there will be flooding. That is a fact that cannot be avoided. The amount of flooding will depend on a few factors. How quickly the problem is noticed and how quickly the water is shut-off. Also, whether or not the break occurs in a location where run-off goes into a place where no possible damage can occur, like into the yard or out a floor drain, for example. Because of the seriousness of possible water flooding, homeowners should know exactly where their main water shut-off valve is located. Even the children in the home who are old enough and responsible enough should know where the main valve is and how to turn off the home’s water supply.

If you do not know, call us and we will track it down for you. Our experienced plumbers will evaluate the layout of your plumbing and find the valve. It may be installed in a wall in the basement, in a utility room, or under a stairwell. Often they are hidden in out-of-the-way places to reduce the risk of a child playing with the valve and creating potential plumbing problems in Gainesville.

Another important valve homeowners should be familiar with is their sprinkler system’s stop-and-waste valve. This is a pressure valve attached to the sprinkler system’s main water source. When the valve is opened, water is allowed into the system to pressurize the sprinkler valves. When it is closed, all back-flow from the system is allowed to escape out of a small pressure release in the valve housing so all excess water can drain out, thus preventing freezing problems in the main water line during winter.

For any question or problems with your home’s water valves, call us at Roto-Rooter.

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