Leaks in underground plumbing can be caused by many different factors, including rusting through from age or from stray electric currents from other underground utilities that can prematurely rust metallic piping, driving over piping with heavy trucks or equipment, poor initial installation, freezing and thawing of a pipeline, leaking joints or valves, or high pressure transients from open and closing valves or starting and stopping pumps quickly.  Some of the signs of underground plumbing leaks are wet spots or pooled water on the ground in landscaped areas; an area that is green, moldy, soft, or mossy surrounded by a drier area; a notable drop in water pressure (this is a sign of trouble no matter what); rusty tap water or air in thee water supply; a portion of an irrigated area suddenly dying because the water pressure is too low to read the area; cracking in paved areas; sink holes in your yard; a structure suddenly leaning; or a sudden unexplained increase in water use.

If any of these conditions appear at your home, you may have a leak.  You should definitely hire a professional leak detector to deal with this unless you yourself happen to be a plumber.  A professional will have the tools and know how to detect the leak without messing up your plumbing.  Once the leak has been found any plumber in atlanta can deal with the underground plumbing leaks you have.

What the leak detector will do, so you know, is try to isolate the leak by disconnecting the meter.  The leak is most likely in the service line.  They will cap the service line just beyond the meter.  Then thhey will disconnect the service line from the house and attach a pressure guage with a schrader valve and air test the line.  At this time the service line is isolated and they will be able to find the leak.  Once the underground plumbing leaks or leak have been identified a plumber will be able to come in and replace the service line with new pvc pipe.

There is hope though.  There are a few ways that you can keep your water heating expenses down.  The most obvious is to use less hot water (again with the long showers in the morning).  Another is to turn down the thermostat on your water heater. A lot of water heaters come from the factory with a high temperature setting but 115 degrees fahrenheit is warm enough. You could also increase the efficiancy of your water heater by buying a new water heater.  If you invest a little money now it could pay off big in the long run.  Finally, if you can’t afford a newer model put some insulation around the one you have.  When doing this however, make sure you don’t cover the floor, top, thermostat, or burner compartment of the water heater.  If you aren’t sure what you’re doing get the help of someone who knows what they’re doing like a plumber in Atlanta.

A family of four uses over 700 gallons of water a week if each of them only shower for five minutes a day.  I know I don’t shower for just five minutes a day.  In comparison, 700 gallons is roughly a three year supply of drinking water for just one person.  You can cut the amount of water used in half by installing low pressure flow faucets and showerheads.

Other things you can do to improve your utility bills is to repair leaky faucets as soon as you notice them.  You’d be surprised at how much water can leak out of a fucet in just one night.  You can also regularly drain about a quart of water from your water heater.  This will remove sediments that build up and make your water heater less efficient.  This is another one of those things that you may want to consult a plumber in atlanta about.  Also, if you live in the climate for it, such as Atlanta, you could install a solar heating panel on your roof to heat your water.  It’s environmentally friendly and these days the solar panels are designed to blend in with your roof when installed.

One final tip is to take more showers than baths.  Bathing uses more hot water than taking a shower.  A bath will use 25 – 30 gallons of water while a five minute shower uses about 10 gallons.  I don’t know about you but I’d always heard the opposite but I guess you learn something new all the time.

The first thing is to know your material.  Make sure the material you are using is up to the standards of the codes of your locality and your mortgage.  An important material to know is piping material.  It comes in several varieties including: rigid copper, flexible copper, rigid plastic PVC, acrylonitile butadiene styrene (ABS), Crosslink Polyethylene (PEX) and galvanized steel.  Rigid copper is used for main water lines.  Not everyone has a soldering iron so this may be beyond the scope of your abilities.  However, if you do have one, one good trick is: if there is a drip from water already in the line you need to solder, use a slice of bread, crust removed, rolled into a tight ball.  Plug the drain with the bread.  It’s that simple.  When you run the water through again the bread will be washed through the drain system.

In order to repair a leak in a copper pipe, first let the water drain down.  Then, using a tubing cutter, cut the pipe at the leak.  You can use a union or coupling to repair the pipe.  A union is a lenght of copper pipe that has the same interior diamter as the exterior diameter of the pipe you are repairing.  It has a ridge inside that keeps the pipe from slipping completely through.

Today, there are many types of quick connect fasteners that make DIY plumbing easy.  You won’t have to use torches or soldering irons to do quick leak repairs which will save you lots of time and money.  They work well with almost any type of pipe.  There are several different types of these connectors avaialble.  Some can even themselves be repaired.

Learning some basic techniques about plumbing can save you from having to find a plumber in Atlanta.  This can save you time and money.  And it can add a small measure of sanity to your life, espeically if you can finish a plumbing fix on a saturday afternoon rather than go without water until Tuesday night waiting for an expert to show up.