Category: Plumbing

Hard Water and the Problems It Can Cause Plumbing

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To many homeowners, “hard water,” is a term recently added to their vocabulary. Hard water isn’t anything that’s dangerous to your health, but it is bad for your plumbing. Bustling areas like ours here in the Greater Washington Metro Area are notorious for hard water, but there are plenty of preventative measures you can take to alleviate the stress hard water causes to your plumbing. If you need a great plumber in Rockville, MD, don’t hesitate to contact our amazing team at Mallick Plumbing & Heating.

So, What Is Hard Water Exactly?

Many have heard the term but aren’t exactly sure what it means. “Hard water” us a term used to describe a fresh water supply that has considerable amounts of natural minerals and trace metals. Water becomes “hard” when it hits the ground and absorbs minerals from the earth like calcium and magnesium.

What Does It Do to My Plumbing?

Hard water causes build up on showers, sinks, tubs, and faucets. This leaves an ugly, crusty residue on the exterior of your appliances, as well as inside of your pipes, fixtures, and appliances. This buildup that’s unapparent to the naked eye causes builds up and narrows the opening of your pipe causing plumbing problems like decreased water flow, clogs, and stress on pipes.

Hard water also causes problems with your water heater. The minerals that water picks up before it enters your water tank settle at the bottom of your appliance as the water heats. These minerals cause the tank to corrode over time if it isn’t serviced routinely and decreases the lifespan of your system.

Hard water also affects you. While this water is safe to drink, the effect of it on your skin and hair is a different story. Showering in this water and bathing with this water can cause your skin and hair to become dry or covered with a film. This can exacerbate problems that already stem from having dry skin like eczema and dandruff.

How to Know If You Have Hard Water

Most homeowners realize that they have hard water from the film it leaves behind on their fixtures and dishes. But if you still aren’t sure then you can have your water tested by one of our technicians trained to spot and identify the effects of hard water.

What Can You Do to Prevent Corrosion?

Installing a water treatment system like a water softener removes the unwanted minerals from your heater and protects it from damage. Hard water is a common household issue in this area and our team has installed plenty of water softeners and seen the positive effects it has on a household’s plumbing. A water softener can save your plumbing.

Have Our Team Help Find A Solution

You don’t have to attempt to fix the problem of hard water on your own. Our team understands the frustrations hard water can cause and has wide-ranging experience finding solutions to the problem. At Mallick Plumbing & Heating our goal is customer satisfaction. We’ve served the Rockville and Greater Washington Metro area for years and have the knowledge and experience to service your home too.

If you need your plumbing system serviced, contact us today to schedule an appointment.

Top Emergency Plumbing Needs—and How to Prevent Them

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Emergency plumbing repairs are common among homeowners, but your issues don’t have to advance to the point of an emergency to schedule a repair. Knowing common emergency plumbing problems helps you understand preventative measures to take to avoid an emergency. Even if the problems seem minor, you shouldn’t try to fix these issues yourself because trying to repair a common issue like a clogged toilet or a slow drain can lead to bigger problems later. If you need an emergency plumber in Frederick, MD, our team at Mallick Plumbing and Heating can meet all of your needs.

Common Emergency Plumbing Problems

No Hot Water

You hop in the shower and you’re greeted by an icy cold stream of water. Now you’re wondering what caused it and where you went wrong. A water heater malfunction, electrical issue, or a leak causes a lack of hot water in your system. You can prevent this plumbing emergency from happening by getting annual maintenance to ensure that sediment isn’t building up in your tank, upgrading your water heater’s tank size, and maintaining your system by replacing worn out parts.

Burst Pipes

Here in Maryland, our summers are hot and humid, and our winters are freezing cold. The freezing and thawing process can wear your pipes down and cause exposed pipes to burst. To prevent pipes from bursting, prevent temperatures in your home from dropping below 32 degrees and seal any leaks that allow freezing air into your home where your pipes are located. Take a look around your electrical wiring, dryer vents, and pipes and use insulation to keep temperatures mild. Even the smallest opening can let in enough cold air to cause a pipe to freeze.

Leaks

Leaks from your faucet, toilet, or water heater cause needless waste and increased water bills. You can prevent leaks from happening by checking your water pressure regularly or installing a water softener. Checking your water pressure regularly will help you prevent leaks. You should have this done by a professional during your routine water maintenance and they can take the necessary steps to ensure that your water pressure is in the right range. Installing a water softener can also help ease pressure on your system. Hard water is corrosive and causes a lot of unnecessary wear and tear on your pipes.

Clogs

A clogged toilet or sink is an inconvenience that every homeowner faces at least once. Don’t attempt to unclog your drain yourself and let the underlying problem go untreated. You can prevent clogs by watching what goes down your drain and using sink strainers. Never let “FOG” (fat, oil, or grease) down your drain and be mindful of what you flush down your toilet—“flushable” wipes are common causes of clogs. Additionally, using a sink strainer keeps unwanted particles like food, hair, and other objects out of your drains.

Have Mallick Plumbing & Heating Help

At Mallick Plumbing & Heating we offer reliable plumbing services at a fair price. We’ve built our business on the principles of honesty and integrity and work hard to keep our customers satisfied.

If you need emergency plumbing across the Greater Washington Metro area, contact us to schedule a service today.

Watch for Warnings You Need Bathroom Plumbing Work

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The bathroom has the most plumbing of any room in your house: more pipes than the kitchen, and more taps and fixtures as well. More than 40% of indoor water use goes to the bathroom toilet alone. The plumbing in your bathroom handles an enormous amount of work—and sometimes this leads to it needing repairs.

Cleaning silt out of an aerator in a faucet or getting rid of basic clogs with a plunger are bathroom plumbing fix-it jobs you can tackle on your own. Anything more complicated will take the work of licensed professional plumbers. Below are a few of the warning signs that you have bathroom plumbing in need of some expert work.

Slow Drains

A completely stopped up drain is an obvious problem, although you may be able to clear it out with a plunger or a hand-cranked drain snake. (Don’t use chemical drain cleaners, which can damage the drainpipe.) But if shower and sink drains are draining slowly, and you find yourself standing in a few inches of water in the shower, it’s probably time to have professionals clean out the drains. There may be other problems deeper in the drainage system, so call a plumber to be sure.

Low water pressure

The water from the bathroom faucet is coming out much weaker than you expect. The first thing to check is the aerator, which may be filled up with minerals. If this isn’t the source of the problem, you will need to have a plumber find out exactly what’s wrong. This issue might be hidden leaks, trouble with the water heater, or a clog in one of the freshwater lines. (Yes, freshwater lines can clog up as well, often because of hard water deposits.)

Damp spots around the toilet

If you notice a feeling of dampness from near the toilet’s base, the toilet is leaking because of a deteriorating wax ring around where it connects to the floor. This must be repaired as soon as possible, since the water damage done to the floor will weaken it, leading to significant damage that may result in the toilet going through the floor. (This happens more often than you may think.) In general, any sign of leaking from the toilet is a reason to call a plumber right away.

Drips that won’t stop

The dripping bathroom faucet is a notorious nuisance for keeping people awake at night. It also wastes water. If you’ve got a dripping faucet and tightening up the faucet head isn’t fixing the issue, don’t try to tamper more with it. This may mean high water pressure, broken valves, or poor drainage inside the pipes of water left over after the tap is turned off. Not only is the dripping wasting water and creating an annoyance, but the problems behind it may cause serious damage to the plumbing.

When you need to call professional plumbers in Silver Spring, MD to handle bathroom plumbing concerns—or for new installations and other plumbing services—we’re the contractor you’re looking for.

Get a great plumber out to your house! Mallick Plumbing & Heating is the Service Contractor of Choice in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

Strange Plumbing Fact: World’s Oldest Toilets?

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The toilet is one of the basic parts of any residential or commercial plumbing system. It’s one of those items you know you can’t live without!

Of course, there were centuries when people did live without them—and it was a much less sanitary or comfortable time. The first flushing toilet was invented in 1596 by Sir John Harrington, which included a flush valve and wash-down mechanism—convenient and sanitary. But it wasn’t for almost another 200 years that the flush toilet as we know it was invented, and only in the 19th century did its use become common because of increased city living, where sewer systems made toilets beneficial for hygiene. This was also the period when being a plumber became a professional occupation. You needed skilled individuals to help out whenever something went wrong with a household toilet. Plumbers were important heroes for public health! (And they still are.)

The Tomb of the Ancient Chinese Toilet

But what’s the world’s oldest toilet? Of course, we don’t know for certain, but in the year 2000 archaeologists in Central China discovered what they believe is the oldest known running water toilet. It was found in Central China in the two-thousand-year-old tomb of a Chinese king of the Western Han Dynasty. Much like the Ancient Egyptians, Chinese rulers were often buried with amenities they might need in the afterlife—and this king thought his flushing toilet was an essential appliance even when he was dead! The toilet has a stone seat, armrests, and running water brought in with a pipe. There’s still some controversy about how far backflushing toilet technology goes: there are stone closets in the Palace of Knossos on Crete that may have held toilets—as far back as four thousand years ago!

You’ve got a much better type of toilet for your home, but should it need any plumbing service in Bethesda, MD, call on our sanitation heroes! We offer 24-hour service, ready to come to the rescue of your home plumbing.

Mallick Plumbing & Heating is the Service Contractor of Choice! We serve Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia

Those Too-Common Kitchen Plumbing Problems

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The kitchen contains an enormous amount of plumbing fixtures and they undergo a huge amount of work during the year, and especially during holiday seasons and other times when big meals are being prepared. When a plumbing problem starts in the kitchen, it’s a serious issue that needs to be addressed as soon as possible. And even if the problem seems minor, it will need to have a professional plumber address it.

Below, we’re going to look at the kitchen plumbing issues that happen the most often. The types that we’re used to dealing with. Although there are some simple repairs you can do on your own, we don’t recommend grabbing a set of tools and trying to go DIY on the problem. A professional can get the job done right the first time, and get it done fast.

A leaky faucet

This is one of the kitchen plumbing troubles that you may be able to fix on your own. The faucet head may only need to be tightened or the washer replaced. But if the faucet is leaky around its base, you probably shouldn’t attempt to disconnect the faucet to attempt to figure out what’s wrong. (It’s likely the O-ring that seals the faucet’s base has worn down.) Let a professional do the work.

Low water pressure

You turn on one of the faucets in your kitchen and find that the water pressure is extremely low. There are a couple of reasons this could be happening, and we recommend you check other taps in the house to see if the problem is occurring elsewhere. If it is, it may be a temporary municipal water problem—or it could be a leak in the water main, which is a big emergency that needs professionals right away. If you are only having trouble with the one sink faucet, check the aerator in the faucet. It can become clogged with minerals and cause the water pressure drop. Clean out the aerator and see if this fixes the trouble.

Broken garbage disposal

If a garbage disposal won’t turn on, press the reset button on the bottom of the unit. This is a circuit breaker that trips if the motor of the disposal creates a voltage surge. If the disposal trips the breaker again, call professionals. If the disposal is jammed, don’t put your hand down in it to try to dislodge something. It’s safer to let a plumber look into it. You may need to have a new disposal installed rather than keep fixing an old one.

Drain clogs

You know about these. They’re almost impossible to avoid in a kitchen at some point, no matter how careful you are about keeping food waste and fats, oils, and grease out of the drains. Kitchen sink drain clogs can be obstinate and impossible to remove using a basic plunger or hand-cranked drain snake. (Don’t use store-bought chemical cleaners at all!) Let professionals handle the drain cleaning to keep your kitchen plumbing in great shape.

The Frederick, MD plumbers to call when you need to conquer a kitchen plumbing problems are right here! We handle everything from simple kitchen plumbing repairs to more extensive jobs such as installing new sinks, pipes, and garbage disposals. We’re the local service contractor of choice!

Mallick Plumbing & Heating serves Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia with quality plumbing.

Youtube Videos Won’t Make You into a Plumber

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YouTube has brought some wonderful things into our lives, such as a wide array of opinions on almost any topic. And cute animal videos. Lots and lots of cute animal videos.

One of the downsides of YouTube, however, is that instructional videos have led many homeowners to believe they only have to watch five minutes of a professional performing a task, and presto! they become professionals as well! This can be extremely damaging when it comes to something like plumbing for a house. A YouTube video may help explain how your plumbing works, or show you a basic job like how to replace a washer in a faucet. But for almost anything else, simply watching a video doesn’t mean an amateur can then do the job.

Professional Plumbers—Better Than ANY Instructional Video

It’s not just that watching an instructional video won’t provide you the complete details about how to perform a plumbing job or an understanding of ­why you’re taking a certain action. The more serious issue is that these videos don’t actually give you the right tools to do the job or the knowledge of how best to use these tools.

Professional plumbers are trained on a range of tasks so they can bring numerous skills into a job and troubleshoot anything. They have the finest in high-end tools and know how to properly handle them. Licensed plumbers will see that any plumbing job is done right the first time so the issue doesn’t pop up again later and to stop the potential for water damage.

If you’re looking for a professional plumber in Potomac, MD, call on us—the contractor of choice. We’re here whenever you need us, 24/7, and it’s as fast to call us as it is to go watch a YouTube video. All of our staff are licensed by the WSSC (the Washington Suburban Sanitation Commission) and are members of the Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors Association. They’ll see any job is done right so you won’t incur additional costs later or even significant water damage.

Mallick Plumbing & Heating Is the Service Contractor of Choice in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

If You Have Rusty Water, You Need Plumbing Help

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What happens when you see a rusty brown discoloration in your water? It’s obviously nothing good—fresh water should be clear and colorless. There are a number of possibilities for this happening. One is that a faucet hasn’t been used for a few weeks, and there’s dirty some collected in the pipes. You’ve probably seen this happen when you’ve been away on vacation and your plumbing has been idle. In this case, the discoloration should disappear in less than a minute.

But if the rust color doesn’t go away, or it happens to faucets and taps regularly in use, you may be facing trouble with rusty water. This is often a serious plumbing issue, and in that case, it needs the attention of a professional as soon as possible.

Why You’re Seeing Rust in the Water

Rust in water creates a distinctive appearance, odor, and taste. It’s possible you’re seeing dirt that has entered the water through a break in the mainline, but this is rarer and you’ll probably be able to tell the difference. Rust isn’t harmful to drink, but it indicates major issues elsewhere in the plumbing.

But it might not be your plumbing. Troubles in the municipal water system may be at fault. How can you tell that it’s from your plumbing? Do a test: Fill up a glass with water with cold water from one of your faucets and check if it’s rusty. Run the water for a minute, then fill up another glass and see if the problem is going away. Now fill up a glass with hot water from the same faucet. If you only see the rusty discoloration in the hot water or the rusty coloration is in the cold water and isn’t going away, then the problem is definitely in your plumbing, and you should call on a professional plumber right away. Otherwise, call the water company to report the issue—part of the municipal pipe system is rusting.

  • If only the hot water is rusty… you probably have a rusting water heater. This is bad news for a water heater and probably means that it must be replaced. Once corrosion sets in on the interior of the tank, there’s usually nothing that can be done to fix the problem that isn’t more expensive than getting a new water heater altogether. You don’t want a water heater that’s going to start springing leaks or suddenly fail. Call a plumber to get a replacement in right away.
  • If the rusty coloration isn’t going away… the issue is likely corrosion in the pipes. This is something that can happen to homes with older galvanized steel or iron pipes. These pipes are prone to rusting over time, unlike corrosion-resistant copper and plastic. A plumber can identify where you need new pipes, or if you need full repiping for your house.

For the service for your plumbing in Rockville, MD to fix problems that create rusty water, get in touch with us. Our licensed and trained plumbers are available 24 hours a day to take care of emergency services.

Mallick Plumbing & Heating is the Contractor of Choice in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

It’s Not a Ghost, It’s … Water Hammer

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To have us reassure you that those thumping noises you hear in the walls don’t mean you live in a haunted house, they just mean you have water hammer, might not actually feel assuring. Water hammer sounds sinister. Possibly dangerous. What is it?

First, it’s not dangerous—at least, not to you or your family. It can be a problem for the plumbing, however, and if it happens frequently, it’s an issue you’ll need a professional plumber in Potomac, MD to fix.

How water hammer happens

The thump noise you hear that either surprises or annoys you is the abrupt stop of water flow in the pipes and an equally abrupt change of direction. This can occur when a tap somewhere, such as a faucet or in a water-using appliance, cuts off the water flow. If the pipes don’t have air chambers to cushion the water when the demand cuts off, the water force will create that distinct sound.

If you only hear water hammer now and then, you probably don’t have a serious issue. Water pressure can sometimes spike in residential plumbing because of an issue with the municipal water supply. If water hammer is a routine occurrence, however, it poses a threat to the pipes. High pressure inside pipes can cause damage to them, even resulting in burst pipes.

Call a professional plumber to fix the problem

There are different ways to approach habitual water hammer, and it requires a skilled and licensed plumber to find out which one is right for your situation. Air chambers may leak and lose their air, so a plumber must seal and restore them. The plumbing could require a water pressure regulator; this is a common fix to any issue plumbing has with high pressure. Another option is to use mechanical water arrestors.

You can trust our plumber to fix whatever plumbing problem you have!

Mallick Plumbing & Heating is the service contractor of choice in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Water Stain on the Ceiling? It May Be an Emergency

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It’s not something you want to see on the ceiling: a circular stain of discoloration marring the pleasing décor of a room. But when you notice a ceiling stain, the solution isn’t to get a can of paint and brush over it to disguise it. A ceiling stain is often an indication of a more serious problem that will require calling on a professional plumber to repair it.

What Might Cause a Ceiling Stain?

The likely cause is a leaking pipe. It doesn’t take much water to create damage to the drywall of most ceilings. Even a small buildup will rapidly begin to eat through the drywall, as well as create mold and mildew that cause further damage. If the stain is located beneath an upstairs bathroom, then leaking pipes are almost certainly the source. The bathroom has more plumbing pipes concentrated in it than any other room in the house (this includes the kitchen) so even a small leak in this spot can mean a lot of water.

It can also mean a lot of trouble: the leak might have been going on for a while before you noticed it. The water damage weakens flooring material with wood rot, and this can lead to parts of the ceiling starting to fall in. The worst case scenario—and yes, this does happen—is for the toilet to crash through the floor. You don’t want to hesitate when it comes to finding out if you’ve got a plumbing leak.

There are other possibilities. The problem may be a leaking roof that’s allowing water down into building materials. The leak might be coming from the bathroom, but not from a leaky pipe: deteriorating caulking around sinks and showers can allow water to seep through the floors.

What Needs to Be Done

First, don’t worry about the stain itself—it’s not the current priority. It will get taken care of later. Worry that you may have leaking plumbing. If you live in an older house (built pre-1970), this could be a major warning that your old pipes are starting to decay. Galvanized steel pipes are prone to corrosion, and if you still have these types of pipes in your home, you may need more extensive repiping than fixing that single leak. Call a plumber no matter what so you’ll have the problem correctly identified and fixed.

And please, don’t try to cut through part of your ceiling to reach the pipe and attempt a DIY fix. You might end up causing even more water damage—possibly to other parts of your house. A licensed plumber will have the job done right and done fast, with no mess. Then you can worry about taking care of the unsightly stain. That’s usually the easiest part.

If you need an emergency plumber in Rockville, MD—you’ve found one! Let us take care of the plumbing work you need to be done right away, including bathroom plumbing and leak detection.

Mallick Plumbing & Heating is the Service Contractor of Choice for Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.