Plumbing Tips
This is where plain-spoken plumbing articles for Montgomery and the River Region will live. Each one takes a single question a homeowner around here actually runs into and answers it the way a neighbor who has dealt with old houses would: what is probably going on, what you can check yourself, and what a good plumber should look at before quoting.
What to expect here
The topics follow the houses and the weather of this area. Some posts will be about the age of the plumbing. A neighborhood like Old Cloverdale grew from 10 houses in 1908 to 125 by 1916, and plenty of houses across the city are old enough that cast iron drains and galvanized supply lines are near the end of their useful life. Other posts will cover long, hot summers and what they do to water heaters, the occasional hard freeze and the pipes it finds in crawlspaces, and heavy rain that shows up as a slow drain or a soggy patch in the yard.
There will also be posts on the hiring side: how to read a quote, what a permit covers, and how to check a plumber's license before anyone picks up a wrench. Many people in the area are new to their houses, with Maxwell Air Force Base and Gunter Annex bringing a steady flow of families in and out of Montgomery, so a few articles will be aimed squarely at the first year in an unfamiliar house.
Have a problem right now?
An article is no help with water on the floor. Use the form on this page to describe what is going on, and we connect you with an independent local plumber who can look at it.
New posts, one at a time
Articles are added one at a time, and each one shows up in the RSS feed when it goes live, so you can follow along in any feed reader. Nothing here is filler written to fill a page; if a topic is not useful to someone in a River Region house, it does not get written.
Have a plumbing problem of your own?
Send the form and we put you in touch with a local plumber.