Kitchen Plumbing: A Comprehensive Maintenance Guide

Water pipes are the veins of your household and kitchen is its beating heart. Every technical aspect in the area in which you prepare food has to be in a top-notch condition, and if the pipes fall into disrepair after months of neglect, it creates a domino effect that can impact your entire household and your savings. Therefore, you should get into the habit of keeping an eye out for potential kitchen plumbing issues, and here is a small maintenance guide that can help you out.

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Where to look for plumbing issues?

The sink is the most important area in your kitchen. This is where most of the action takes place and this is where plumbing issues usually begin to emerge. Some of these issues may be isolated to the faucet and they are frequently quite small and easy to manage.

The most glaring plumbing problems can be observed below the faucet and at the wall behind it – if you start seeing blotches on the wall that appear to get bigger, you might have a serious problem on your hands and you should call the plumbers as soon as you possibly can. Smell is your biggest enemy here, since we associate kitchen with hygiene and food, the unidentified bad smell is a true nightmare and a red flag.

What can you do?

With a wrench in your hand, you can take a look under your sink and tighten the nut or two. The same goes for the annoyingly leaky faucet. A lot of such superficial problems are caused by the sedimentation of lime.

Most of our tap water is filled with dissolvable minerals, and when it flows through the faucet and into the sink, it leaves the micro-sediment when it evaporates. This sediment can build over time and create lime – which looks quite unappealing and needs to be treated with appropriate chemicals before it causes a plumbing malfunction.

Routine plumbing maintenance is crucial, and knowing how to tackle the superficial wear and tear can stave off more serious repairs for quite a while.

What if the kitchen plumbing problem gets bigger?

Every once in a while, you are bound to face some of the emerging issues (those stubborn, nasty blockages are the first thing that springs to mind) you simply won’t be able to tackle by yourself, so you’ll need to give properly equipped, experienced professionals a call. For instance, experts for blocked drains  not only use quality tools, but also offer 24/7 priority service, lifetime labour guarantee and upfront pricing.

But what if the water flow is bad and you caught a whiff of bad odor that reminds you of sewage, yet there is no visual anchor that can help you with determining the source of the issue? You will almost certainly have to break down the portion of a wall to replace the pipes, which means you will be facing extra billing when renovation gets its turn.

Can I save money on kitchen plumbing remodel?

If you are facing a worst-case scenario and simply cannot solve the problem yourself, you always focus on functional repairs – which means only the specific parts of the piping which created the problem. This can shave off 50% of the overhaul price easily. As far as renovation goes, you can always do the finishing touches yourself – such as painting or slapping on a new wallpaper.

Try to keep this renovation project restricted to the kitchen – breaking through the walls to the other side is the last resort. Also, keep the rest of your house isolated – you can create a “route” for repairmen and lay down plastic sheets from the household entrance to the kitchen. The key thing is to keep the dirt and the damaging moisture in the kitchen.

If the water flow seems iffy and some blotches appear on the wall, do not brush this problem off as something that might just go away. The potential severity of plumbing issues can rarely be guessed by mere superficial observation, so learn that acting fast is the best solution (if prevention is out of the window already). Remember that vigilance is of paramount importance when it comes to properly maintaining kitchen plumbing.

READ MORE: WHAT YOU SHOULD DO IF YOUR KITCHEN FLOODS

Written by Lillian Connors. November 20, 2017

Lillian Connors can’t resist the urge to embark on a myriad of home improvement projects and spread the word about them. She cherishes the notion that sustainable housing and gardening will not only make us far less dependent on others regarding the dwellings we inhabit, but also contribute to our planet being a better place to live on.