“Fix-it-yourself” is a popular modern philosophy, and we agree with it—for some parts of a house. Getting out the tools and going to the hardware store for supplies can help you save money with several repairs around your home, and some people even enjoy getting hands-on with solving issues on their own.
When it comes to the plumbing in a home, however, DIY should be off the table except for some basic fixes such as cleaning out aerators in faucet heads. As tempted as you may feel to put on a belt filled with all the wrenches you can carry, residential plumbing jobs such as leak repair, toilet replacement, drain cleaning, and anything to do with water heaters are not for amateurs. Unless you’re a professional plumber yourself, leave your plumbing in Bethesda, MD in the hands of our licensed plumbers.
Below we’ll go over some reasons amateur plumbing is a mistake.
You might damage your house
Do you want to risk expensive damage to your home because you made an error with a plumbing repair or installation? There’s a good possibility that mistakes with a plumbing job can cause water damage or result in breaking a valuable appliance (such as the water heater), and you’ll have to pay to have those repairs done. With professionals, not only is there a far smaller chance of something going wrong, the plumbers have insurance to protect you in case of damages.
You don’t know how to diagnose plumbing problems
A large part of making repairs when there is a plumbing issue is tracking down the source of the problem. This isn’t straightforward—home plumbing systems are complex, and if you guess wrong about what needs to be fixed, you’ll end up making the problem worse. Professionals know how to make an accurate diagnosis so they’ll provide the right repair. Hidden leaks are a good example: without professional training and tools, it’s difficult to even locate where leaks are happening.
You lack the tools for most jobs
No matter how many wrenches you have in your toolkit, you don’t have easy access to the powerful professional tools licensed plumbers use. These tools are prohibitively expensive for amateurs, and they also require specialized training to use. For example, effective drain cleaning requires a hydro-jet, a costly device that can be dangerous in untrained hands.
You can’t do the job as fast
Even if you can manage to do a plumbing job correctly—and there’s only a small chance of that—it will take a great deal of time. You may sink an entire day into doing a job a professional can complete in an hour. That’s not an effective trade-off to save a small amount of money.
You might injure yourself
Ask any professional plumber about the hazards of the job, and they can give you a list of various ways they might be injured. They work in confined spaces, can suffer from eye injuries and hearing loss, and work with water that can be at scalding temperatures. These aren’t risks you should take! Leave those risks to people who know how to avoid them (and have insurance coverage in case something goes wrong.)
Rely on Tuckers Air Conditioning, Heating & Plumbing: We pledge to exceed expectations at every turn.