When you have to run the rounds of your home while you’re cleaning, the one room we often try to leave in the end is the bathroom, and that’s simply because we know the kinds of things that go on in there. The truth is that as much as we think we know about (and avoid) our bathrooms, it’s our bathroom plumbing that we should be paying the most attention to.
Have you ever thought that it might be interesting and exciting to sit at a lecture about blood circulation in the human body? Can you see yourself taking the time to understand thermodynamics? Not real. While these may be somewhat extreme examples, your bathroom plumbing is really a very complicated thing. For this reason alone, professional plumbers are invaluable resources for the average homeowner.
Even if you don’t know exactly how everything works, it’s important for you to really understand what goes into getting your bathroom to do what it does. The first thing you need to understand is that your bathroom plumbing is a fairly developed network of pipes and ventilation. Waste water and sewage gases are kept away while clean water is allowed to return to the system. Moreover, gravity also plays a role in how things move in tubes. Have you ever heard the sound of pipes squeaking while someone is using the shower? This is you hearing the plumbing in action.
Perhaps the biggest misconception about plumbing that people have in general is that it’s all the pipes and fittings on those pipes. This, of course, is simply not the case. In the same way that your veins are not involved in moving the blood in your body, bathroom plumbing also consists of fixtures, supply lines, and the ability to control the movement of water via various valves in the installation or to the house as a whole. As a homeowner, you may not actually see your pipes in action, but you’re always on the lookout to see the fixtures in your bathroom. It is important for you to make sure that everything is working fine. As part of a regular routine, take the time to check fixtures, faucets, and supply lines just to make sure they are working the right way. You hate knowing things aren’t right when something really big is going on with your plumbing.
Finally, it’s important to take some time to understand the homeowner’s role when it comes to bathroom plumbing. Oftentimes, we consider what our bathrooms are doing to us until something goes wrong. Even more problematic, we also tend to ignore the warning signs that plumbing gives us. This is perhaps the greatest testament to her complex nature but also her saving grace. When we see the water draining a little slower, we don’t think much of it. When we see it in multiple drains, we wonder what’s going on, but then again, we think that as long as the water is still draining, we’re good to go. You could be ignoring a major problem with the drain part of your bathroom plumbing. Sure, this isn’t exactly a conscious thought, but there’s something to be said for how plumbing can give you a “head up” when things go south.
Bathroom plumbing is something we’d rather not deal with. However, ignoring this complex system can have serious consequences.