How Your Home’s Plumbing System Works in Richmond, VA

Richmond, VA, homeowners can benefit from having basic plumbing knowledge. In this guide, we’ll cover some essentials about how your home’s plumbing system works and common problems you may encounter with it.

Why It’s Important to Understand How Plumbing Systems Work

You need to have basic plumbing knowledge for several reasons. Some of them are so you can:

  • Plan for a new plumbing system
  • Inspect exposed plumbing components
  • Troubleshoot plumbing problems
  • Know where to shut the water off
  • Upgrade your fixtures

Subsystems That Make Up Your Home’s Plumbing

A plumbing system includes a complicated maze of various pipes and other components. The separate systems include:

  • Water
  • Drain/waste/vent
  • Kitchen
  • Bathroom

Water In

If you live in a city, the city delivers water to your home through a municipal water main pipe. It goes through a meter on its way in, which enables the water company to charge you properly.

If you live in a rural area, you have a private deep well and a pump that forces well water into your home. You don’t pay for the groundwater, but you do have to maintain your well pump and your pressure tank.

Pressure always delivers incoming water, no matter the source. That’s because the water must flow upward to the various points of use, navigating corners along the way.

Water Out

If you are a city dweller, your wastewater goes into your home’s sewer-main pipe. It travels to a larger, buried sewer pipe, and the sewage eventually goes to a treatment plant. Rural home waste goes to a septic tank, and a septic contractor must periodically clean it out.

Common Plumbing Problems

Plumbing systems include vents, traps and clean-outs, all pf which need to remain clear. When something cuts off the vent air supply, the waste cannot drain properly. This problem requires a plumber to siphon off the water in the traps.

Traps can clog up. Also, pipes can burst, threatening to flood your home.

Every plumbing system eventually presents a major problem. When you need an expert to fix a plumbing problem in Richmond, VA, call us at Foster Plumbing and Heating, Inc.

Image provided by iStock

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