Evaluating A Home - Water Pipes

When evaluating a home you are considering buying, it is easy to get caught up in the visual aspects of the home. Water pipes are just one unseen area you remember to inspect.

Water Pipes – Drip, Drip, Drip

Alright, I’ll admit right away water pipes are not exactly the most glamorous aspect of a home. In fact, water piping in most homes is more than adequate to keep you in hot showers while you live there and take care of all your water needs. If there is a problem with the interior water pipes, however, you are in for a very costly and disruptive experience.

The main issue with water pipes on the interior of a home is their location. It is easy to forget about them because they are primarily hidden behind the walls of the house. While this is good from a visual perspective, it quickly becomes a negative if a pipe starts leaking or, god forbid, actually bursts inside a wall. Leaks lead to rot and mold problems that can effect the health of you family. A burst pipe leads to flooding, new carpets, rebuilt walls and large bills.

When evaluating the water pipes in a home, keep in mind the following issues.

1. Copper – The best piping material for water pipes is copper. It will last forever and is resistant to hard deposit build ups which can impact the amount of water flowing through the pipes. Copper pipes are also the sign of a quality construction effort as they tend to be more expensive than alternatives.

2. PVC – If you see PVC water pipes anywhere other than on the sprinkler system or from the main street line to the house, red flags should wave before your eyes. The presence of PVC piping is an indication of an owner doing the piping themselves, as most construction companies will not use PVC. In a majority of locations, such use of PVC is outright illegal. Do not buy a home with PVC piping in the walls! Ever!

3. Iron Piping – For a long time, iron piping was pretty much the standard in home construction. There is nothing particularly wrong with using such piping with one exception. Iron piping is susceptible to water and will rust over time. If you find this grey, metal piping in the home, find out when it was put in and check for rust. Iron piping should last roughly 30 years without any major problems. If replacements must be made, go with copper.

The pipes moving water around the interior of a home may seem uninteresting. Your attitude, however, will change if one of them bursts in the middle of the night.

Raynor James is with the FSBO site - http://www.fsboamerica.org - FSBO homes for sale by owner. Visit our home buying page - http://www.fsboamerica.org/buyer.cfm - to view and buy homes, houses, condos, land and real estate.

Burst Underground Water Pipes

During cold weather, not only can inside water pipes freeze up and burst, so can underground water pipes. For some projects, this means you either need open cut repair work done or horizontal directional drilling. Or course with either method, or even if you want to try to repair damage yourself, you need to call ahead and have utilities mark the ground before you dig, to avoid cutting utility lines: electricity, cable, phone, and other companies.

Open Cut Repairs

Open cut repair work is the old fashioned way; dig a whole, mess up the yard and landscaping, complete the repairs, fill in the hole and go. For this type work, you would need to call general contractors by seeking referrals from neighbors and friends, looking in the Yellow Pages or other advertising materials you have locally, or check with your local hardware for recommendations.

Gather bids from a couple of different sources to compare. And check their credentials, references and previous work by following up with phone calls before hiring.

Horizontal Directional Drilling

To avoid so much damage to your property and landscaping, you may want to check into horizontal directional drilling (HDD) contractors in your area. With HDD, the repair equipment sits stationary off to the side of your work area, while long, horizontal piping drills head on into the area for repair work, similar to a surgeon using tools to operate. Results are repairs with little to no damage to the outside are surrounding the project.

To see if this horizontal type of drilling would work for your own situation, contractors would check the following information:

• They would need to know the required slope of the project and could work with your local contact to determine this.

   

   

• They would need to know if the area’s geotechnical situation or condition was right for the project and would know how to check this out.

   

   

• They would need to make sure your municipality permitted this type of work, and would know who to contact to find out.

   

   

• They would need to know if this work would interfere with any municipal services or utilities that are already existing and would also know how to find this information out.

 

So before you dive in to repair burst underground water pipes, even if you know how, call all utilities first to get ground marked. And if you do need help, get some!

John Mayer owns FloodCheck USA which can help you prevent water damage should your pipes ever burst. You can see a full line of home protection for burst water pipes

Hose Pipes - Different Uses

The Hose Pipes are one of the widely used items in the Modern days. These are used in all the fields from Agriculture to Aeronautics. The Hose Pipes help in transporting fluids from one place to another and they make the fluids themselves work in a particular way in a range of applications where they are installed. Without the Hose Pipes, it may not have been possible to have different types of Machineries and their use to the Human beings.

The advancements in the manufacturing processes along with the formulation of a range of Plastic, PVC and other Polymer based materials have made it possible for the manufacture of specialized Hose Pipes that can be used in highly specialized Applications.

The Hose Pipes are manufactured in various sizes, shapes, types and out of different Materials. The flexibility of the Hose Pipes makes them ideal connecting material between different parts of Machinery with moving parts. These take a variety material from one part of the machine to another and become a part of the Machinery itself controlling, allowing redirecting and stopping the flow of the materials through them.

The Hose Pipes are usually light in weight, and can be repaired very easily with minimum time, effort and materials. They can be repaired at any place virtually by anybody even by Persons who do not have much experience to do so. The Hose Pipes are manufactured by blending various materials like, Nylon, PVC, Rubber Polymers etc so that it is possible to make them as per specific requirements.

The Hose pipes come in different types depending on the use they are made for. They take a variety of materials from one place to another like Air, Water, Chemicals, Oil and all other types of fluids. Now the Hose Pipes are made for high Pressure uses as well as for the materials that are highly corrosive like Acids and Chemicals.

Some of the different types of Applications include in Automotive field like, Air Brake Hoses, Air Hoses for all types of Pneumatics applications, Automotive Hose Pipes where the Hose Pipes are used in the Automobile Engines and other parts of the Automobiles, Radiator Hoses in the Automobiles which are heat and fire resistant in nature.

We have different types of Hoses for the Chemicals that are corrosive in nature. The Corrosive Metallic flexible Hoses are used for materials that are corrosive in nature. Flexible Hoses, Fuel line Hoses, Garden Hoses, HDPE Hoses and Heater Hoses are some of the other Hoses widely in use.

John Gibb is the owner of hosepipe resources , For more information on hospipes check out http://www.Hose-Pipe-Information.info