Usually one of two things will happen:

• Food takes way too long to cook, or
• It burns before it’s done!

If you’ve only experienced cooking on one kind of stove, changing to the other will take some adjustment. Want to try something different? Here’s what you need to know: 

Gas Stoves

• Faster cook time
• Heat can be adjusted quickly – up or down
• Some maintenance may be needed for the pilot light to stay on over the years
• Some risk of gas leak
• Some very small pets may like to get behind them
• If for some reason the electric goes out in your neighborhood, you can still cook!
• Gas tends to be the cooking professional’s favorite for ease of temperature control

On the other hand, with electric stoves

• Some say it’s easier to cook with all the burners because heating adjustments are slower
• Water takes longer to boil
• Don’t require gas service to the kitchen
• Burner pans are easily replaceable, making kitchen spruce-ups a breeze
• New porcelain cook tops are pretty and easy to wipe down

What’s right for you? Only you can answer that! We do gas service installation, so call us at 972-424-6479 when you’re ready to give gas cooking a try. (We think you’ll like it!)

Chime in with your comments, and then share this on your Facebook page.

Photo Credit: © Martinapplegate | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

What should you be thinking about?

Here are some questions to ask your plumbing professional:

• Do I have gas service to where I want to put my new stove?
• Will the water pressure be impeded when I move my fixtures farther away from their original location?
• How long will it take for hot water to reach my sink(s)?
• What do I need to know about my sink to replace it?
• What do I need to know about my counter for it to hold my new sink?
• What do I want in a quality kitchen faucet, so I don’t have constantly brittle parts or leaking?
• Do I need a new garbage disposal?
• How does a point of use water filtration system work with my new sink?
• If I have to move my drain to accommodate my new arrangement, what goes into that?
• What do I do with my old fixtures once new fixtures are installed?
• How long will I be without water or gas service?
• Are there any permits or codes to be aware of? Who is responsible for that?
• Do you carry appropriate insurance and workman’s comp for your employees?
• Do you have current licenses that prove you know what you’re doing, recognized by the State of Texas Plumbing Examiner’s Office?
• When can you start?

This list should have you thinking about some of the nuances that go into a kitchen remodel. Make sure you ask us about trustworthy fixtures and faucets, we’ve seen enough to know!

Do you have any concerns or questions not listed here? Please share them in the comments below, and then push the buttons on the left to share in a tweet or Facebook post! We’ll get back to you right away.

These days, if you want to make sure the $1000 you just spent on a washing machine will guarantee that it will still work next year, you’d better ante-up another $300 just to be sure, right? (Nuts, if you ask me …)

When it comes to installation, many times the company you bought it from will offer to install for free within a limited service area, and they should offer that, but we routinely get called when someone comes home from being gone to water rushing out the front door. Sometimes there’s no bigger reason than improper appliance installation, or worn out, low-grade hoses and fittings used for the install a couple of years ago. 

We want you to know that if you’re outside of the service area for a free installation, or just don’t trust a technician from the store to install your plumbing related appliances, Gary’s Quality Plumbing will take care of that for you – and get it right the first time.

Appliances we’ll install for you include:

• Washers
• Garbage disposals*
• Dishwashers
• Gas stove tops
• Refrigerator lines
• Point-of-use water purifiers*
• Water heaters, gas or electric*

Simple appliance installations don’t take very long, and you might want to include them when you call for another service. That’s the beauty of using a plumber who bills on time and material rather than on a per project basis! You might think a low-dollar plumber paid by the project is offering you a good deal, but we know the customer who pays by the hour gets a much better deal.

Also, ask us about the appliances with a star next to them, we get great rates and pass them on to you. (Even warranties!)

We bring all the necessary hook-up components with us on the truck. Just let us know everything you want done, and Debi or Dorothy will give you a phone estimate of time it may take to complete your projects. Call 972-424-6479 to get scheduled.

Have you signed up for our newsletter? We only send out monthly, but we share a lot of good information with our subscribers so you should sign up, too. (Sign up is right over there, on the right!)

Back to the clogged toilet. Many homeowners and renters use plungers to unclog a toilet when it needs to be cleared, thinking the suction from the pumping action is moving the clog. What’s really happening is the force of the plunge is putting undo pressure on the wax ring that seals the toilet to the base of the floor.

When that happens, the wax ring is damaged from the force of the plunge.

We can tell because when we reset a toilet and remove the old wax ring, it’s full of grooves that don’t belong there. A new ring and re-fastened bolts usually put the toilet back on solid ground where it belongs.

A rocking toilet, even if it’s only slightly rocking, is a potential for bigger problems. When your toilet isn’t sealed, water – even in minute amounts – can be lost between the levels of the floor. You may not notice it at first – in fact, you may not notice it at all – but over time that water can damage quite a bit.

So that’s water wastefulness, potentially unhealthy conditions, and damage to your home. To plunge or not to plunge? Get a 6-foot closet auger from the local home improvement store, and you can avoid damaging your wax rings when you unclog.

Tip: If water is rising, turn off the valve behind the toilet right away first. Then snake the clog and turn the valve back on.

You know, you should share helpful information with your friends and family, shouldn’t you? Those buttons on the left will make it easy! Comments? Let ‘em rip below!

They are, however, calling for a ‘bluer’ planet!

For instance, I learned:

Bath vs. Shower: Which is bluer? A five-minute shower uses 10 to 25 gallons of water. A bath uses around 70 gallons. When given the choice between a bath and a shower, the blue choice is the shower.

Well, that’s just fascinating, isn’t it?

Did you know that if every household in the country replaced their old toilet with a high efficiency toilet that uses only 1.3 gallons of water per flush, 900 billion gallons of water would be saved every year?

We CAN make a difference. Call 972-424-6479 to learn about products you can trust to perform and be installed correctly by any one of our team of professional plumbers. Share this post with your friends, too. We make it easy with the buttons on the left! Comments? Please leave them below.

Recent news reports of pharmaceuticals in our drinking water are very bothersome to most people, too. In one of last month’s posts, Don’t Water Down The Facts, I talk about what happens to our water when we have limited useable resources. There’s plenty of water, no argument there, but how much we can actually use for drinking water depends on many variables, many that are out of our control – but many we can take responsibility for.

We urge you to take care of the resources within your control. I’m not talking about watering lawns, but rather our choices of contaminants we dispose of through our sewer systems. It doesn’t matter if no one sees you, we all drink the same water, and it’s cleaned relatively the same way.

One thing we can do, is make better choices with the plumbing fixtures we decide to buy. Using less water without feeling deprived of it is easy to do with newer WaterSense fixtures. There are other considerations, however, than water conservation when you’re thinking about a purchase. You also need to know if the product will actually perform as you expect. Make sure you have that discussion with one of our experienced licensed plumbers before trusting a salesman at a home improvement warehouse.

The plumbers of Gary’s Quality Plumbing know product lines, reputations, and warranties, but most helpful to you is their knowledge of performance based on years repairing faulty or low-quality fixtures. Give us a call today, 972-424-6479 if you would like to talk to us about better water choices, and of course – make us your first call when it’s time to replace your fixtures!

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71 percent of high income earners believed that they could both afford to live green and purchase an entirely green home.

What do you believe?

According to the November 22, 2010 issue of PM Magazine:

“The health benefits, low utility costs and other factors make green homes ideal for all homeowners,” said Tom Halford, general manager, contract sales and marketing, Whirlpool Corp. “However, it takes a united front of manufacturers, builders and organizations to help builders and consumers understand that building green can be affordable.”

“There’s a need to bridge the perception gap between green-building and affordability, so that builders and families understand that options exist to improve their footprint in the long-term, while saving money and resources in the short-term.”

According to Larry Gluth, senior vice president of U.S. and Canada for Habitat for Humanity International, Habitat affiliates all over America are using sustainable and energy-efficient products in Habitat homes right now, improving affordability for homeowners that partner with Habitat.

Says Larry,

“The challenge is to help people understand that building green doesn’t mean it can’t be affordable, too.”

It’s a good conversation, and we’d like you to chime in. Are you more green than you were in 2010? Have you purchased a partially or entirely green home? Is it as affordable as originally expected? Tell us about it, and then share this post on your Facebook page!

Photo Credit: Kelly Featherston

We see water wastefulness all the time because most of the population is still unconcerned with the value of our water and why we need to be good stewards with our resources. 

The surface of the earth is 70% covered with water, yet only around 2.1 percent of it is freshwater. Out of that, we haven’t taken into account the unavailable water due to the water cycle itself and water polluted beyond its ability to be cleaned up and reused.

If you’re still unconvinced that water matters, consider the human body’s need for it. Your body might survive eight weeks without solid food or only four minutes without air, but you’re only going to get three to five days without water.

Your blood is 83% water and lungs are 90% water. Over 60% of your human body is made up of water. If you’re not going to live three to five days without it, and recognize that the earth has almost three times as many people as 1930 but creating seventeen times as much demand – maybe it’s time to start working together to make a little more sense out of how we use our potable water. Maybe just adding it mindlessly to sewer systems that could be toxic beyond our recognition in hopes that we ‘clean it up enough’ to reuse it does matter after all.

Please contact Gary’s Quality Plumbing at 972-424-6479 to schedule what may seem to be insignificant repairs. It all matters, and you can reduce how much you waste when you start to see where it’s going. We can help.

Have you made any changes to your routine as a result of Fix a Leak Week? Have we done a repair for you that’s resulted in using less water and getting a lower water bill? Tell us about it here or on our Facebook page!

Learn more in these posts:

The Real Cost of Ignored Shower Leaks

Fixing Failing Faucets is Just Good Stewardship

Water Leak Detection: Stop That Plumbing Leak

If your child goes to elementary school with a member of the Gary’s Quality Plumbing family, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade teachers were given these worksheets to send home with their students. They are a great way to use math, science, and conversation skills between parent and child to learn about how easy it can be to waste water. Most of us have no idea just how much water is wasted when we ignore simple leaks. Ten percent of homes have leaks that waste 90 gallons or more per day. 

A showerhead leaking at 10 drips per minute wastes more than 500 gallons per year. That’s enough water to wash 60 loads of dishes in your dishwasher.

People don’t often think about what that means in electrical use, but treating that water to go back into our potable water supply adds to that expense.

If a faucet or showerhead runs unused for even 5 minutes, enough energy is used to power a 60-watt light bulb for 14 hours.

If you didn’t get those worksheets to work through with your kids from school, you can download them here. Stay-cationers may enjoy working on a project like that with the kids, and you may even encourage them to do a better job of turning off the water. You might, however, realize you want a faucet that turns itself off with a sensor! If that’s the case, of course – give us a call, we’re more than happy to share our suggested models with you. (We’ll take care of those leaks correctly, too!) We’re here for you, 972-424-6479.

Related Posts:

Fixing Failing Faucets is Just Good Stewardship

Catch Toilet Leaks The Easy Way

Rip The Drip on Facebook 

If you’re not thinking about the leaks on your property, you’re not doing anyone a favor. Water is a limited commodity, and we need to be good stewards of what we’ve been given in life. Good stewardship is a thought-provoking attitude – a mindful manner of resource management, not a careless, what-do-I-care way to do things. Fixing simple faucet leaks not only preserves the condition of your home, it also saves water. 

If you’re not concerned about lack of water in the future, look at it this way.

When our resources get tight even for a season, legislation happens to manage what appears to be limited in an effort to preserve.

If you’re right, and we’re not running low on resources, we still risk ridiculous prices and laws that change our way of life if we don’t do a better job of personal stewardship for the time being. Water is now more expensive per gallon than gasoline.

Whether you decide to be less wasteful based on less future water for everybody, or you decide to be less wasteful because you don’t want to see even MORE legislation affecting your way of life, the choice is really clear.

Watch this video, as Rip The Drip gives us the right perspective. Wasting water is weird.

Don’t be weird. Enjoy!  BTW, have you ‘Liked’ our page yet? We look forward to connecting with you on Facebook, we made it easy, just click the ‘Like’ button on the right! You can also follow @SilverPlumber and @FixPlumbingLeak  or sign up for our email newsletter right over there on the right. >>>>>>>>

For more reading on faucet leaks, here are  some related posts:

Less Chance of a Plumbing Leak With a Quality Faucet

Water Leak Detection