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As a homeowner and even a tenant, you may want to do what you can to fix minor plumbing issues around the house without any help. You’d be right to try to do so, especially with the birth of YouTube being able to teach people everything they need to know. However, there are some plumbing issues you can’t fix by yourself. Clogged toilets can be corrected with plungers. Leaky pipes may not be as easy to correct if you don’t know what you’re doing. You can undo the pipe under the sink to get rid of any blockages yourself, but if you’ve never done that before, it can feel overwhelming. 

Calling a professional plumber is always going to be your best bet, whether you are the owner of property or a renter. You need to know when you should be able to call a plumber and know what you can fix on your own and what you can’t. For example, if somebody asked you what Black Key Clamp Fittings are for and you don’t know? You probably need a plumber! Be able to save yourself the headache of dealing with any costly damages or repairs that can be caused by a faulty plumbing system. So let’s take a look at the reasons that you might need a licensed plumber.

1. You can smell sewage. There’s nothing worse than the smell of a backed up or broken drain line. Empty traps, faulty garbage disposals, improper venting, it all can be caused by those issues. If you notice a sewage type smell lingering in your home or even outside your business, a plumber will have the tools and the skills to identify and correct the problem. If you notice you are smelling sewage after it rains, you could be dealing with an issue with your outdoor pipes. No matter what though, calling for help is always going to be the best thing you can do.
2. The drains are clogged. Food, grease, tree roots, foreign objects, and even hair can clog up the drains to a point where they are smelly and backing up. If these are left unchecked, they can become a major problem and it’s common for homeowners to use drain cleaners to be able to dissolve whatever is in the pipes. However, these chemicals don’t always work, and they’re not good for your pipes in the long term. A licensed plumber can use a drain snake and auger or a Jetta and clear out those clogged drains properly. Sewer lines or cameras may be needed to see inside the pipes sometimes, though, and a plumber can then identify a crack or a collapsed pipe, or even a tree root infiltration.
3. You don’t seem to have any hot water. You’ve tried the outside taps yourself, you’ve tried turning off your hot water lines and back on again, and yet they stay cold. A licensed plumber can effectively fix or replace your hot water heater. If you have a boiler, it should have a flame, and if yours doesn’t and you’ve tried to correct that, then you’ve already exhausted. Everything you can do better, to the best of your knowledge. That’s the key. You can only do what you know how to do. The rest of the time you need to call in an expert who knows how to do it better.There is nothing wrong with asking for help.
4. Your toilet keeps running. You’ve flushed the toilet after you’ve used it and you’ve gone to bed, but you can still hear a trickling sound. Toilets that run can easily waste up to 200 gallons of water every day. Not only will this result in a waste of money, but it’s also a waste of a valuable resource. It should be an inexpensive and simple fix, but you might not be able to do it yourself, so call a professional to come and do it for you.
5. The pipes are leaking. Leaky pipes can become very expensive if you don’t get them checked. They increase your utility bills, sure, but they also can cause a huge amount of damage to your floors, ceilings, and other parts of the home. If you are suspecting that there is a leaky pipe going on in or outside of the home, don’t risk the fix yourself. You need to call in someone experienced so that they can identify exactly where the leak is and make the necessary repairs without costing you an arm and a leg.
6. You have frozen pipes. If you live somewhere that the cold really impacts your pipes, then you need to get somebody out to come and fix them for you. If you have little to no water from the faucet, or the visible pipes outside are showing frost, or you’ve been dealing with extremely low temperatures, then frozen pipes are probably the reason. The potential for a pipe to burst once it’s frozen increases massively, which is why it’s so important to make sure that you call somebody to come out and fix it for you. They can then help you with thawing the pipes and assessing and correcting any potential cracks or damages.
7. Your faucets are drip, drip, dripping. No matter how small these faucet drips may be, they can add up to the tune of hundreds of gallons of wasted water. There are so many different reasons why your faucets may be leaky or drippy, but instead of finding the reason, you should ask someone to do it for you because then they can fix it sooner than later. Whether it’s old fixtures or high water pressure, leaky faucets can be repaired or replaced.
8. Your shower has low water pressure. Low water pressure is such a pain when you’re trying to have a nice shower and it’s just a dribble of water rather than a proper shower. Having a plumber come out, they can do a test on the water pressure of your pipes and increase it so that you can have a comfortable shower once more.