Your home’s sewer and drain lines have probably been there since your home was built. With the average age of a home in the greater Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley area currently at 43 years old, it is just a matter of time before your sewer line breaks.

When a sewer line breaks, the leaking sewage is a hotbed of disease, hazardous chemicals, and rat infestation. You must have it repaired immediately, and Schuelke Plumbing, based in Sherman Oaks, in the plumbing company of choice by many homeowners.

The older neighborhoods in Los Angeles and the Valley often have combination sewers which collect both sewage and stormwater. The stormwater can cause the system to overflow, releasing raw sewage into local waterways.

Breaks in sewer lines commonly occur at the connection to the branch lateral at the curb line, or at the transition point from cast iron at the house to clay or cement pipe, located about five feet from your home.

Property owners are responsible for breaks between the house and the curb, including the sidewalk and parking strip located in the right-of-way. Call the

Avoiding plumbing problems before they start is one of the ways you can save money during a recession. Instead of letting your plumbing system go, spend the time to learn how to care for your home or commercial properties so that you can avoid costly repairs.

To keep from clogging up your drains, adhere to these plumbing suggestions:

• pour a pot of boiling water down all drains about once a month
• add about a half a cup of baking soda to boiling water to pour down your garbage disposal
• never pour grease down your kitchen drain
• always use a screen or filter in your bathroom to snag hair before it clogs your sink or shower drain
• never pour paint or chemicals down your drains, or you will risk ruining your pipes

These are just a few suggestions for getting starting with a preventative plumbing maintenance. Schuelke Plumbing is ready to serve you for all of your Los Angeles plumbing repairs.

There are many older sections of Los Angeles, so if you are evaluating your older faucets or shower heads to see what your GPM (gallons per minute) rate is, here is a way to quickly determine it. You may not realize that the Federal Energy Policy Act of 1992 required all faucet and shower fixtures made in the United States to have a flow rate of no more than 2.2 GPM at 60 PSI. If your fixture is more than 2.2 GPM, it is probably time to replace it with a new one that will be code compliant for water efficiency.

Here is how you can quickly determine the flow rate for a specific faucet or shower head in your home:

1) turn the fixture on to its normal position

2) place a container under the fixture and collect the water for about 10 seconds

3) measure the quantity of water in the container and then convert it to gallons

4) multiply the measured quantity of water by 6 to calculate the flow rate in gallons per minute – example – if you have a half gallon of water flowing it would be .5 x 6 = 3 GPM

Call the plumbers

Leaky pipes in your residential or commercial property must be repaired immediately. While you are waiting for the plumbers at Schuelke Plumbing to arrive, there are a few things you can do to reduce the risk of further damage from the water.

If you can hear the sound of the water, follow it to its source. If there is already a water stain, it may mean there is a leak in a section of the pipe. The wall stain is likely to be below the actual location of the leak, so we will probably need to remove part of the wall in order to find it.

Turn off the water immediately, either at the fixture shutoff valve or the main shutoff valve if the leak is a major one. This will keep your home or office from being flooded. Remember that it is always best to call in a professional plumber, rather than attempting to do it yourself and causing additional damage. We are here to serve all of

Whether you live in Glendale, North Hollywood or Beverly Hills, saving money while conserving water may be of importance to you. Tankless water heaters may be the answer for you. Schuelke Plumbing is the company to call for expert advice on installing tankless water heaters in your home, office, or commercial building.

One of the main reasons people consider switching from a traditional water heater to a tankless water heater is because of the risk associated with earthquakes and other catastrophes here in the greater Los Angeles area. A tankless water heater is small, and generally will stay intact, even during a moderately sized earthquake. That way you will have hot water almost immediately, while others will need to wait for days until their water heaters can be repaired.

Tankless water heaters are designed to heat water only as it is needed. Cold water flows into the heater and is instantly heated by copper and brass water ways, which are known as exchangers. This method avoids having to heat forty or fifty gallons of water in a tank for 24 hours a day. You will have access to

Trenchless sewer repair can save your yard and landscaping from being entirely ruined. It also saves your driveway, by not having to dig up every inch of your yard to install a new sewer system. Schuelke Plumbing offers the new trenchless sewer technology to repair your pipes and keep your yard intact.

Whether you have old, broken, or root infested sewer lines, our professional plumbing team can replace your old pipes with new, seamless polythylene pipes, saving you time and money in the process. This trenchless technology is referred to as pipe bursting, and only requires a minimum of digging. We use seamless pipes during this process, eliminating joints that allow root intrusion and exfiltration. Your flow capacity will also be increased, making your entire

When your sewer lines are clogged, this becomes your main focus until your plumbing and sewer repair specialists can be on the scene. In properties that are considered to be older construction, more than about twenty years old, there are three main causes for clogged sewers. These are:

~ excessive mortar left at soil pipe joints

~ root intrusion from trees and plants

~ broken or burst pipes

A broken pipe or pipe that has burst will allow foreign matter to enter the drainage system, leading to clogging. In newer construction, clogged sewers may be the result of poor design or construction. If the wrong fittings were used, or too little slope in the drain run was allowed, the result can be serious clogging.

Schuelke Plumbing will come to your residential or commercial property immediately and let you know what the problem is with

If your Los Angeles area home is in need of a new sewer system, this may be the right time of year to get the work completed. Unlike most of the country, with freezing temperatures and several more months of unpredictable weather, here in the greater Los Angeles area plumbers are able to work outdoors throughout the year.

Schuelke Plumbing will come and take a look at your home or commercial building to see if you are in need of any type of plumbing repair or need more information about trenchless sewer repair. Many times there is a blockage, caused by grease buildup or a foreign object that is restricting the flow of your sewer line. Other times the culprit is corrosion that causes deterioration, resulting in collapses in the line that restrict flow.

Other reasons for your sewer lines to not be operating at their maximum level are leaking joints, root infiltration, or off-grade pipes. Our plumbers here at Schuelke will

Repiping is the process of removing or bypassing your existing pipe system for either fresh water intake or your sewer system. This is something to consider seriously if you have a galvanized pipe system. You most likely have galvanized pipes if your home or office is more than 25 years old. The main difficulty with galvanized pipes is that they rust. This is what you are seeing when you turn on the faucet and rusty water comes out.

Over a period of 20 to 25 years, these galvanized pipes will become so rusty that you will be barely be able to see from one end to the other if you were to look through one. Your plumbing system consists of pressure vs. volume. The pressure is expressed an P.S.I. (pounds per square inch), which is measured by how much pressure the water department is pumping through your area, while volume refers to how much water can flow through your pipes.

When these pipes are plugged it is very similar to having clogged arteries in your body, and very little water can flow through your pipes. When you see rust on your pipes, have rusty water coming out of your faucets, or have any type of erosion or corrosion, there is the potential of leaks or pipe bursts. This is when you need to contact the plumbers at Schuelke Plumbing and find out more about installing copper piping.

Copper pipes have a lifetime of up to one hundred years and

When you have a leaky faucet that needs to be repaired, you want a plumber to come out right away to fix it now. That is exactly what we do here at Schuelke Plumbing.

A dripping faucet is the most common plumbing problem as well as one of the easiest to repair. Then why do so many people ignore it and leave the dripping faucet unrepaired? A steady drip can waste thirty dollars or more in water in a short time. If you have more than one leaky faucet in your home, you can see how much of your money is literally going down the drain. The waste from a dripping hot water faucet is even more because you’re also paying to heat the water before it goes down the drain.

So what’s the solution? A drip is caused by seepage from the water supply. Remember the water supply comes into your home under pressure, so there must be a watertight seal holding back the incoming water when the faucet handle is in the off position. That seal is usually created by a washer, pressed tightly against the faucet seat. Obviously, when the washer or the seat is not functioning properly, a little water can seep through and drip out of the faucet spout. Most of the time you can stop the drip by simply replacind the washer or repair the faucet seat.

The first thing you will want to do when fixing a faucet drip is to turn off the water supply. You should be able to turn off the supply at a nearby shutoff, but if your house is not equipped with shutoff valves for individual fixtures, you’ll have to go to the