Fall has arrived in Los Angeles, and your plumbing system needs to be part of your plan to keep your home or office running smoothly. This includes service to your water heater.

Your water heater must work harder during the colder months. It should be flushed out to remove sediment buildup, which can cause corrosion, shorten its life span, and reduce heating efficiency. Call us here at Schuelke Plumbing to service your water heater today. We are conveniently located in Sherman Oaks, and serve all of Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley, and Santa Clarita.

We will drain several gallons of water from the faucet and connect a hose to direct this water into a nearby drain. Our plumbers will then test the water heater’s pressure relief valve by

Clogged drains must be repaired. It may seem like your kitchen and bathroom drains get clogged on a regular basis. The plumbers at Schuelke Plumbing offer a complete variety of services and will repair your clogged drains at your home or office, but recommend some green ways to keep your drains open, without using powerful industrial chemicals that can be harmful to the environment. These products may contain lye or acid, and can be dangerous to the wastewater system, your PVC pipes, as well as your health.

You may want to use a more natural approach to keep your drains from getting clogged. Some health food stores carry bacteria based enzyme cleaners. Pouring a cup of baking soda down your drain, followed by about 3 cups of boiling water may also work, as long as water has not yet backed up in your drain. The chemical composition of the baking soda is changed by the boiling water, making it more alkaline.

If these methods do not work, you will need to

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

Valley Village is an older section 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 at Schuelke Plumbing if you have any questions or need assistance with this in your home or office, whether you are

Many people are tempted to take on the job of installing a toilet when their old one needs to be replaced. Here are 7 reasons why you may want to call Schuelke Plumbing to do it for you:

1. You will want to make sure you are not violating or ignoring any local code restrictions
2. You must make sure to properly align tubing into fittings or stop valves – forcing the nut onto the compression ring at an incorrect angle will cause a leak
3. An air gap filling must be installed for fixtures
4. The pipes used must be the correct size
5. A brass or dielectric fitting must be attached to connect copper to galvanized pipes
6. Threaded joints need PTFE tape or pipe compund
7. You must run the outside hose valve and flush all toilets after installation to bleed the dirt and air from the lines when you turn the water back on – otherwise, the debris will cause problems in your sink faucets and other plumbing fixtures

Call Schuelke Plumbing and we will do a complete and thorough inspection of your home or commercial building’s plumbing system while we are installing your toilet. The Woodland Hills plumbers also serve the entire San Fernando Valley and greater Los Angeles area.

Tankless water heaters are energy efficient because they only heat water as it is needed. You are probably using a traditional storage water heater that keeps forty or fifty gallons of water heated on a regular basis. If you would not leave your home’s heating system running while you are away all day at work or out of town on a vacation, why would you continue to heat a large amount of water that is simply standing idly by when you are not there to use it?

The way that a tankless water heater works is that the water is heated directly. When you turn on the hot water tap in your kitchen or bathroom, the cold water travels through a pipe into the tankless unit. If your unit is gas fired, a gas burner heats the water. If it is electric, an electric element heats the water. 

The result is that you have a constant supply of hot water delivered

If your residence or commercial building needs sewer repairs, the plumbers at Schuelke Plumbing are ready to help. Using state-of-the-art technology and video inspections, they can pinpoint your sewer problems quickly and efficiently.

Trenchless technology, available in most cases, allows our plumbers to make repairs from just two small access points. This means faster repairs and minimal disruption to your landscaping, yard, or driveway. For many years, getting to sewer lines to replace and repair meant large scale excavation. This was both a costly and a lengthy process, leaving you with a yard and driveway to repair once the sewer was repaired.

Advances in technology now allow for trenchless sewer line repair, and Schuelke Plumbing has been a leader in the industry in this area. There are two different options for trenchless sewer repair. One is pipe relining and the other is pipe bursting. Pipe bursting involves bursting the old pipe apart as a new pipe is pulled through. You are left with

It may seem like your kitchen and bathroom drains get clogged on a regular basis. Sherman Oaks plumbers at Schuelke Plumbing offer a complete variety of services and will repair your clogged drains at your home or office, but recommend some green ways to keep your drains open, without using powerful industrial chemicals that can be harmful to the environment. These products may contain lye or acid, and can be dangerous to the wastewater system, your PVC pipes, as well as your health.

You may want to use a more natural approach to keep your drains from getting clogged. Some health food stores carry bacteria based enzyme cleaners. Pouring a cup of baking soda down your drain, followed by about 3 cups of boiling water may also work, as long as water has not yet backed up in your drain. The chemical composition of the baking soda is changed by the boiling water, making it more alkaline.

If these methods do not work, you will need to call

There is much more to plumbing than just following the codes and rules that are required. Before you start building you next home or commercial building, give some thought to the plumbing system you will want to have installed.

You want plumbing that is efficient, professionally installed, and state-of-the-art. Our plumbers here at Schuelke Plumbing will spend time with you to design a plumbing system that meets all of your needs and requirements. Our skill and strong work ethic will help determine your satisfaction when you are ready to install a complete plumbing system, or have the need for our services when you remodel your residence, office, industrial, or commercial property.

At Schuelke Plumbing we use the