Daily Steps To Protect Your Plumbing
Taking daily steps to prevent drain clogs is so important. In the kitchen, this means not pouring grease, fats, or oils (including cooking oil and butter) down the drain. These products will eventually coagulate inside of the drains, and if the clog is in the drain outside of the home, then the repair can really get expensive.
Proper use of the garbage disposal is also important for preventing clogs. When using your garbage disposal, you should turn the water on before running the disposal and leave the water running for a good 15 seconds afterward to help rinse the debris through to the main line. You should also avoid putting certain foods in the disposal, including fibrous foods like banana peels and celery, as well as foods that are difficult to process, like potato peels and cucumber peels.
In the bathroom, you should reduce your use of bath oils and avoid using chemical clog removal products. You should also avoid flushing anything other than human waste and toilet paper down the toilet. Things like tampons, diapers, and other garbage items will quickly cause a clog if you try to flush them.
Green Apple Mechanical are the experts you can trust. We have been serving the NJ area for years with professionalism and expertise. Customer service and care are always our number one priority. If you have any questions or concerns regarding any of your HVAC or plumbing needs call us toll-free at 888-611-7191
Why Professional Maintenance Is Key
Get a Professional Inspection and Cleaning Done Annually
As the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If you’ve ever had your central air conditioner quit working on the hottest day of the year, you fully understand that preventative A/C maintenance is definitely preferable to repairing or replacing it due to neglect.
Green Apple Mechanical NJ are the experts you can trust. We have been serving the NJ area for years with professionalism and expertise. Customer service and care are always our number one priority. If you have any questions or concerns regarding any of your HVAC or plumbing concerns call toll-free at 888-611-7191
How Summer Travel Plans Can Effect Your Plumbing
Make sure your travel plans include time for plumbing prep.
If you have summer travel planned, make sure your home is ready for it—especially if you’re going to be away for weeks or months at a time.
- Arrange to have a trusted friend or neighbor check in on your house and make sure everything is ok. Even an absence of a couple of days could lead to a big and costly mess if a leak goes undetected.
- Check your water-using appliances for loose or cracked hoses, leaks or other malfunctions.
- Turn your water heater down to its low, pilot or vacation setting. No need to waste energy heating water that won’t be used!
- If you’ll be away for an extended amount of time, consider turning off your water main and hot water heater and draining your pipes and tank.
- Empty the dishwasher and washing machine, and leave them open to air. While you’re at it, make sure your garbage disposal and plumbing traps are clean. That way, you won’t be coming home to musty, unpleasant odors.
- Make sure all indoor and outdoor taps are completely off.
- If your irrigation system is on a schedule, make sure it will run as desired while you’re away.
- Green Apple Mechanical NJ are the experts you can trust. We have been serving the NJ area for years with professionalism and expertise. Customer service and care are always our number one priority. If you have any questions or concerns call us toll-free at 888-611-7191
Two Things Never To Ignore With Your HVAC System
Never Cleaning Fins and Coils
Ignoring Your Air Filter
What Plumbing Concerns To Look For This Summer
1. Always Inspect for Leaks
Summer is the best time to check for leaks, since a long winter can have an impact on plumbing that we can’t even see, and you want a chance during warm weather to take care of any issues before it gets cold again.
Individually inspect each of the elements that use water inside and outside of your house: Faucets, pipes under the sink, shower heads, bathtub spigots, drinking water line, water softener, hot water heater, outdoor spigots, sprinklers, pool and more to see if they are in good working order. Look for rust, corrosion, leaks, broken or bent parts or other signs of trouble. Grab a bright flashlight to see underneath cabinets and in dark corners. It also helps to have a towel to wipe your hands and a few tissues to help you detect moisture.
For the toilet: Put food coloring in the tank to see if it leaks to the bowl without you flushing the toilet. Check the tank floater and the valve it’s attached to. The rubber float and its arm-like hardware wears out over time, and more quickly in hard water situations. The floater valve must be seated correctly, or it allows water to leak out and your toilet to run — It probably makes noise while it does so.
Green Apple are the experts you can trust. We have been serving the NJ area for years with professionalism and expertise. Customer service and care are always our number one priority. If you have any questions or concerns regarding any of your HVAC or plumbing needs call toll-free at 888-611-7191
Just Two Of The Many Perks Of Central AC
Location
Being located outside means your air conditioning system does not block your views or affect the aesthetic appeal of your home. Conventional window unit air conditioners make it impossible to see out of the portion of the windows they use and they look uninviting from the exterior of your home. Because it does not take up any space indoors, your home looks chicer and more modern.
Easily Controlled
You have two options when it comes to controlling central air. The first is one operating unit that controls the air in every room of your home. The control is located in one place in your home. By turning the air on, off, up or down, you only have to use one unit that can be programmed to run at specific times and temperatures. If you choose to have individual controls in each room, you will have to go to each room to adjust them. However, most homeowners with this option only use the air in the main portion of their home, such as the living space and used bedrooms. This eliminates the need to cool frequently unused rooms, which also saves on your energy bills.
Green Apple Mechanical NJ are the experts you can trust. We have been serving the NJ area for years with professionalism and expertise. Customer service and care are always our number one priority. If you have any questions or concerns regarding any of your HVAC or plumbing needs call us toll-free at 888-611-7191
Why Central Air Is Always The Better Choice
If you currently use a window AC unit or a portable air conditioner to cool the rooms of your home, you’re missing out on an opportunity for both comfort and efficiency. Central air conditioning systems are designed to operate with an efficiency that window units simply aren’t designed for.
Window units are never quite the right size for the room they’re in. That alone can hinder efficiency by quite a bit, but they also are not held to the same efficiency standards as central air conditioners. They don’t have the higher efficiency ratings of central air conditioning systems today because they simply do not have to, and running these units in several rooms of your house is sure to run up the bills.
You must ensure that your new air conditioner is the right size for your home if you want it to cool the space efficiently. That means that it shouldn’t be too small, as it won’t be powerful enough to cool the space and may run constantly in an attempt to do so.
But it also shouldn’t be too large. An air conditioner that is too large may short cycle, starting and stopping repeatedly, which wears down the components and also hinders efficiency. A Green Apple Mechanical technician can make sure you get the right sized unit for your home.
We are the experts you can trust. We have been serving the NJ area for years with professionalism and expertise. Customer service and care are always our number one priority. If you have any questions or concerns regarding any of your HVAC or plumbing needs call us toll-free at 888-611-7191
Summer Specific Plumbing Problems
1. Toilet maintenance
If you have a large family, the summertime brings a lot more use out of your home’s toilets when kids aren’t in school. Since your fixtures get more flushes, they are more common to maintenance issues.
The best way to address this issue is by teaching everyone in the house to limit toilet paper use and explain that certain things cannot be flushed. Simply being more aware of the fixture during the summer can help you prevent problems down the line, but always be ready to call for a Green Apple Mechanical professional help if problems continue.
2. Disposal problems
Another common issue with your house’s plumbing in the summer is the garbage disposal. With cookout weather and kids eating breakfast and lunch more at home, the garbage disposal can get extra usage.
The best way you can avoid this problem is to limit the use of your garbage disposal and never try to push down any heavier items such as hard fruits, fibrous vegetables, corn cobs or starchy foods that can soak up water in drains and clog pipes. If you have a BBQ or cookout, try to get guests to avoid your garbage disposal altogether, since it can be overworked if too many people use it.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding any of your HVAC or plumbing needs please feel free to call toll-free at 888-611-7191
The Best Ways To Get The Most From Your Central Air
- Wash your outdoor unit with high-pressure hose water working from the top down. It’s like cleaning out the lint trap on your dryer. If the air conditioning unit is clogged it can’t work properly.
Make sure none of your vents are blocked. Not blocked by a couch, dresser, china cabinet.
If you don’t use your basement or it’s getting too cold, close your basement vents. Since cold air drops, basements always get cold. Closing the vents will force cold air to other areas of the house where the cool is needed more.
In the spring or fall when you don’t need air conditioning but still want to cool the house a little, turn your furnace fan on. This will circulate the air throughout the house making it feel cooler.
If one vent is blowing really strongly it’s taking power away from vents elsewhere. Close the offending vent a little to allow airflow elsewhere. In older houses, this can be done with the dampers in the basement.
Don’t ever turn your air conditioner off in the summer. Once it’s cool enough outside, turn the temperature that your air is supposed to come on up a few degrees and open your windows. When your air comes on you know it’s time to close your windows again. If you let your house overheat in the summer getting full of hot air and humidity before you turn the air on, it’s harder on the air conditioner, more expensive and takes much longer to cool the house down.
Green Apple are the experts you can trust. We have been serving the NJ area for years with professionalism and expertise. Customer service and care are always our number one priority. If you have any questions or concerns regarding any of your HVAC or plumbing needs call Green Apple toll-free at 888-611-7191
Summertime Washing Machine Concerns
1. Washing Machine Breakdowns
During the summer, time spent outdoors tends to be spent on active pursuits like picnics, family days at the park, or other great adventures. While nothing’s more fun than a summer soccer game, it can leave your whole family throwing load after a load of laundry into the washer every time you turn around. After a while, this increased usage won’t just show up on your water bill — it may also show up as problems with your washing machine.
Be sure to stay around the house while doing laundry, so you can catch any problems fast and shut the machine off before they get worse (be sure to call a professional Green Apple Mechanical NJ repair technician with any needed repairs or concerns). Some older models may simply need a “break”, so washing your laundry one load at a time instead of doing several loads at once can also help. Finally, move your washing machine out from the wall a little, as this will help keep the water hose from kinking.
Green Apple Mechanical are the experts you can trust. We have been serving the NJ area for years with professionalism and expertise. Customer service and care are always our number one priority. If you have any questions or concerns regarding any of your HVAC or plumbing concerns call toll-free at 888-611-7191