“We inherited this home from my husband’s aunt, and obviously that’s wonderful,” Renee said. The Queens homeowner has been in the process of renovating the family home for several years now. Currently concerning her, the household plumbing.
“Every faucet in my house drips. Pretty much constantly, all day, every day. My husband says they’ve probably always been that way, but I feel like this is a problem. Am I right? Do we need the plumber for this?”
Dripping faucets are one of the most common concerns homeowners have. There’s a good reason for this. Dripping faucets waste a lot of water. A leaky faucet that drips at the rate of one drip per second can waste 3,000 gallons of water in a year. Multiply this by the number of faucets in the home, and the scale of the problem becomes clear.
The place you’ll really notice the impact of the dripping faucets is the water bill. If, as in the case with Renee’s home, the issue has been ongoing for many years, you may have grown acclimated to the water bill and so it doesn’t seem exceptionally high to you. However, once the dripping stops, the change to the water bill can be quite noticeable – in a positive way!
What causes faucets to drip?
Most faucet drips have a simple cause: broken washers. Washers are thin disks within the faucet positioned next to the valve seat. When these washers wear out or break, your faucets drip. While a faucet can last a long time – 15 years or more – the washers can wear out well in advance of this.
Do I need a plumber to fix a dripping faucet?
As a licensed plumber in Queens, NY, this is a question I hear a lot. The answer to this question depends a lot on you: if you’ve got the plumbing skills, tools, time and ability to do the job yourself, by all means, have at it. However, for the majority of people who don’t spend their time messing around with pipes and plumbing, it’s quicker and easier to have your local plumber do the job. This is especially the case where multiple faucets in the household all need repair.
