Some jobs always stick in your memory. My saddest emergency plumbing job was caused by a standard washing machine hook-up. That warm NW weekend, I was the plumber on-call.   I responded to a page from my answering service, and they gave me a California number to call back a homeowner.  Her neighbor had been keeping … Continued

Breathing is the essence of life. The same holds true for your home’s heating and cooling systems. That’s why it makes sense every now and then to share the reason for our most common HVAC service call, and the simple DIY remedy.  It used to be, that when someone asked me which air filter was … Continued

A few years back I was called to repair a heating system. In order to get to the utility room, the homeowner took me down the basement stairs, where we passed a water heater along the way. It was fortunate that I’m also a licensed plumber, because I immediately recognized a safety issue and froze … Continued

When is it a bad time to offer advice about unclogging clogged sinks, and the way to treat them so you won’t have to? Never! Here are a few tips to consider before contacting a plumber to fix the problem should it occur. We all know that regardless of what contractors and architects design or … Continued

One winter, on a Saturday night, it was my turn to cover the phones.  A customer called at about 10:00 p.m. and said “everything was backed up” in his house.  No matter how many times he tried to fix the problem, he couldn’t stop the downstairs shower drain from overflowing, and he needed help. When … Continued