Being handy around the house can be a great way to save money on home repairs, or tinker with your homes look and feel until it’s just perfect. It’s also a great way to use your time off work for productive projects.
However there are some things that should always be left to the professionals, and these include plumbing and electrical work.
We don’t say this because we are master plumbers, or because we want more business for our company. We say this because we’ve seen first hand the damage a foolhardy homeowner can do to themselves and their property when they take on a project that is over their head.
Dangers of Plumber and Electrical Work
The dangers of electrical tinkering might be obvious. Electricity can kill, after all, and you don’t want to go around electrocuting yourself.
Plumbing dangers might not be so obvious. It’s just water, after all, right? Wrong.
Plumbing actually handles many different areas, including (just a few):
- Boilers and hot water heaters.
- Gas lines, valves and connections.
- Septic and sewage tank connections.
Let’s break down some of ways that working with these elements can go wrong:
Boilers/Hot Water Heaters
If it’s not obvious already, boilers are HOT! They are routinely dealing with 200+ degree temperatures or more, and this presents imminent danger to anyone who is fooling around with them. A boiler accident can easily lead to a trip to the burn ward. Think about that before you start tinkering.
Gas Lines
Plumbers don’t just deal in water and sewage, they also have to deal with gas lines. Do you know which pipe in your kitchen is gas, drinking water, or grey water? Want to find out the hard way?
We would not recommend that at all. A gas line is basically like a flamethrower, waiting to happen. You wouldn’t start tinkering with a flamethrower, would you?
Sewage and Septic Tanks
A more classic conception of what plumber do is deal with sewage lines and septic tanks. It’s a dirty job, but someones got to do it, we just wish you wouldn’t try to do it yourself.
Dealing with sewage not only presents health dangers and concerns, but the complexity of the systems is usually under-estimate by intrepid homeowners. They can often end up doing much more damage than already present.
Just think what it would be like to have last months contents of your toilet all over your front yard. That’s what can happen when you start messing with the septic tank. Don’t do it.
Conclusion
We hoped with “slapped some sense” into you, metaphorically of course, if you were considering handling plumbing or electrical problems on your own. If you have any plumber problems, in the New Orleans area, call us first, it will be a good decision.