May 28, 2024
Plumber John’s Tips for a Healthier Home in 2024
Sam: Welcome to Mile High Living. I’m Sam Boik, thanks for joining us today. Summer is always full of exciting events like graduations and gatherings with the family. It can also bring some heavy summer storms and with house guests piling in, it’s important to make sure your home is both safe and in full working order. So make sure to call the company that has been helping homeowners in the Denver and Boulder area for over 50 years. Joining me is John Murphy, Master Plumber and Service Manager for Applewood Plumbing, Heating and Electric. Welcome back to the show.
John: Hi, Sam. Thank you.
Sam: Good to have you. And I’m new to all of this home ownership stuff. So sump pumps. Let’s talk about these for a moment. What are they and what do they do? How do they work?
John: Sump pumps are designed to take the groundwater that accumulates around your foundation and pump it away from the foundation. Essentially is what that’s for. So, the system is designed to take all the water that can collect around your foundation and hydrostatic pressure, I won’t get into that, but it can cause a lot of damage. And so that’s what it does is prevent that hydrostatic pressure from damaging your foundation, brings it into a central location. From there, it’s pumped out away from the house.
Sam: And that’s why you guys are the experts. You know all of the ins and outs about this. I don’t have to worry about it as a homeowner. So how are you helping homeowners with the maintenance of sump pumps?
John: Well, it’s always good to make sure that they get checked to make sure the functionality of the pump. Simple little things so many times. Things can fall down into the sump pit, whether that was from when the house was built or just from. The dog dropped it in there or something like that can cause the float to hang up and therefore when the water rises the float can’t rise and activate the pump to kick on. So it’s good to to keep an eye on inspect them make sure there’s not too much sediment built up in the bottom which can also happen and pumps don’t last forever, so they do go bad and sometimes people wake up to a flooded basement because their some pump just simply went bad.
Sam: Oh dear, yeah. So that’s definitely something important to maintain and to have you guys just overall take a look at it, check it out, make sure it’s up to working with it.
John: It is, it is. It’s a good idea to stay on top of that. Either that or make sure you keep all the cardboard boxes off the floor.
Sam: Yes, exactly. Let’s switch gears a little bit to heating and cooling. So air filters, why are these important in the home?
John: Gosh, you know, Sam. Many of our clients have forced air systems, and forced air takes the air from within your home and passes it through the furnace and air conditioning system in order to condition it, make it cooler, make it hotter, depending on what you’re asking the thermostat to do. And that airflow is dependent on just that, the air that’s able to flow through and be conditioned. And if furnace filters are allowed to get dirty, it also affects the air conditioning system because it all flows through the same system as far as the airflow. And so when the coil above the furnace for AC, which is the season we’re in now, when that gets coated with lint and dirt and accumulates on there, then the airflow can’t flow through there anymore. During the heating season, if that air is trapped in there, that hot air for too long, it can actually damage the furnace. So super important to change those air filters. Depending on the air filter that you have, it should be changed at least every 60 days. But many of the manufacturers recommend a 30 day filter and changing it once a month.
Sam: Great to know. Well, let’s switch to EVs because a lot of people here in Colorado, especially, they’ve got electric vehicles and maybe they’re on the lot getting that EV, but not really considering the type of power that their home needs to have in order to, you know, facilitate that charger. So what kind of advice do you have for them?
John: I’m glad you brought that up. It is things that we are seeing more and more of, as you said, people are buying the electric vehicles and not considering their electricity capacity at their home when they’re buying it. And so super important that you should check that out because many people find that it’s more prohibitive than they thought it was going to be, where they wanted the charger, how much electricity capacity they had they were already using in their home, those sorts of things. Many of the electric vehicles come with an adapter plug that you can plug into any 110 outlet around your house. Unfortunately, it takes a couple days to charge your car that way, and most people don’t wanna wait. And again, it just depends on what you already have using up for electricity in your home. So super important to get us out there and see what is available as far as power in your home.
Sam: Right, well wonderful, such great tips for all of the homeowners out there. We appreciate your time, John, thank you. Thank you. And call Applewood Plumbing Heating and Electric today and you’re gonna get $50 off of any service that they provide. Call 303-232-6611 or visit applewoodfixit.com to schedule an appointment today. They paid for today’s segment. We’ll be right back.