Nick's Plumbing & Air Conditioning Blog

The idea of performing your own plumbing maintenance, minor repairs, or even installation of new fixtures, like faucets and garbage disposals, is an attractive one. Completing a home improvement project on your own can seem like a daunting task, but the sense of accomplishment you feel after it's done far outweighs the dread. One of…

Our kitchens are full of convenient appliances to help get us through our daily cooking and cleaning tasks. Microwave ovens, electric can openers, and food processors are just a few of the tools used every day, and we tend to take them for granted. For the mechanically inclined homeowner, replacing a kitchen sink sprayer is…

Dealing with drain clogs is much more about being proactive than reactive, in that it is much easier to prevent a clog than it is to clear one. Most drain clogs are confined to a single sink or tub and are simple for the homeowner to remove without needing a call to a plumbing company. Why…

As we’re spending more and more time at home these days, now is a great time for the “do-it-yourselfers” to truly shine. One of the most common causes for a slow drain in a kitchen or bathroom sink is a dirty P-trap pipe. What is a P-Trap? Take a look underneath your kitchen or bathroom sink,…

When someone thinks about who’s responsible for the repair and replacement of their sewer lines, it is often assumed that it falls on your city or municipality. Unfortunately, this is not the case in the greater Houston area (or in most areas, for that matter), and the city’s responsibility for your sewer line ends where…

 Out of sight and out of mind. Unfortunately, that is the approach most homeowners take toward the maintenance and upkeep of their sewer lines. It’s only natural that we pay little to no attention to our sewer lines condition until signs of sewer line trouble appear. Symptoms of sewer drain issues include gurgling sounds from…

Until today, I was stumped for a blog topic about HVAC, and then my inspiration arrived in the form of a broken air conditioner on a hot Sunday afternoon. While Mrs. and I were making dinner, we noticed the AC was having a hard time keeping up with the thermostat's set temperature. After doing all…

Tank-type water heaters have an average useful lifespan of seven to ten years and can start showing signs of aging long before that. The water heater is probably the most used plumbing related appliance in any home, being on duty 24-hours-a-day. So, what are the signs your hot water heater is going out? Less Hot Water…

More and more homes in the greater Houston area are being built on top of concrete slabs. More often than not, these foundations will have plumbing lines run underneath the slab. This is a bad idea for several reasons, the first being that no material lasts forever, and eventually you (or whoever owns the home…

Repiping is the process of removing all the incoming water lines in a building and replacing them with new pipes, junctions, and valves. This rarely includes replacing sewage and drain lines in a property, but that service can often be scheduled and performed at the same time as repiping, to save some cost, time and…

Replacing an air conditioning system is a costly venture, but it can cost more to keep your existing system running over time. On average, a complete AC installation near me in Houston costs around $6,000. The range starts at about $4,000 for a simple swap-out of a unit up to $15,000 for complete system installation.…

There’s an old saying in the plumbing industry, “every drain will someday clog.” Actually, it’s not a saying; I just made that up. But there is truth to this bold claim, and this blog will help the homeowner answer the question, “when should you call a plumber for a clogged drain”? Toilets, sinks, showers, bathtubs, washing…

Every home has dust. In most households, this dust is a combination of smoke, pollen, pet dander, viruses, and bacteria that irritates our noses, throats, and lungs. People with allergies and other sensitivities to airborne irritants are likely to see their symptoms improve with the addition of an air filtration system. The quality of indoor air…

The plumbing system in your home is a marvel of ingenuity, developed over the last five-thousand years starting in ancient Greece. In the Roman era, the ability to bring water into Rome from the remote mountains was a significant engineering feat. Plumbing, as we know it today, began to take shape in the early 1800s…

As we head into the summer months here in Houston, the importance of having a properly operating air conditioning system cannot be overstated. Hotter temperatures, higher humidity, and the increasing amount of development in our city mean that every summer here seems worse than the one before. Air conditioning systems are made up of mechanical and…

One of the questions we hear a lot is, “what is the lifespan of a garbage disposal?”. When professionally installed and properly maintained, a garbage disposal has a lifespan of ten to fifteen years. Some higher-horsepower units, and those of stainless-steel construction last longer, where smaller and more inexpensive units quite often fail in the…

There seems to be a bit of confusion among customers looking for information about ways to improve the quality of the air in their home. This blog seeks to answer the question: what is the difference between air purification and air filtration? Ask most people, and they’re likely to think that air purification and air filtration are…

Okay, we admit, this sounds like a strange question, but it is one that we happen to hear quite often both on the phone and in the field on service calls. A WATER HEATER IN THE ATTIC SAVES SQUARE FOOTAGE Tank-type water heaters are big, hulking cylinders filled with anywhere from forty to seventy gallons of hot…

Almost every company in the residential services market, from roofers, plumbers, and HVAC companies, offers free estimates. Free in-person estimates are an excellent way for a customer to interact with the technicians that will be doing their job and learn about all aspects of the work they need to be done. What is a Free Plumbing…