Why Hiring a Plumber Is a Wise Decision | Harvey, LA
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Most homeowners have wrestled with this question at some point in their life when they’re in need of home repairs: Can’t I just fix it myself?
After all, in the age of the Internet, there are thousands of videos that provide you with basic instructions, theoretically allowing you to be your own plumber at your Harvey, LA home. With a little knowledge at your fingertips, fixing the problem yourself is a great way to save some money, right?
Wrong. Like many home improvement tasks, being a plumber is not something that you can do on your own. At best, your work will be substandard compared to that of a licensed plumbing professional, and at worst, you might cause some serious damage to your home. Read on to find out why plumbing work is best left to the professionals!
Plumbers Carry Insurance
If you’ve ever seen a movie, you know that sometimes, things have to get worse before they can get better. Plumbing is sometimes exactly like that, as some plumbing problems require you to get inside your walls or underneath your house in order to solve them properly.
Unfortunately, even if you do know how to fix your plumbing issues, creating that extra problem is a good way to cause damage to your home, which you might not know how to fix safely. Your plumber probably won’t know how to fix that damage either, but they’ve got an advantage that you don’t: they always carry insurance.
If your home gets damaged by a plumbing professional, it’s not a problem. Their insurance will cover the bill for the damage, and all they’ll have to do is hand you a recommendation for a specialist that fixes the problem they had to cause to fix your plumbing issue. If you try to do the same thing, you’ll be looking at a very expensive repair bill that you likely weren’t expecting. Even if it seems like DIY work will save you money, anything but the most straightforward jobs will cost you in the long run.
They’re Up to Code
When you work with a licensed plumber you can be certain of one thing: they know what the city codes are and how to ensure that their work meets those standards. Plumbing professionals pride themselves on getting the job done right the first time, and that means they know exactly what kind of work the city expects from the buildings in its jurisdiction.
Odds are that you’re nowhere near as familiar with the plumbing code as your local plumbing experts, which means things are more likely to slip through the cracks if you’re doing your own plumbing work. Unfortunately, if things do slip through the cracks, you’re going to pay for it at some point.
In a worst-case scenario, your DIY job is bad enough that the “solution” causes serious damage to your home, sticking you with a massive repair bill. If you’re lucky, you might fix the problem without causing further damage to the home, but you’ll still pay in the long run in that situation. When the time comes for you to sell your Harvey, LA home, your potential buyer will almost certainly want to have a trustworthy expert examine the home for any potential issues. If your plumbing work is found to not be up to code, you’ll have to pay for lengthy repairs to bring your home up to code, which means a much lower profit from selling your house — if you can sell it at all.
The Right Knowledge
There’s no other way to say this, but it’s just not possible to gain all the knowledge a professional has from one or two online videos. There’s a reason that professional plumbing experts train long and hard at their jobs, and it’s because that knowledge helps prepare them for a wide range of possibilities.
For instance, do you know when to use copper piping and when it’s best for PVC pipes, or how to best fit them together so that there is no risk of corrosion from an ill-fitting pipe damaging your work? Chances are that you don’t, because you’ve never needed to know those questions until it actually affected the inner workings of your home. But a plumber needs to know the answers to those questions and more every single day.
The reason that plumbing looks as simple to fix as it does is that plumbers work years to make sure that they know how to handle those rare situations that absolutely require the touch of an expert. It’s because they work so hard that they make difficult plumbing tasks seem incredibly straightforward, and many homeowners have found out the hard way that it’s a much more complex task than it seems.
They’ve Got the Right Tools
Let’s say you’re in one of those rare situations where you do know exactly how to fix the issue without any questions. Maybe your uncle was a licensed plumber and taught you how to do this, for example. You still probably shouldn’t try to make the repairs yourself because you likely don’t have the right tools for the job.
Unless you’ve got the exact tools needed, you’re going to have a hard time getting the job done right, and if you don’t have them, acquiring them likely won’t be cost-effective. By the time you get the tools, perform the job and figure out where to store them, your savings from doing the job yourself will be minimal at best. By contrast, a plumbing expert will already have the tools needed to do the job right.
At bluefrog Plumbing + Drain of New Orleans, LA we provide the expertise needed to get things fixed properly the first time. When you need a plumber to take care of an issue at your home in the Harvey, LA and surrounding areas, just give us a call. We’ll make sure the job is done correctly and up to code, eliminating any nasty surprises down the road!
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