Fixtures, faucets & small jobs

Fixtures & faucets

Small jobs, done properly, on a day that suits you

Not everything is an emergency. A good share of our work is the ordinary stuff: a toilet that rocks, a faucet that has dripped for a year, a garbage disposal that hums and does not turn, a laundry connection that needs doing before the new machine is delivered. These are the jobs people put off for months and then feel faintly annoyed about having put off, because each one takes an hour or two.

We book them as scheduled appointments with a real arrival time, not a four-hour window. And if there are three or four small things around the house, get them done in one visit — you pay one trip instead of three, and we would much rather do it that way.

Faucets and the hard water problem

Faucets in Arvada do not usually fail because the faucet is bad. They fail because our water is mineral-heavy and it is unkind to exactly the parts that make a faucet work — cartridges, O-rings, rubber seats. Mineral deposits build on sealing surfaces, the seal stops sealing, and it drips.

On a decent brand that is a rebuild: new cartridge, new seals, and the fixture is genuinely as good as new for a fraction of replacement cost. On a builder-grade unit that is already corroding at the base, it is a false economy, because you will be doing it again next year for the same labour. We will tell you which one you have and why, and if the honest answer is “this is fine, just clean the aerator,” that is what you will hear.

Toilets

The three common complaints are running, rocking and weak flush. Running is nearly always the flapper, fill valve or chain, and it is cheap — but it is not trivial, because a toilet passing water continuously can quietly waste an enormous amount over a few months.

Rocking matters more than people think. A toilet that moves when you sit on it is working the wax seal underneath it, and a failed wax seal leaks sewage into the subfloor rather than onto it, where you will not see it until the floor is damaged. If yours rocks, it needs pulling, resetting on a new seal, and shimming properly. It is not a big job and it prevents a genuinely nasty one.

Weak flush on an older low-flow unit is sometimes just mineral buildup in the rim jets — worth cleaning before condemning the toilet.

Garbage disposals

A disposal that hums without turning is jammed, not dead; the motor is fine and something is stuck in the impeller. A disposal that does nothing at all has usually tripped its own reset button underneath. Both are frequently fixable in minutes, and it is worth trying before buying a new unit. What kills them permanently is running them without enough water, and feeding them fibrous scraps and grease — grease goes down liquid and sets solid in the pipe a few feet later, which is how a disposal problem becomes a drain problem.

Hose bibs and outdoor plumbing

This is the one that costs Arvada homeowners real money every single year. A hose left connected through the first hard freeze traps water at the bib, ice forms, and the split usually happens back inside the rim joist where you cannot see it. Nothing appears to be wrong all winter. Then somebody opens the outside tap in spring and water pours into the basement.

• Disconnect every hose in October. This is free and prevents the most common burst we see.
• Upgrade to frost-free bibs, which put the shut-off back inside the heated wall.
• Fit an interior shut-off for each outdoor line if there is not one already.
• Blow out sprinkler systems before the first hard freeze, not after it.

Shut-off valves — the upgrade nobody asks for

Old multi-turn stop valves under sinks and behind toilets seize in place, and they seize in the open position. You discover this at the worst possible moment, with water running and a valve that will not turn. Swapping them for quarter-turn ball valves is quick, inexpensive, and means that when something does go wrong you can stop it yourself in two seconds. If we are already at your house for something else, ask us to look at them.