Contents (Click To Jump)
- 1 What Are the Most Common Plumbing Issues in Mankato?
- 2 How Does the Water in Mankato Affect Your Plumbing?
- 3 How Much Does Plumbing Usually Cost in Mankato?
- 4 Can Better Plumbing Save You Money in Mankato?
- 5 When Should You Call the Water Utility Company in Mankato vs Hire a Plumber?
- 6 When Do You Need Permits for Plumbing Service in Mankato?
What Are the Most Common Plumbing Issues in Mankato?
Here in Mankato, we’ve seen all sorts of plumbing problems over the years. The cold winters and hard water that come with life in Minnesota certainly pose challenges to plumbing here in many ways. Some plumbing issues that do seem to be much more common than others for folks here in Mankato:
- Clogged or slow drains
- Running toilets
- Water heater failure
- Leaking faucets and toilets
- Low or no water pressure
- Frozen pipes
- Fixture replacement
How Does the Water in Mankato Affect Your Plumbing?
Minnesota water is something special. Though the bulk of the state’s 11,000+ lakes are far north of Mankato, we still feel the effects of these incredibly dominant headwaters that dramatically affect the ecosystem of the entire continent. Mankato draws our water from groundwater, partly supplied by nearby Minnesota and Blue Earth Rivers. The rivers and lakes of Minnesota tend to be incredibly rich in mineral content, which comes across in our water as hardness.
Hard water is water that has excessive amounts of tiny mineral particles in it. The City of Mankato goes to great lengths to treat our water and eliminate any harmful contaminants, but trace minerals often remain. Though these “hard” particles in water are harmless to people, they can wear on your plumbing over time. Minerals accumulate within your plumbing which can cause congestion and damage over time. It also commonly causes fixtures to deteriorate and build up grit around faucets and valves, called scale.
The overall effect of the hardness in our water is that your plumbing works a lot harder to provide consistent water than areas with softer water. This may result in more replacements and repairs over time and could lead to unexpected emergencies like leaks and plumbing if regular maintenance is not kept up.
How Much Does Plumbing Usually Cost in Mankato?
In Mankato, our plumbing costs are usually pretty competitive with the national average. Mankato homeowners pay an average of $424 for regular plumbing repairs and an average of $413 for installation requests. Emergency plumbing requirements cost an average of $460.
Urgency
Plumbers like us are typically busy people. Needing us right away can often result in overtime to get to the job without neglecting previous customers’ appointments. This may cause overtime premium billing, which can raise costs, but it’s typically still more than worth getting to urgent issues before they can balloon into major emergencies.
Complexity of Job
The plumbing infrastructure of your home isn’t exactly simple. While easy, routine fixes may be quick and require little planning, major jobs that massively affect your plumbing systems will take significant planning and engineering to ensure that new solutions don’t introduce new problems. Major jobs like the full-scale remodeling of your plumbing may be more expensive than the sum of their parts. This is necessary, though. Your plumbing is an integral part of your home’s infrastructure, and you need to know that any replacements and upgrades are being executed the first time perfectly.
Administrative Costs
Mankato does charge some fees for plumbing permits based on the scale of the work. While this will usually be a minimal increase in your costs, unexpected issues that cause a second permit to be applied for could increase costs. This makes it even more important for us to be incredibly thorough while planning a project to ensure that the initial permit application outlines the entire scope of work.
Can Better Plumbing Save You Money in Mankato?
Better plumbing can save you money in the long run just about anywhere, and Mankato is no exception. Making investments in your home’s plumbing system makes your system more reliable. It extends its life, which potentially can save you a bunch of money on repairs and replacements over the lifespan of your home. While investments in better plumbing solutions will usually translate to savings down the line, there are a few ways in particular that folks here in Mankato typically find reliable ways to get serious savings with better plumbing.
Water Softening Systems
Our water is incredibly hard here in Mankato, often pushing up to levels of over 300 ppm. This is considered extremely hard water, as the ground sources here in Minnesota often carry a lot of mineral content that can’t be easily removed through water treatment. Hard water causes minerals to collect over time in your plumbing. Over the years, this can restrict flow, cause pressure buildups, damage pipes, and potentially lead to leaks. Hard water also causes scale to accumulate on your plumbing fixtures, which can cause them to lose their beauty and eventually interfere with the ability of valves and faucets to function smoothly.
Water softening systems help remove excess minerals from the water running through the plumbing in your home. Though it’s nearly impossible to remove all minerals, especially from such incredibly hard water, reducing your water’s mineral content can potentially add years to the lifespan of your fixtures and prevent costly repairs to your plumbing system for years.
Repairing Ageing and Corroded Pipes
The pipes in your plumbing system are usually built to last, but nothing lasts forever. Most plumbing components are rated for a life span of at most 3-5 decades. Failing to replace pipes past their prime could result in the protective coating around the pipe degrading over time. Once this coating no longer protects your plumbing, it can begin to corrode. Corroded pipes make vulnerable points in your plumbing that pressure can break through as a leak and can potentially add harmful chemicals like lead and rust to your water that can be detrimental to the health of your household.
Particularly in older homes, addressing older parts of your plumbing system can save you a significant amount of money in future repairs, let alone potential healthcare costs. Like most things in your home, addressing problems before they turn into emergencies is often the cheaper option. Giving older plumbing the attention and upgrades it needs can prevent unexpected disasters from costing you an arm and a leg down the line.
Winterizing Plumbing
It can get pretty cold in the Minnesota winters as we regularly see the coldest nights venture below zero. Frozen pipes can be an absolute nightmare as a homeowner. Not only do they interrupt the flow of water to your home, but frozen water can build up pressure that will inevitably lead to burst pipes and flooding if the problem is not addressed quickly. Since flooding can be one of the most disastrous and costly ordeals for your house to suffer from, the best way to avoid the problems from frozen pipes is to prepare before the coldest months are upon us.
Insulating vulnerable pipes, applying the thermostatic heat tape to pipes outside or in crawl spaces, and ensuring that your water heater is ready for winter are steps that we normally take to ensure they’re fully prepared for frigid weather. Underinsulated pipes can quickly freeze if proper attention isn’t paid to them, and unexpected water heater failure can abruptly take away the best defense that your hot water pipes have against freezing– heat.
If your plumbing does freeze, acting quickly on it can avoid flooding. We are experienced at dealing with frozen pipes and can often thaw them before they experience critical failures if we’re alerted quickly.
When Should You Call the Water Utility Company in Mankato vs Hire a Plumber?
When you have plumbing problems, it’s essential to get them dealt with promptly. Minor problems can rapidly escalate to severe issues if they are ignored. Your plumbing carries a massive load of pressurized water. If something’s going wrong with your plumbing, you cannot underestimate the ability of water under pressure to cause further systemic problems.
There’s very little that Mankato Public Utilities can do to assist you except in a select few circumstances for plumbing problems. If you abruptly have reduced flow or no flow to your home but don’t see any leaking or shut valves anywhere in your home, then the utility company could at the very least tell you whether the city grid is having problems that are being worked on. Once the water is past your home’s connection to the water main though, any problems you encounter will become your problem to deal with.
Calling utilities can just double-check that the problem is on your side, but contact us to deal with it without delay. Problems like clogs or small leaks that seem minor can quickly escalate into major leaks and potential flooding. Hiring us to deal with these issues within your home avoids the massive costs that go along with escalating plumbing problems.
When Do You Need Permits for Plumbing Service in Mankato?
In Mankato, you’ll likely need permits for most plumbing work. Routine jobs like pipe repair, clog removal, and line cleaning can likely be done without a permit, but any work that adds, removes, or replaces components to a plumbing system will require a permit from the city. Though these permit requirements may seem like extra work, this standardization ensures that all major work has been documented, inspected, and compliant if you sell your house down the line. We are very used to dealing with the regulatory requirements and can easily help acquire the permits you need for the job that you need to be done.
