Avoiding Plumbing Problems In Your Real Estate Investment Rental Homes
When you own a residential home you are renting out to tenants, whether it’s an apartment or house, you’ll have to face problems with plumbing at times.
Some renters are great about treating the plumbing system with the proper preventative care, while others will seem to have clogs every week. There are some things you and your tenants can do to avoid common plumbing issues, which will save you all a lot of time and stress.
The last thing you want is to be woken up in the middle of your other work, projects, or tasks in order to have to deal with plumbing problems your tenants more than likely could have avoided. But not all plumbing problems are the fault of the tenants.
Tree roots could grow into the lines, pipes can get crushed or frozen, plumbing gets old and needs replacing (especially at connections), or perhaps even previous repairs were made incorrectly. However you look at it, it all winds up being your responsibility either out of your finances or also with your time.
One of the most important things for you to remember is that during a vacant period, you have prime opportunity to update the plumbing in the home. There’s no better time to get all your old, rusted out connections and piping replaced where it’s needed.
You’ll have no interruption for tenants and you’ll be repairing things that will likely go wrong anyway in the next year or two. Preventing them costs way less than having to repair them after a connection or line breaks or the home floods.
The second thing you need to remember as owner is you can’t leave it all up to your tenant without checking on things to wrap up your plumbing that’s exposed to cold weather. You may require your tenant to do this, but making sure it’s done and done correctly will be ultimately up to you if you want to do everything you can to ensure they’re not going to freeze and crack.
Another thing you can do is to ensure at least one of your kitchen drains to the sink is fitted with a good disposal that will finely chop food particles. You should also keep the manual in a plastic baggie and tape it to the inside of a out of the way cabinet. Or you can store it with other manuals and things specific for the home that the tenant will need.
A minor purchase you should make is sink strainer that fits your all the sinks in your home right. There are different types of strainers and many drains can be effectively filtered for food particles so things like food waste and hair don’t get sucked down into the drain. Providing strainers for your drains will help your tenants avoid clogs.
Finally, one of the things you should do if your property sits vacant for more than a couple of weeks is to go by the house and flush the commodes and run a little water for about 30 seconds down each drain. Gases build up in the plumbing that sits idle and can be a nasty problem with smell, which you sure don’t want if you’re showing the property to get it rented.
All in all, there’s plenty you can do as owner, or have someone do for you, to prevent problems with your plumbing in rental properties. Your tenants should be informed of what not to put down the drains and you’ll be ready with these preventative tips.
Any time you do end up with plumbing problems, keep our number handy here at The Master’s Plumbing Company for all your emergency or regular plumbing repairs. We’d be honored to be your “go-to” plumbing contractor whenever you or your tenants need the help!
