The importance of regular plumbing maintenance: how installers can help

Regular plumbing maintenance is essential in ensuring the continued performance and efficiency of buildings, and their plumbing and heating systems. Much like taking a car for an annual MOT, regular plumbing maintenance can help to keep systems running smoothly and avoid unexpected problems such as leaks or system breakdowns.

In practice, these avoidable problems can lead to unnecessary disruption for residents and, in some situations, even result in increased health risks, energy costs and excess expenditure to correct problems.

By carrying out routine plumbing and heating maintenance, installers can support home and building owners to maximise the potential of their plumbing systems and prevent common problems from occurring.

In this blog, we’ll consider the importance of regular plumbing maintenance and outline how installers can help.

The journey to long-lasting and efficient plumbing and heating systems begins at the initial point of installation. Installers need to ensure that if maintenance is required in the future, conducting it is relatively simple. Adding plumbing maintenance-related features such as isolation valves allows for work on the system to be carried out quickly and easily. If a system is not fitted with isolation valves, this means that more water needs to be drained from the system than is otherwise necessary, which results in excess time for the installer, and excess water wastage and costs for the homeowner.

Solutions such as, ball type isolating valves can be installed throughout the home, allowing for fixtures or appliances to be isolated specifically for emergency work or routine plumbing maintenance. Additionally, while it is best practice to install isolation valves during the first fix phase, they can be retrofitted to systems at a later stage, supporting maintenance in the future. JG Speedfit offers a range of push-fit solutions in various finishes, for different applications, such as the plastic JG Speedfit Service Valve and chrome plated Ball Valve.

Without the addition of isolation valves, problems can take more time to fix, should they occur in the future. In turn, this has the potential to cause more disruption and damage, leading to greater levels of water damage, and having cost implications for homeowners.

When carrying out maintenance – either planned or in an emergency situation – installers need to be prepared for every possibility – and have the right pieces of kit to hand too.

When it comes to selecting the right kit, there are a few things for installers to consider. For example, many jobs require disconnecting a major appliance such as a washing machine or dishwasher, which is much easier said than done when you first show up to the location. So, whether the job is to fix a problem within the appliance itself or to install an entirely new appliance, being able to isolate it quickly and easily is key, which is where valves like the JG Speedfit push-fit Appliance Tee can be of great benefit.

As the Appliance Tee is a push-fit fitting, it can be simply pushed onto the pipe connected to the appliance and the appliance hose threaded onto the tee's integrated shut off valve. The Appliance Tee also makes working in confined spaces much easier as it doesn't require any tools or hot works, making it easy to mount.

Similarly, stopping water flow to certain areas is frequently required in maintenance situations too. JG Speedfit Stop Ends ensure a secure seal at the end of a pipe, either temporarily or permanently. Therefore, stop ends should have a place in every installer’s toolkit. Installation is made simple by an instant push-fit connection, and stop ends, like all Speedfit fittings, can be demounted without the use of tools, which means that they can be removed at any stage to allow work to restart.

Plumbing maintenance is an essential part of keeping a building’s internal systems working properly and goes a long way toward preventing costly repairs and replacements in the future. By ensuring that maintenance is kept in mind upon first fix installation and by having the equipment required to conduct maintenance when it is needed, installers should be more than prepared to keep plumbing systems in check.