Don't Risk a Shock - Find a Reliable Home Electrician

If you need help with installation, repair, or upgrading of the wiring in your home, where do you start? At Los Angeles ASAP Plumbing, we believe that finding the best licensed electrician in Los Angeles, CA is an important first step, whether you need to fix a faulty outlet or handle any electrical repair, house rewiring, or the installation of electrical panels.

The electrical contractor you choose should be skilled at major electrical tasks, such as wiring home upgrades, and be available for residential emergency services seven days a week, at any time in a 24 hour day. After all, electrical emergencies don’t just happen during business hours on weekdays.

Whatever type of electrical work you need, you need reliable service - electrical repairs and additions are not something to tackle on your own. However, it’s important to find an electrician that’s locally based so you’re not wasting time or spending money on travel charges. Ask questions to ascertain your electrician’s skills and comfort level with not only repairs but the installation of cost saving electrical fixtures such as motion detector switches, accent lighting, installation of major appliances, and if necessary, rewiring your home.

If you are thinking about rewiring, whether to update an older home or repair damaged wiring, the electrician you choose should be able to discuss material costs - copper wiring can be quite expensive - as well as the process of rewiring. Although rewiring isn’t something to be undertaken lightly, it’s often a necessity that will help your home operate more smoothly, and accommodate appliances, computers, home video systems and the like. Older wiring systems
are often not built to handle today’s conveniences, and just using them can tax your system to the breaking point.

Finding the right professional to work with you on any project - whether it’s a major task such as upgrading the wiring in your home, or a quick solution to a broken fixture, or trouble-shooting an outage in your residence - means peace of mind when it comes to the type of project that it’s best not to do yourself!

Plumbing Inspections in Los Angeles

   
Getting a regular sewer line inspection, and drain lines examined is an easy form of preventive maintenance and trouble shooting. Using electronic leak detection will help you watch for plumbing problems of all kinds. Early detection is key to home maintenance. Preventing problems or addressing them quickly means putting a stop to damage to your home and finances.

Using a video camera inspection in Los Angeles is a sound plan to examine your sewer and drain lines. An inspection provides an accurate view of the condition of your plumbing. Even small issues can be seen, such as rusted patches or waste build up. How are such detailed images possible? Video inspection uses a very small and unobtrusive camera. It’s inserted down your branch lines - the pipes leading from your bathtubs and faucets to your home’s sewer line; or down your home’s sewer line, leading from your home to the sewer line on the street. Video cameras are waterproof, suspended on a flexible rod, and able to fit pipes in a variety of sizes from two inches to thirty six inches. Images can be saved, too. Comparing past and current images can be important.

Video inspection provides accurate pinpointing of trouble spots, which means a fast solution to your plumbing problems. The camera inspection can reveal issues such as tree root intrusion and pipe breakage, cracks, corrosion, or identify the exact location of leaks and clogs. Whether used to address specific problems or for preventive maintenance, inspections are thorough and fast. And speed is of the essence: if you find a needed repair early, options are available to handle even major issues, such as trenchless sewer line repairs. Let the camera travel where you can’t - and use the technology of a skilled video inspection, today.

Los Angeles Summer Plumbing Tips

Plumbing problems? During your summer vacation time here in Los Angeles? Nothing can ruin that planned nap in a hammock or family bar-b-q faster than a clogged drain. But you can help put a stop to any summer plumbing woes before they start by following a few preventive tips.

Before you mow that summer lawn, make sure any embedded sprinkler heads are down - not up and prone to damage. And check for dirt and clogs, too.

When you clean up after that summer party, keep food no-no’s out of your garbage disposal. That means no banana peels or watermelon rinds, and don’t just dump any grease from the grill into your sink. Be sure to run water both before and after you use your disposal, and for at least fifteen seconds after you put ANY food item down the drain. It’s also a great idea to lightly wash and rinse dishes before you load them in the dishwasher. And don’t overfill your garbage disposal. Easy does it!

Time at the beach or pool means beach towels and swimsuits to wash. Treat your washing machine gently: don’t overfill it, shake out sand and dirt before you throw in the towel, literally and figuratively. And be sure washing machine hoses are regularly changed to avoid cracks in the lines.

Watch out for toilet clogs - make sure the kids aren’t using too much toilet paper, and keep a plunger handy.

And just in case anything should go wrong? Keep access to a plumbing pro handy so you know who to call quickly to prevent damage to your home. It’s also a great idea to have your sewer line checked every summer for any possibility of tree root intrusion or other blockages. A non-invasive fiber-optic camera can help you keep an eye on things. Now go have some fun in the sun!

Avoiding Sewer Line Headaches

Sewer lines can cause a world of headaches if they crack, break, or burst. While sometimes problems can occur no matter what you do, it’s relatively easy to minimize the extent of the problem and prevent damage to your home.

How? Maintenance! Just as you wouldn’t wait until you lost a tooth to schedule a teeth cleaning, you shouldn’t wait until there’s signs of trouble before have routine maintenance performed on your sewer line in Los Angeles.

Simple, regular maintenance through sewer line cleaning, and line observation by using unobtrusive plumbing cameras can mean the difference between a smoothly operating sewer line and a major plumbing issues.

Viewing any problems before they become enormous is key to providing an fast, cost-saving, and efficient to solution. For example, if you have trees on or near your property, roots will edge their way into any small crack in a sewer line and create the need for major repairs. If you spot that leak or crack early, this can be prevented. Knowledge about deteriorating pipes, rusted sections, or build ups of debris means you’ll be able to find a fast solution. Today, many sewer line repairs caught early enough, can be handled without using conventional, intrusive digging. Pipe lining and pipe bursting, both handled in a trenchless fashion are quick and economical solutions.

Non-invasive plumbing cameras provide your “insider’s look” at the sewer line, and regular maintenance - cleaning the line - prevents a host of problems. After all, if no cleaning or checking takes place, you won’t even know there’s a sign of trouble until trouble arrives. Smelly, soggy spot in the lawn? Backed up or slow moving toilets, sinks or drains? Don’t wait until one of these major issues occurs. A little look around and cleaning of that sewer line can save you time and money.

How to Stay Cool this Summer in Los Angeles

Worried about how to stay cool this summer in Los Angeles without spending a fortune on air conditioning? Don’t want to come home after a long day at work to heat and humidity? The easy solution of course is to turn on the air conditioning, but that uses up money and energy. It’s just not sound anymore for your wallet or for the environment. In fact, in many locations, the electric company offers discounts for people willing to allow their a/c to be turned off on certain days when energy is at a premium.

With this in mind, what is the alternative to using that air conditioning? Here are some tips.

Use fans whenever you can. Ceiling fans save energy and are proven to reduce temperature by around six degrees. And if you’re going out - turn them off, because they use power, too.

Set your thermostat to 78 degrees or higher and leave it there - but if you’re away at work all day, set it even five degrees higher.

Get a programmable thermostat. Inexpensive and easy to install,  you can program your home’s temperature to fit your schedule.

Clean or change your air conditioner’s filter yearly to make sure your unit is working well. Dirty filters mean less air flow and less efficiency.

At dinner time, don’t use the oven! Use the range or the microwave, or make a salad  - or cook several meals at once, preferably in the evening, when things have cooled down for the day.

Consider doing dishes by hand so that you can avoid that heat setting on your dishwasher’s drying cycle. Wait until you’ve filled the dishwasher before you run it to save energy.

Try to use dishwasher, dryer, and stove after the sun goes down or early in the morning - that way you won’t be adding more heat to your home when it’s hot outside.

Even your lighting can help you keep things cool - compact fluorescent light bulbs use 75% less energy and generate 75% less heat than standard bulbs!

Los Angeles Plumbing Service

Just as it’s important to have a primary physician for your body, and a mechanic you can trust to maintain your car, your home’s health requires the use of professional services. Like plumbing. You may very well need to have a professional available to repair your roof, or repave your driveway, but let’s face it, how many times over the course of your residency will you need either of those services to take place?

But plumbing - plumbing assistance is just a fact of life with home ownership. Sure, you can minimize the need for this assistance by regularly maintaining your drains, being careful what you put down them, using filters and the like. But pipes wear and sometimes break, toilets sometimes overflow or clog.

And when you need to bring in a professional Los Angeles plumbing service, you need to find the right service. Talking to neighbors and friends is one simple way to get a recommendation. Reading online recommendation sites is another. And referring to a plumbers website is another. However you narrow your plumbing choices, do spend some time looking at the services a plumber can offer. Does the plumber perform repair work only, or can he or she provide installation? After all, sometimes a leaky tub means you’d prefer to get a new one installed to replace it, and why not utilize the same provider, and keep things simple.  Also, check the plumber’s location. Local orientation means faster and more efficient service - whether it’s a routine visit or a middle of the night emergency.

And, check the plumber’s hours. Can you count on help if an emergency does occur, or does the provider work only 8-5 on weekdays? Also, how long has the plumber been in business? Experience does count.

Assessing all this information is key to finding the best plumber for you: local, skilled, and experienced.

Drain Cleaning - Los Angeles

Drains, drains - they won’t go away. You wouldn’t want them to - you need them - in your bathroom, in your kitchen sink. You use them all the time, and like anything that receives heavy use, problems can occur.

With kitchen drains, grease and food waste can stick and make drains run slowly or clog and back up - and then it’s time to call the pizza delivery service, because you won’t want to be washing dishes until the issue is resolved!

In the bathroom, hair, soap, and grime are the build up culprits. Keep an eye on your shower and tub - before a drain becomes completely clogged it may simply run slowly. That’s not normal - water should drain right away when you shower, and rapidly post-bath.

Toilets can also be problematic. Whether it’s an excess of toilet paper or accidentallly flushing baby wipes or facial tissue which dissolves less easily than toilet paper, clogs do happen. A plumbers’ snake is usually the easiest way to cut through the clog and clean the drain at the same time.

Then there are the drains you may not usually even consider - ground level drains such as drains on patios, in driveways, or laundry rooms. These drains usually contain a trap that can get clogged, causing back up.

Using drains everyday means that over time, almost inevitably, there’s going to be a clog or two. You can try to prevent this by using a drain filter in the bathroom to catch hair, running hot water anytime you put anything down a drain, pouring boiling water into a mildly clogged drain and being patient, adding more and more hot water until the clog - whatever it may be - dissolves.

But none of these measures help all the time. Sometimes you need to bring in a pro to do the cleaning. And you want to make sure you’re working with someone who knows what they are doing. Look at online reviews, ask for referrals. Drain cleaning Los Angeles style: get rid of that clog fast and efficiently, or prevent it from happening in the first place with professional cleaning before a problem arises.