- 6 weeks ago
15 plumbing secrets can save you from costly leaks, floods, and emergency plumber calls by teaching the small fixes that prevent big damage. Elias walks through practical home plumbing maintenance from a Lancaster County perspective, showing how a careful homeowner can protect a house with a few minutes of tending and a few dollars in parts.
He covers the main water shutoff valve, the food-coloring test for a running toilet, draining sediment from a water heater, replacing washing machine hoses, checking water pressure, reading the water meter for hidden leaks, insulating pipes against freezing, and using the right fittings, tape, putty, and silicone. The lesson is simple: catch slow drains, worn supply lines, and failing wax rings before they turn into soaked floors, rotten subfloors, and expensive repairs.
Created for viewers searching for plumbing tips, home maintenance advice, DIY plumbing repair, leak prevention, winter pipe protection, toilet repair, water heater maintenance, and practical homeowner know-how. It is useful for anyone who wants a beginner-friendly plumbing guide, emergency shutoff basics, and old-fashioned home repair wisdom for everyday house care.
He covers the main water shutoff valve, the food-coloring test for a running toilet, draining sediment from a water heater, replacing washing machine hoses, checking water pressure, reading the water meter for hidden leaks, insulating pipes against freezing, and using the right fittings, tape, putty, and silicone. The lesson is simple: catch slow drains, worn supply lines, and failing wax rings before they turn into soaked floors, rotten subfloors, and expensive repairs.
Created for viewers searching for plumbing tips, home maintenance advice, DIY plumbing repair, leak prevention, winter pipe protection, toilet repair, water heater maintenance, and practical homeowner know-how. It is useful for anyone who wants a beginner-friendly plumbing guide, emergency shutoff basics, and old-fashioned home repair wisdom for everyday house care.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Most folks never give their plumbing a single thought until the day it goes wrong,
00:04and by then the water is already coming through the ceiling and the bill is already piling up.
00:10But near every one of those costly disasters could have been headed off, cheap and easy,
00:15if the body had only known a few plain things ahead of time.
00:19So today I am going to give you 15 plumbing secrets,
00:23the kind a good plumber learns over 30 years in the trade,
00:27every one of them a small bit of knowing or a few minutes of work
00:31that can save you thousands of dollars and a world of grief.
00:35I am Elias, and I keep up this Lancaster County place with my own hands,
00:40the way my people always have,
00:42for out here a body fixes his own troubles or they stay unfixed.
00:48Now most of these are preventing rather than fixing,
00:51the small faithful tending that keeps the great breakdown from ever coming,
00:55which is the whole heart of how the old people kept a home.
00:59A thing tended in small ways never falls to a large ruin.
01:05So let me give you the 15.
01:07Let me tell you a thing my father taught me that is the soul of all 15 of these.
01:13He used to say that there are two kinds of men,
01:16the man who waits for a thing to break and then pays dear to mend it,
01:20and the man who tends his things so they do not break,
01:24and the second man lives easier and freer and richer all his days,
01:29though he be no wealthier than the first.
01:31He went round our place of a season with his eyes open,
01:35looking for the small trouble before it grew,
01:38the worn washer before it leaked,
01:40the loose joint before it let go,
01:42and he mended it then, in a quiet minute, for a few cents,
01:47where his careless neighbor waited for the burst and the flood and the great bill.
01:52It is not that my father knew secrets other men did not.
01:56It is that he looked and tended and did not wait for ruin.
02:01Every one of these 15 is just that habit applied to your plumbing,
02:05looking at the small thing now so the large thing never comes.
02:10Learn that way of tending and you will save yourself more than any 15 tricks could ever tell you.
02:16The first, and the most important of all,
02:19is to know where your main water shutoff valve is and to test it once a year.
02:25I cannot tell you how many a house has flooded
02:28simply because no one knew where the shutoff was while the water poured in.
02:33Your main valve is most often where the water line enters the house,
02:37in the basement or crawl space or near the front foundation wall
02:42or outside by the meter in warm country.
02:45Find it now, before you need it.
02:48And once a year, turn it fully off and then back on,
02:52for a valve that sits untouched for years seizes up with mineral buildup and corrosion,
02:57and the day you need it in an emergency, it will not budge.
03:02Working it once a year keeps it free.
03:04A burst pipe with a working shutoff is a mess.
03:08A burst pipe with a seized shutoff is a ruined house,
03:135,000 to 50,000 in damage.
03:16Know it and test it.
03:18And while you are at it,
03:20teach every grown soul in the house where it is and how to work it,
03:24for a flood does not wait for the one person who knows to be home.
03:28The minute or two you spend showing your family that valve
03:32may one day be the minute that saves your house,
03:35for when the water is coming through the ceiling,
03:37the time to go looking for the shutoff is not then.
03:41Know it, test it, and see that all your house knows it too.
03:45The second is to fix a running toilet at once and not put it off,
03:49for that little trickle you hear can waste 200 gallons of water a day,
03:54hundreds of dollars a year down the drain.
03:57The usual cause is a worn-out flapper,
04:00the rubber seal at the bottom of the tank,
04:02and a new one costs a few dollars and takes 15 minutes.
04:06And here is a fine test to find a silent leak.
04:10Drop a little food coloring in the tank
04:12and wait half an hour without flushing,
04:14and if colored water shows up in the bowl,
04:17your flapper is leaking and wants replacing.
04:19The reason this one matters so
04:21is that a running toilet is a quiet thief.
04:25It wastes its hundreds of gallons, silent and unseen,
04:29and a body may go months paying for it
04:32before he ever troubles to fix the little trickle
04:35he has long stopped hearing.
04:37A few dollars and a quarter hour stops it cold.
04:42The third is to drain a little water
04:45off the bottom of your water heater once a year
04:47to clear the sediment.
04:49Over time, mineral sediment settles in the bottom of the tank
04:53and forms a layer between the burner and the water
04:56so the heater works harder, burns more,
04:59and wears out years before its time.
05:02Draining off a few buckets from the valve at the bottom once a year
05:06clears that grit and lets your heater run easy
05:09and last far longer.
05:11You can hear the sediment when it is bad,
05:14a popping and rumbling in the tank
05:16as the water boils up through the grit,
05:19and that sound is your heater telling you it is straining.
05:23Catch it with the yearly drain,
05:25and you may get half again as many years out of the thing,
05:29which is no small saving,
05:30for a water heater is a dear thing to replace.
05:35Quick word before I go further.
05:37The old methods my family uses,
05:40there is more of it than fits in any one video.
05:43I gathered the whole of it into a book at EliasYoder.com.
05:48The book is the long version.
05:50If you want it, it is there.
05:52I will not mention it again.
05:55The fourth is to replace the old rubber hoses
05:58on your washing machine with braided steel ones.
06:02Those black rubber hoses weaken from the inside
06:05with every hot wash,
06:07and after five to seven years,
06:09they bulge and crack and burst with no warning,
06:13loosing a full flow of water for hours
06:16till someone finds it.
06:18One of the most common causes of a flooded house there is.
06:21A pair of braided steel hoses costs a little
06:25and goes on in ten minutes,
06:27and they will not blow the way rubber does.
06:29Do it before you come home to a flooded laundry,
06:33not after.
06:34Of all the floods I have heard of,
06:36the burst washer hose is among the most common
06:39and the most needless,
06:41for the fix is so cheap and quick,
06:44ten minutes once in years,
06:46and yet folks leave the old rubber on
06:48till the day it lets go and ruins the room.
06:52Do not be that body.
06:53Go look behind your washer this very day,
06:56and if you see black rubber, change it.
07:00The fifth is to check your home's water pressure,
07:03for pressure too high is a silent destroyer,
07:06straining every fitting and valve and hose in the house
07:10till it causes pinhole leaks and burst lines.
07:13You test it with a simple gauge
07:15that threads onto an outdoor spigot,
07:18a few dollars at the hardware.
07:19Good pressure sits between 40 and 60 pounds.
07:23If yours runs much above 65,
07:25a pressure-reducing valve fitted on your main line
07:29brings it down safe
07:30and protects every fixture in the house,
07:33well worth the cost against the damage
07:36high pressure does unseen.
07:38The sixth is to stop over-tightening your fittings,
07:42for this causes more leaks than it prevents.
07:45It feels like tighter is better,
07:47but crank a compression fitting or a supply nut
07:50or a plastic fitting too hard and you crack it,
07:53often a hairline crack that does not show at once,
07:56and two weeks later, water is dripping behind the wall.
08:00The rule is hand-tight plus about a quarter turn
08:04with a wrench for most fittings,
08:06and plastic ones hand-tight only.
08:09And where you use thread tape,
08:11the tape makes the seal, not brute force.
08:14If a joint still leaks,
08:16the answer is near never to crank harder,
08:19but to check the tape and the threads.
08:21A gentle hand saves cracked fittings
08:24and water damage both.
08:26The seventh is to learn to read your water meter,
08:29for it is a powerful tool you already own
08:32and it costs nothing.
08:34Shut off every faucet and fixture
08:36and appliance in the house,
08:38nothing running at all.
08:40Then go look at the meter
08:41and find the little low-flow indicator,
08:44a small triangle or star dial.
08:46If everything is off
08:48and that indicator still creeps,
08:50water is flowing somewhere it should not be,
08:52and you have a hidden leak.
08:54Or write down the reading of bedtime
08:56and check it again
08:57before anyone stirs in the morning.
08:59And if the number moved,
09:01you have a leak.
09:02This simple, free test
09:04has caught many a hidden slab leak
09:07and underground leak
09:08that would have run undiscovered for months
09:10and cost a fortune.
09:12And the beauty of it
09:13is that a hidden leak
09:15is the most dangerous kind there is,
09:17for the burst you can see,
09:19you fix it once.
09:20But the slow, hidden leak
09:22runs on unseen
09:24behind a wall
09:25or under a slab,
09:27rotting and ruining
09:28and swelling your water bill,
09:30and you, none the wiser
09:32till the damage is done.
09:34This free meter test
09:36is the one way
09:37to catch the unseen one.
09:39So do it now
09:40and again
09:41even when nothing seems wrong,
09:43the way a careful man
09:44checks a thing is sound
09:46before he has cause to doubt it.
09:48The eighth
09:50is to insulate
09:51any exposed pipes
09:53in unheated spaces
09:54against the freeze.
09:56For a frozen pipe
09:57is among the worst
09:59plumbing disasters there is.
10:01When water freezes in a pipe,
10:03it expands
10:04and builds enormous pressure
10:06and the pipe bursts,
10:08loosing hundreds of gallons.
10:10Prevention costs almost nothing.
10:13Foam pipe sleeves,
10:14a couple dollars a length,
10:16that slip right over
10:17the exposed pipes
10:18in your garage,
10:19crawl space,
10:20attic,
10:21and unheated basement.
10:23Mind especially
10:24the pipes along outside walls,
10:26the first to freeze.
10:28Now, the English
10:30will run a heat tape
10:31under the insulation,
10:32which takes grid power
10:34to keep the pipe warm.
10:35But our older and surer way
10:38is good insulation,
10:39and in a hard freeze,
10:41letting a tap drip a little
10:43so the moving water
10:44cannot freeze,
10:45and knowing how to drain
10:47a line that may freeze.
10:49An afternoon insulating
10:51your pipes
10:52saves you a burst pipe ruin.
10:55And here is a thing
10:56folks get wrong.
10:57The pipe does not always
10:59burst where it froze.
11:01The ice plugs the pipe,
11:03and then the pressure
11:04builds in the trapped water
11:06between that ice plug
11:08and a closed faucet,
11:09and the pipe lets go
11:11wherever it is weakest
11:12along that stretch,
11:14which may be a good way off
11:15from the frozen spot.
11:17That is why a dripping tap
11:19helps so,
11:20for a pipe with the water moving
11:22and a path open
11:23cannot build
11:24that bursting pressure.
11:26So insulate the exposed pipes,
11:29and in a hard cold,
11:31let the farthest tap
11:32drip a little,
11:33and you will come through
11:34the freeze sound.
11:35The ninth is to replace
11:38your old supply lines
11:40before they burst,
11:41those flexible lines
11:43that connect each toilet
11:44and sink to its shut-off valve,
11:46carrying pressured water
11:48every hour of every day.
11:50The old ones weaken
11:52and let go in time.
11:54New ones cost a dollar
11:55or two each,
11:57go on hand-tight
11:58plus a quarter turn,
11:59and you can do every toilet
12:01and faucet in the house
12:03in an afternoon
12:04for $40 or $50.
12:06Cheap insurance
12:07against a common
12:08and ruinous flood.
12:11The tenth is to use
12:13thread seal tape rightly.
12:15For most folks,
12:16wrap it the wrong way
12:17and it does no good.
12:19You hold the fitting
12:20with the threads
12:21pointing away from you
12:22and wrap the tape
12:24clockwise around them,
12:25snug,
12:26three to five times.
12:28Then it seats
12:29into the threads
12:30as you tighten
12:30instead of bunching
12:32and peeling off.
12:33Wrapped backward,
12:35it just shoves out of the way
12:37and the joint leaks
12:38under pressure.
12:39And do not use it
12:41on compression fittings
12:42nor flat washer joints
12:44where the washer makes the seal,
12:46not the tape.
12:48The eleventh is to never ignore
12:50a slow drain,
12:52for it is a warning
12:53and it always worsens.
12:55A sink, slow to empty,
12:58means soap and hair
12:59and grease and minerals
13:01are narrowing your pipe.
13:03And left alone,
13:05a slow drain
13:06becomes a full clog,
13:08a backup,
13:09even a burst
13:10from the pressure behind it.
13:12Catch it the moment you notice.
13:14Pull the stopper
13:15and clear the visible hair.
13:17Run a cheap little
13:18barbed plastic strip down
13:20to pull out the gunk
13:21and flush with very hot water.
13:23I have a whole video
13:25on clearing
13:26and preventing these
13:27the old way
13:28without the harsh chemicals,
13:30which only corrode your pipes
13:32and shove the clog deeper.
13:34Five minutes
13:35when you first notice
13:37saves a big bill later.
13:39The twelfth
13:40is to set a simple
13:42water leak alarm
13:43near each thing
13:44that uses water
13:45for a few dollars each.
13:47These little battery boxes
13:48sit on the floor
13:50by your water heater,
13:51washer,
13:51dishwasher,
13:53and under your sinks.
13:54And the moment
13:55water touches the sensor,
13:57they sound a loud alarm,
13:59catching a leak
14:00in its first seconds
14:01instead of its eighth hour.
14:03For most,
14:04catastrophic water damage
14:06happens not because
14:07the leak was great,
14:08but because it went
14:10unnoticed for hours
14:11while no one was home.
14:13Now the English
14:14make fancy ones
14:15that ring your telephone
14:16over the air,
14:17and those are theirs to use.
14:20But the plain battery
14:21alarm that simply sounds
14:23in the house
14:23is a cheap and sound thing,
14:26the best few dollars
14:27of protection you can buy.
14:30The thirteenth
14:31is to know the difference
14:32between plumber's putty
14:33and silicone,
14:35for using the wrong one
14:36makes leaks
14:37and rework.
14:39Plumber's putty
14:40is a soft clay
14:41that never fully hardens
14:43and never glues,
14:44used to seal around
14:46a drain or a sink strainer
14:48or a faucet base,
14:49filling the gap
14:50by being squeezed
14:51between two surfaces,
14:53and it lets you
14:54take the fixture
14:55off again later.
14:56Silicone is a permanent
14:58glue-like sealant
14:59that bonds
15:00and cures hard,
15:02the right thing
15:03for sealing around
15:04a tub spout
15:05or shower fixture.
15:06use putty
15:08where you may need
15:08to take a thing
15:09apart again,
15:11silicone
15:11where you want
15:12a permanent
15:12waterproof bond,
15:14and do not swap them,
15:16for silicone
15:17on a strainer
15:18you will never
15:19get off clean,
15:20and putty
15:21on a shower plate
15:22will not hold
15:23and water
15:24gets behind the wall.
15:26The fourteenth
15:27is one few folks
15:28ever hear of,
15:29to use a dielectric
15:31union
15:32when you join
15:33two different kinds
15:34of metal pipe,
15:35copper to galvanized
15:37steel especially.
15:38When two unlike metals
15:40touch with water
15:42flowing through,
15:43a slow electric reaction
15:45sets in,
15:46called galvanic corrosion,
15:48and one metal
15:49quietly eats the other
15:51away from the inside
15:52until the joint fails,
15:55all unseen
15:56till you get rusty water
15:58or a leak.
15:59A dielectric union
16:01is a special fitting
16:02with a plastic liner
16:04and rubber washer
16:05that keeps the two metals
16:06from ever touching,
16:08a few dollars each,
16:09and it is required
16:11by code
16:11in most places
16:12where copper meets steel.
16:15Ask at the hardware
16:16for the right one
16:17for your pipe.
16:19The fifteenth and last
16:21is to inspect
16:22and replace
16:23your toilet's wax ring
16:24when it fails,
16:26for it fails unseen
16:27and rots your floor.
16:29That thick wax ring
16:31sits between the bottom
16:33of the toilet
16:33and the flange
16:35in the floor
16:35and seals the drain
16:37so nothing leaks
16:38or smells.
16:40When it fails,
16:41water and sewer gas
16:42seep out slow
16:44beneath the toilet,
16:45hidden under the base,
16:47soaking into the subfloor
16:49and rotting the wood
16:50and rotting the wood
16:50for months or years
16:52before you ever know.
16:54Watch for the signs.
16:56A toilet that rocks
16:57even a little
16:58when you sit,
16:59a faint sewer smell
17:00at the base,
17:01or a stain on the floor
17:03or the ceiling below.
17:05A new wax ring
17:06is a few dollars.
17:08You unscrew the two bolts
17:09at the base,
17:10lift the toilet straight up,
17:13scrape off the old wax,
17:14press a new ring
17:16on the flange
17:17and set the toilet
17:18back down
17:19with firm,
17:20even pressure,
17:22snugging the bolts
17:23but never over-tightening
17:24or you crack the porcelain.
17:26A 30-minute job
17:28that saves your subfloor
17:30and your ceiling.
17:32And here is the bonus,
17:34the one the plumbers
17:35all swear by.
17:36Before you take
17:37any plumbing thing apart,
17:39make yourself a clear record
17:41of how it goes together first.
17:43The English snap a picture
17:45with their telephone,
17:46and that is theirs to do,
17:48but a man can do as well
17:50with a simple sketch on paper,
17:52or by laying out
17:54each piece in a row
17:55in the order he took it off,
17:57the washers and nuts
17:59and fittings
17:59all in their order.
18:01For the number one reason
18:03a home plumbing job
18:04goes wrong
18:05is that an hour later
18:07the body is staring
18:08at a handful of parts
18:10with no notion
18:11what goes where.
18:13Record it before
18:14you take it apart
18:15and you will put it
18:16back together right.
18:18Now let me say
18:19the small, honest word
18:21about who profits
18:22from your not knowing
18:24these 15.
18:25Not to rile you up,
18:27just so you see
18:28the shape of it.
18:29There is a great deal
18:30of money in a flooded house
18:32and a burst pipe
18:33and a rotted floor.
18:35The emergency calls,
18:37the repairs,
18:38the replaced floors
18:39and walls,
18:40running into the thousands,
18:42even the tens of thousands,
18:44and near every dollar of it
18:46could have been spared
18:47by a few minutes of tending
18:49and a few dollars of parts
18:51known and done ahead of time.
18:54I am not saying
18:56a plumber is a crook.
18:57A man earns his pay
18:59on honest work
19:00and a true emergency
19:01is worth his call.
19:03But a mountain
19:04of those ruinous bills
19:06need never have happened
19:07and came only
19:08because nobody told
19:09the homeowner
19:10the cheap,
19:11simple things
19:12that would have
19:13prevented them.
19:14I am not telling you
19:16a man schemed this.
19:18No one had to.
19:19It is worse
19:20than a conspiracy
19:21because it is a system
19:23nobody had to coordinate.
19:25It simply pays better
19:27to repair a flood
19:28than to teach a body
19:30the fifteen things
19:31that would have stopped it.
19:33The old people
19:34tended their own everything
19:36in small, steady ways,
19:38and so the great ruin
19:40seldom came upon them.
19:42So there are your fifteen,
19:44and they all come
19:46to one thing,
19:47tend the small
19:48to prevent the large.
19:51Know and work
19:53your main shut-off.
19:54Fix the running toilet
19:56and flush the water heater.
19:58Replace the old hoses
20:00and supply lines
20:01before they burst.
20:03Check your pressure
20:04and ease off
20:05over-tightening.
20:07Read your meter
20:08for hidden leaks.
20:10Insulate against the freeze.
20:13Wrap your tape right
20:14and know your putty
20:16from your silicone
20:17and your dielectric unions.
20:19Never ignore
20:21a slow drain.
20:23Set a leak alarm.
20:25Mind your wax ring.
20:27And always record a thing
20:29before you take it apart.
20:31A few minutes
20:33and a few dollars
20:34on each
20:34against thousands
20:36in ruin spared.
20:39Now I want to hear
20:40from you,
20:41and I ask honest
20:42because I learned
20:43the whole country
20:44from these comments.
20:46Tell me in the comments
20:47below
20:48which of these fifteen
20:49did you not know
20:51and have you ever
20:52been caught
20:52by a plumbing disaster
20:54that one of them
20:55would have spared you.
20:56And tell me your county
20:58and how old
20:59your house and pipes are,
21:01for old plumbing
21:02wants more of this
21:03tending than new,
21:04and I like to map it
21:06by where you all
21:07write from.
21:08I read every one.
21:11Next time,
21:12I want to show you
21:13more of the old
21:14plumbing fixes
21:14a body can do
21:15with his own two hands.
21:17The common repairs
21:19that folks pay dear
21:20to have done
21:21and yet could manage
21:22themselves
21:23with a little knowing.
21:24For there is
21:25great freedom
21:26and great saving
21:27in being able
21:28to mend
21:29your own house.
21:30A house is kept
21:32not by the great repair
21:33when a thing
21:34falls to ruin,
21:35but by the small,
21:37faithful tending
21:38that keeps it
21:39from ever falling
21:40at all.
21:41A few minutes
21:42given regular
21:43worth a fortune
21:44in repairs spared.
21:46The old people
21:48could call no one,
21:49so they learned
21:50to mind
21:51and mend
21:51their own,
21:52and there was
21:53a quiet freedom
21:54in that self-reliance
21:55we have all
21:56but lost.
21:58The house
21:59tended faithfully
22:00by the hands
22:00that live in it
22:01is the house
22:02that never floods
22:03nor rots
22:04nor fails.
22:06The people
22:07who built
22:08this country
22:08with their hands
22:09knew that
22:10and we are only
22:11just starting
22:12to remember it.