Saving money with DIY plumbing

As I got ready to write this post I went back to my portfolio on Houzz to see if I had any bathrooms posted there. Sure enough:

by Paul Anater -

I'm a one-time kitchen and bath designer and although I don't ply that trade as a profession any more, my years in those particular trenches left me with an unshakeable sense of what I can and cannot do when it comes to working on my house. Iworked on many, many bathrooms over the years and three years ago I designed and managed the renovations of two baths in the home I share with my partner Frank.

I'm pretty handy and I did do some of the tile work in the master bath and I hooked up the new faucets in the hall bath. I'm capable of more than that of course, but I know that there's a profound difference between my swapping out a P trap under a lavatory sink and what would surely be a ruinous attempt of my trying to re-route water supply lines for a shower. I have a strong sense of my skill level and I wouldn't hesitate to swap out a shower fixture or a toilet. By the same toekn, I would never dream of trying anything having to do with rough plumbing.

Rough plumbing pretty much means plumbing behind the walls and fixtures are any part of a bathroom you can see.

I see the same programming on HGTV and DIY that every body else sees and a lot of those shows spread a message that with the right "can do" attitude anybody can tackle any household project. That's simply not true and as I say all the time, plumbing is a profession for a reason.

What just about anybody can do is make cosmetic changes and keep up with maintenance tasks. Painting a bathroom is a simple cosmetic change that just about anybody can take on. Changing out things like towel bars are relatively easy to take on too.

You really don't need to hire someone to do routine maintenance either. If your toilet's running all the time you just need to change the flap valve and provided you follow the instructions, you can complete that without the help of a plumber and save at least $150.

Clogged drains are another maintenance task that you shouldn't need to call a plumber over. I'm a brand ambassador for Roto-Rooter and their line of home plumbing products. Shower drains get clogged with hair and soap scum and when that happens, they slow down. If you're experiencing a slow drain, get some Roto-Rooter Gel Clog Remover or Hair Clog Remover and try that first before you call a plumber.

Follow the instructions on the bottle and the odds are pretty good that you'll fix your problem and save a bundle at the same time. I like these Roto-Rooter products more than the other brands that are out there. Roto-Rooter products are more concentrated and they just work better. Roto-Rooter products are readily available at retailers you already patronize, so give them a try.

Mean Green keeps my patio clean

Excuse the bad rhyme in the headline but sometimes I can't help myself.

This is my patio as it looked a couple of days ago.

It's a beautiful space and Frank and I are fortunate that the previous owners of our home put such a premium on outdoor living. In warmer months, our patio serves as a dining room, a kitchen and a living room and we spend as much time keeping it looking good as we do enjoying out time out there.

Since we live in Pennsylvania, we usually get full use of that outdoor space for less than six months out of the year. During the cold months, that patio becoes almost an afterthought. My birdfeeders are out there and other than keeping the snow away from the patio doors, it's the birds who spend the most time out there.

When the weather starts to turn at the end of April, cleaning up that patio becomes my job. Typically, that clean up is an onerous task that involves a pressure washer, buckets of soapy water, hand and deck brushes and a lot of cursing on my part. Of all the spring clean up projects that have to happen, getting the patio into shape is my least favorite.

This year however, I tried something different.

As I've mentioned earlier, I'm a brand ambassador for Mean Green and Mean Green Super Strength made my least-favorite task a lot less onerous.

I added Mean Green Super Strength directly to the reservoir of the hose end sprayer I normally use to apply liquid fertilizer to my plantings and it had the effect of spraying this amazing cleaning product with just the right amount of pressure to clear away an entire winter's grime without me having to use a brush or dust off my pressure washer.

All I did was spray everything down with my Mean Green Super Strength solution, let it sit for about five minutes and then spray everything off with clean water. Mean Green is biodegradeable so I didn't have to worry about what the runoff was going to do to my flower beds. It was a real breakthrough moment for me.

As the summer progresses, I'll use more Mean Green Super Strength out there to keep our outdoor space ship shape.

You really ought to give this stuff a try. The Mean Green line of products including Mean Green Super Strength are available at Lowe's. So what are you waiting for?