Your Warwick home’s bathroom and the kitchen have little in common. Mostly, they are only similar in that they are rooms with running water. But they are also alike in at least one other way: for some reason, people like to acquire bizarre and fantastic products for both rooms.

In the kitchen, this means weird, singularly-oriented gadgets like cherry pitters, banana peelers or containers made specifically for saving tomatoes. In the bathroom, things get a little weirder. Have a look at some of these weird, wacky, strange, and extravagant bathroom products.

For a little mood lighting in the shower, how about a heat-sensitive shower head with LED lighting? The lights change from blue to red depending on the temperature of the water, which is reportedly supposed to save you from jumping into a cold shower.

If that’s not flashy enough for you, how about icing out your commode? No, I don’t mean freezing your toilet. I mean getting it covered in sparkling stones. For about $75,000, you can do just that, with a toilet fully decked in 50,000 rocks worth of shimmer. Unfortunately, they’re not real diamonds, which makes it harder to justify the price tag.

Or maybe you just want your commode to have a little more character without the gaudiness of all that bling. For about $300, you can get a real aquarium – with real fish! – that mounts on the back of the toilet. It doesn’t use the same water supply as the tank, so the fish are fine in there.

There are plenty of ways to customize your bathroom, no matter what your taste, style or budget. You may as well get as wacky or expensive as you want with it – it’s your private room, after all.

There are many different types of bathroom fixtures for sinks, toilets, showers, and bathtubs that you can install in your Feltonhome. Some range from the basic “construction grade” types, used by builders on a budget to the more elaborate custom styles which are often preferred because of looks rather than function.

Choosing a common size or style mainly depends on a person’s own taste and use patterns. Let’s start with bathroom sinks.

There are several types of fixtures but not all will fit the existing sink bowl configuration. Take a look at the number of holes and their locations along the top rear rim of the bowl. Usually the bowl will come with a standard three-hole configuration for the water stem and hot and cold water faucets. But once in a while an oddball configuration may pop up so be aware that not every fixture will fit every bowl. The basic configurations include:

• Single hole faucets which have one arm controlling hot or cold water and one stem or spout for the water flow.
• Centered faucets where there is on stem centered between the hot and cold faucets, with all components included on one fixture.
• Spread faucets where each component is unattached and designed to fit into one of three holes in the sink.

There may be space restrictions in your home which would limit the size of the faucets, i.e. a medicine cabinet or window sill which may conflict with a tall spout.

Bathtubs and showers can also use a variety of different fixtures and have similar characteristics as sinks. There can be one fixture with one faucet controlling water flow and temperature. That same fixture might also control flow to the tub filler or to the shower head. This is very common and often the easiest to install and maintain. Other tub and shower fixtures include separate hot and cold water faucets and a separate button or lever to change the water flow from the tub filler to the shower head.

There generally would be no space restrictions on the size of tub and shower fixture, since all are designed to fit into a standard envelope.

Toilets are perhaps the most standard of all bathroom fixtures. The only real differences are in toilet bowl size – and that has become standard thanks to the National Energy Policy Act which mandates 1.6 gallon toilets. Older homes built before 1995 may have larger capacity bowls of 3.5 gallons. The “guts” of a toilet (flushing/water control) may vary and its cosmetic look may definitely vary, but in the end its function remains the same.

The only size restriction to consider may be the shape of the bowl and how it would fit along a wall or in a corner. And it might be a minor point but keep this in mind: not all toilet seats come in generic sizes, i.e. round or oblong.

When you go looking to buy a furnace, you may well be surprised by how many different elements go into making a good purchasing decision. There are simply so many different kinds of furnaces available now and they each are more appropriate for certain situations. That means that finding the one that’s right for you is less about finding the one best unit than it is about finding the one that is the best match for your particular circumstances.

This applies to the type of fuel the furnace uses, its energy efficiency, and whether it’s an upflow furnace or a downflow furnace. Energy efficiency and fuel types are probably things that you’re more or less familiar with. But what are we talking about when we classify a furnace as an upflow or downflow model?

Well, it’s pretty much what it sounds like. These terms refer to the direction the air flows as it is taken in and heated by the furnace. So in an upflow furnace, the cool air is taken in at the bottom, warmed, and then expelled at the top. A downflow furnace, on the other hand, takes in cool air at the top and expels heated air at the bottom.

While this is all very exciting, it may still not be obvious what impact this will have on your decision about what type of furnace to buy. The main thing you’ll have to think about when you’re deciding between an upflow and a downflow furnace is where the furnace will be placed in your house.

An upflow furnace is generally installed in the basement so that the heated air is directed towards the parts of the house you want cooled and so that the furnace can be appropriately vented outside of the house. On the other hand, a downflow furnace would be installed in your attic for the same reasons.

So where you want to have the furnace installed is probably the biggest thing to take into account as you’re comparing these two types of equipment. Of course, whether you pick an upflow or a downflow furnace, you’ll still have to select the appropriate AFUE, size and fuel source to best meet your needs. But making the choice between upflow and downflow can at least make it easier to narrow down your options.

This guide is from Boulden’s One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning, our partner company. They provide heating and air conditioning installation, maintenance, and repair to the greater Wilmington and Dover area. If you are interested in having a new furnace installed in your home, contact them today.

Because it looks something like a dresser combined with a kitchen counter, you may think of your Kennett Squarehome’s bathroom vanity as being a piece of furniture, and therefore that it is simple to replace. Well, there’s good news and bad news there.

The bad news is that because of the sinks and pipes involved, your vanity is part of your plumbing system, so it’s a little trickier than getting a new sofa.

The good news is that it is still something you can do on your own – or at least with a friend – in a few hours or so. After you have measured the space and purchased the new vanity, here is how you can go about replacing the old one:

1. Shut off the water supply. This is always the first step when undertaking any sort of plumbing work. Put a bucket beneath the sink to catch any water that drips from the supply lines after you disconnect them.
2. Using a putty or utility knife, loosen the caulk that is sealing the countertop. Gently remove the countertop.
3. Detach the vanity from the wall. Most vanity units are screwed in place to the wall, so just spot and remove all the screws.
4. Mark the studs in preparation for positioning the new vanity. Hint: the old one was already drilled into the studs, if it was done properly.
5. Put the new vanity in place, making sure it is flush to the wall.
6. Attach the new vanity to the wall, taking care to screw into the wall studs that you marked in step #4.
7. Put a bead of caulk along the top of the vanity base to hold the countertop in place. Carefully set in the new countertop.
8. Reconnect the plumbing that you disconnected as part of step #1.
9. Put down a thin bead of caulk along the edges of the countertop below the lip. Smooth the caulk in place with a damp rag.

Now your new vanity is all set. Allow the caulk to dry before getting moisture near it, and don’t forget to turn the water supply back on! If you have any problems, talk to your Kennett Square plumber.

Water quality is an important issue for many Warwick homeowners. We all use water every day to bathe, cook, drink and clean. No one wants to worry about whether that water might be unhealthy for their family.

For those who aren’t fortunate enough to live in areas where the water supply is naturally clean or properly filtered before reaching their faucets, a water filter is an important and valued investment. It can mean water that not only tastes better, but is also free of potentially harmful contaminants.

But with so many kinds of water filers on the market, how are you to know which one is right? Let’s take a look at a few of the different types available.

One of the simplest solutions is a faucet-mounted water filter. The installation is simple, and most models allow for easy switching between filtered and unfiltered water. They are quite effective at removing most large contaminants. However, there are some drawbacks. These filters don’t work with some faucets and the cartridges need to be replaced, meaning an ongoing expense.

A countertop model sits alongside the existing tap and has its own tube for dispensing water. These are also fairly simple to install since they require no modification to any existing plumbing, and they work better for large quantities of water than faucet-mounted types do. Like faucet mounts, however, they also don’t work with all faucets.

Moving from the top of the sink to below it, you have under sink options. These also work well for filtering large volumes of water and have the added advantage of hiding out of sight. As a downside, they are more difficult to install than the previous two options, since the plumbing must be modified.

All three of these options are good solutions for a single sink, or you could get a few of them if you only need to filter water in some parts of you Warwick house. For a more extensive solution, consider a whole house filter. These attach to the main water line and filter all water that comes into the home. The cartridges last a long time and they remove dust and sediment well. However, installation needs to be done by a Warwick professional and these filters usually can’t handle other contaminants, like metals.

Depending on your filtration needs, one of these filters should work great for you and your family.

Every contractor has his tool chest, and a Harrington plumber is no different. To the novice eye, some of these tools may seem alien and complicated, but in fact the most common tools are quite simple to use. They are specialized to the job they perform, but they are all in all pretty simple.

Below are some descriptions of the most common plumbing tools and their uses, so you can build your own DIY plumbing toolkit.

When many people think of plumbing tools, they think of that big orange iron wrench that plumbers on TV and in cartoons always carry around. That is a pipe wrench, which is a powerful adjustable wrench specifically designed to loosen and tighten plumbing fixtures like pipes. (Hence the name.)

Perhaps the most common plumber tool that people already have on hand is the versatile plunger, which is a lifesaver for clearing up most simple clogs. For stubborn clogs, a pipe snake can come in handy. Essentially a snake is just a length of sturdy but flexible metal or plastic with a spring on the end for snaring clogs, like bundles of hair or debris.

For tighter spaces, there is a basin wrench, which is specially designed to loosen and tighten connections under sinks and basins. A pipe wrench usually cannot reach these spots, so a basin wrench is called for in these situations.

For the tricky nuts, or spots where neither a pipe wrench nor basin wrench will do, a pair of slip-joint pliers is a necessity for plumbers. These pliers are adjustable and have sturdy teeth for gripping hexagonal nuts, such as those attaching a toilet to the flange in your bathroom.

While a professional plumber will have a much more comprehensive selection available to him, these pieces make a good starting toolkit for tackling most common DIY plumbing repairs and other jobs around the house.

Generally speaking, if you have a plumbing need that can’t be met with these tools and your know-how, it’s probably time to call a Harrington plumber and avoid any mounting headaches or damage.

When it comes time to choose a new heating system for your home, there is a good chance your choices are limited. Most homes already have either forced air or radiant heat equipment installed so choosing something different would be costly and unnecessary. But, if you have a choice or are moving into a new home, here are some things to consider regarding the difference between furnaces and boilers.

What a Furnace Does

A furnace uses a fuel like gas, oil or electricity to heat a series of coils in the device. The furnace then uses a blower to push air across the heated coil and into an air handler where it can be distributed throughout your home. This is called a forced air system and requires a combination of ducts and filters to keep air moving smoothly and cleanly throughout your home.

If you have access to gas, a gas furnace with an AFUE of 90% or higher is one of the most efficient and cost effective ways to heat your home.

What a Boiler Does

A boiler is different in that it uses water as the heat carrying medium, not air. Boilers still need gas, oil or electricity to heat up the water in the system, though they often use less of it than a traditional furnace – depending on the age of the furnace and the boiler. After water is heated in the boiler, your radiant heating system carries the water to baseboard heaters or radiators throughout your home. This form of heat is preferred by many because it doesn’t require ductwork (which requires extra maintenance) or extra air filtering and it is more humidity friendly in a large home.

An overflowing toilet is a really unpleasant problem to have in your Chatham home, and one you will undoubtedly want to correct right away. Toilets are reliable in that they tend to last a long time and not act up much, but when yours does start to malfunction, you pay attention right away.

To start with, examine the root cause of the overflow problem. There are three major causes of overflow: a clogged or blocked drain that does not allow the toilet to flush properly, an improperly adjusted float that allows the tank to overfill and a blocked vent pipe that replaces the air in the pipe after each flush.

Each of these requires a different course of action, so let’s discuss each individually.

If the drain is blocked, you will probably know right away. For one, water will overflow from the toilet’s bowl rather than the tank. For another, there will probably be quite a mess. Treating this type of overflow problem is straightforward—remove the clog. For simple clogs, a plunger and some elbow grease will get it done. Another trick is to stick the open mouth of an empty two liter bottle into the drain and squeeze. The blast of air can knock the clog free.

If your toilet is clogging and overflowing frequently, however, the problem may not be with the drain or with anything you are doing. It may be that the vent pipe is clogged. A vent pipe moves external into the plumbing system to replace the air that is pumped out with each flush. When it is blocked, the toilet can’t flush properly, which can lead to overflowing. If you have trouble with frequent clogging, call a plumber to inspect the situation.

In both of those situations, the toilet bowl will overflow. Another possibility is that the tank overflows, which is a different kind of problem. This is often cause by the filler float being set too high, so the tank fills with too much water. You can fix this by simply adjusting the mechanism inside the tank that controls the level of the float.

Whether it’s one of these three, or something else entirely, when your toilet overflows, be sure to check it out and get it fixed right away.

If you’ve ever considered installing a water filtration system for your Georgetown home, you probably ran across water softening and wondered how this is different than normal filtration. The two are similar in that they improve the quality of your water, protecting both you and your home’s plumbing system. However, filtration and softening are two very different things and you may not need both of them.

Water Softening

Water softening is a process designed to minimize the impact of hard water on your home’s plumbing. Hard water occurs when certain minerals like iron and magnesium are present in high levels in your water supply. The problem occurs when those mineral settle on your fixtures and pipes, leaving behind a residue that builds over time and can block the pipes or ruin the fixtures.

Hard water isn’t generally dangerous to your health, but if it is bad enough, it can result in poor tasting water and will cost you money as it does an increasing volume of damage to the system. To fix the problem, you soften the water with a chemical treatment that keeps the minerals from settling on their way through. They simply go straight through the pipes and fixtures and no damage is done.

Water Filtration

Filtration on the other hand is designed to remove key contaminants from your water – things like sediment, bacteria, mold, nitrates, and arsenic – things that can actually cause harm to you and your family if not properly treated.

While water filtration is not the same as water softening, the two often go hand in hand. Not only does water softening have the potential to add unsafe levels of sodium to your water (which then needs to be removed through filtration), but usually when water is hard, there are other contaminants as well that can cause harm if left unchecked.

The only way to be truly sure of which problem you have and which solutions are best is to have a full test of your water supply done. This will help you determine which of the many water cleaning solutions on the market will be best for your home.

When you move into an existing home, there are many pieces of equipment that you may not want to keep. Some of them are just old and poor quality, while others cost you a lot of money and others still may be dangerous to you or your children. Before you settle into your space, make sure you have every one of your systems checked thoroughly for potential problems including inefficient heating, dangerous parts or environmentally unfriendly components.

Energy Cost

Number one on your list should be the cost of the energy needed to run your HVAC equipment. Furnaces and air conditioners in particular have become much more energy efficient in the last 10 years so older systems routinely cost much more money to operate than new ones. That doesn’t mean you should immediately rush out to replace your old furnace, but if it isn’t working properly or it’s costing you more money than you’d like, the cost benefit of a new system is often worth checking into.

Other things to check include your insulation, your air quality system, your ventilation system and anything used to heat or cool food in the kitchen – all of which may be less efficient than you might like.

Ozone Depleting Refrigerants

Older appliances like air conditioners may still use ozone depleting refrigerants that are no longer considered safe (or in some cases legal) for home use. If this is the case, not only does your system probably have a very low SEER rating, it likely isn’t good for the environment or your own health. So, have your system replaced as soon as possible to avoid potentially negative side effects.

Dangerous Equipment

Finally, there are those pieces of equipment that are dangerous. If you find that your furnace has rust around the edges, your gas lines are kinked, or you have a dangerously out of date heat pump in your backyard, it may be time for some replacements. In general, these systems will last for years longer than they are considered safe and while you probably cannot buy a house without a working and safe furnace and air conditioner, you should still have them inspected carefully and replaced as soon as possible if you suspect problems.

Good HVAC equipment is hard to come by – if your home has it already, you’re in luck, but if you happen to move into a place with poor quality materials and equipment, have it replaced as soon as possible. Your health and wallet will both benefit greatly.

This guest post was provided by Boulden’s One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning, our partner company that has been serving the Greater Wilmington & Dover, DE Area with top quality heating and air conditioning services for many years. Check out there website to learn more about how to upgrade your HVAC equipment.