Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling Over 60 Years
Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling Over 60 Years
A faucet dripping once per second wastes about 3,000 gallons a year, which on a typical Jefferson Parish water and sewer bill runs somewhere around 60 to 100 dollars annually. The number sounds small until you realize the same worn washer or cartridge that causes the drip is usually a 10 minute repair. A drip that has been running for a year has almost always cost more than the fix.
Use your water meter. Turn off every faucet, appliance and ice maker in the house, then go look at the meter and note the reading or watch the small triangular or star shaped leak indicator. Wait two hours without using any water and read it again. If the number moved or the indicator is spinning, water is going somewhere it should not be. That single test is the fastest way to tell a real leak from a high bill caused by usage.
Backflow testing verifies that the device protecting the public water supply from your property is still working. If you have an irrigation system, a fire line, a commercial kitchen, a boiler or most any commercial water connection, you almost certainly have a backflow preventer and it generally has to be tested every year by a certified tester. Testing takes under an hour and produces the certificate your water provider asks for. Check with your provider for the exact requirement on your address, since it varies by connection type.
Repeat backups usually mean the problem is in the sewer lateral outside the house, not the drain inside it. A great deal of property in Metairie and older New Orleans neighborhoods still runs on clay or cast iron laterals, and tree roots find the joints in clay pipe and grow into them. Cabling cuts the roots and buys months, then they grow back. A camera inspection tells you whether you are dealing with roots, a belly in the line, or a break, and that determines whether the fix is jetting, a spot repair or a lining.
A slab leak is a leak in the water line running underneath your concrete foundation. The signs are a hot spot on the floor, the sound of running water when everything is off, an unexplained jump in the water bill, or a section of floor that stays damp. Slab leaks are more common here than in most of the country because our soil settles and shifts, which stresses the pipe underneath. They do not get better on their own and the longer one runs the more it undermines the slab.
Repair it if it is under about eight years old and the failure is a part such as a thermostat, element or thermocouple. Replace it if it is past ten years, if the tank itself is leaking, or if you are seeing rusty hot water. A leaking tank cannot be repaired, only replaced, and a tank that lets go while nobody is home does far more damage than the heater cost.
A standard tank water heater lasts about 8 to 12 years, and a tankless unit often reaches 20. Our water and our humidity are not especially kind to tanks, so flushing the tank once a year and replacing the anode rod when it is spent genuinely extends the life. If yours is past 12 years and still working, it is running on borrowed time rather than good luck.
If it dropped everywhere at once, suspect the pressure regulator, a partially closed main valve, or a leak between the meter and the house. If it dropped at one fixture only, it is almost always an aerator or cartridge clogged with sediment. The quick test is to check whether both hot and cold are weak: cold only points at the supply side, hot only points at the water heater.
Often yes. Trenchless methods let a new line be pulled or a liner cured in place through the existing path, which means two small access pits instead of a trench across the lawn and driveway. Whether it is an option depends on what the camera shows: a line that is collapsed or badly out of alignment still needs to be dug. The camera inspection comes first either way.
Shut off the water. For a fixture, use the small valve underneath it. For anything bigger, use the main shutoff where the water enters the house or the valve at the meter. If water is anywhere near electrical outlets or a panel, cut power to that area at the breaker before you go near it. Then call. Knowing where your main shutoff is before you need it is the single most useful thing a homeowner can do.
The usual causes are a dirty filter or coil, low refrigerant from a leak, or a system that is simply undersized for the load. In our climate a unit that runs continuously on a July afternoon is not automatically broken, but one that runs all day and never satisfies the thermostat is. Start with the filter, then check whether the outdoor coil is packed with grass and dirt, because those two account for a surprising share of service calls.
Twice a year, and here that is not an upsell. Our cooling season is long and our humidity is punishing, so systems run more hours and accumulate more coil fouling and condensate problems than they do almost anywhere else. A spring visit before the heat and a fall visit before heating season catches drain line blockages, weak capacitors and refrigerant loss while they are still cheap.
Nearly always a blocked condensate drain line. Your system pulls a great deal of moisture out of the air here, and that water leaves through a drain line that grows algae and sludge until it stops flowing, at which point the pan overflows. It is a routine service item, but ignoring it means water in the ceiling below. If the line has already backed up more than once, the fix is clearing it properly and adding a safety switch rather than pouring bleach in it.
It needs a load calculation, not a rule of thumb. Square footage alone gets it wrong often enough to matter, because insulation, window area and orientation, ceiling height and duct condition all move the number. Oversizing is the more common mistake and it is worse than it sounds: an oversized unit cools fast, shuts off early, and never runs long enough to pull the humidity out, so the house feels cold and clammy at the same time.
Expect 10 to 15 years, toward the shorter end of that if the unit is near the coast or has been neglected. Salt air, standing humidity and long run hours all shorten equipment life in the Gulf South compared with national averages. Once a system is past 12 years and facing a compressor or coil repair, the repair is usually worth pricing against a replacement rather than assuming.
All three. Residential, commercial and industrial work have been part of the business since the beginning, and the commercial and industrial side is where the mechanical contracting, process piping, welding and sheet metal capability lives. The same company that repairs a house drain also builds and maintains plant piping systems.
Structural and process welding along with custom metal fabrication, in the shop or on site. That covers pipe spools, supports, platforms, guards, repairs to existing equipment and one off pieces that are not available off the shelf. Having fabrication in house means a mechanical job does not stall waiting on an outside shop.
Yes. Process piping, steam, chilled water, compressed air and gas systems are all part of the mechanical and piping scope, from design assistance and fabrication through installation and tie in. Industrial piping is a different discipline from residential plumbing and it is staffed that way.
Yes. Facility operation and maintenance agreements cover planned and reactive work across mechanical, plumbing and HVAC systems for commercial and institutional buildings. The point of a contract is that somebody already knows your building when something fails, rather than diagnosing it from scratch under pressure.
Metairie and the surrounding Jefferson and Orleans Parish communities, including Kenner, Harahan, River Ridge, Elmwood, Jefferson, New Orleans, Gretna, Marrero, Westwego and Terrytown. The shop is on Flamingo Street in Metairie.
Since 1964. The company was founded by Charley and Annie Traina and started out of the back room of the house Charley built in the early 1950s. It is still family owned and operated, and it now employs more than 50 people.
Yes. The company holds Louisiana Master Plumber license 499 along with the contractor licensing required for its mechanical, HVAC and general contracting work, and carries insurance for residential, commercial and industrial jobs. Ask for a current certificate for any commercial project and it will be provided.
Yes. Plumbing failures do not keep office hours, and burst lines and sewer backups get worse every hour they run. Emergency service is available outside normal weekday hours for exactly that reason.
Yes, free estimates are available on air conditioning, plumbing, welding, fabrication and sewer and drain work. An estimate on a repair sometimes requires diagnosis first, since nobody can price a hidden leak or a blocked lateral honestly without finding out what is actually wrong.
