Frequently Asked Questions

Unfortunately, standard water heaters can explode, and it’s mainly due to poor maintenance. Tankless units, on the other hand, can’t explode in the same way as their tank-style counterparts as they don’t operate with a tank of water. In rare cases, tankless water heaters have exploded and caught fire when they were installed with defective pressure switches. Generally, setting up a regular maintenance schedule with a licensed plumbing expert is the best way to ensure your water heater is in proper working condition.

If you have a storage-tank water heater that supplies about 8 gallons per minute (GPM) of hot water, a single tankless unit that supplies 5GPM may not be sufficient to meet your hot water needs. When deciding how many water heaters you need, seek expert advice and consider the following factors.

• Peak demand
• Home size
• Supply distance

Need expert advice about whether your Vancouver, Portland, and Salem home needs one or two water heaters? Contact us today at Henco Plumbing Services!

Drains typically comprise the wastewater system that’s mostly in your house. These include everything from your sinks to the sewer line. So, drain cleaning will usually involve removing clogs of what you send down the sinks. A single drain clog is usually a simple fix. When multiple drains are running slow or clogged, you likely have a problem with the sewer. The sewer line is the part of your water system that takes all the wastewater from the drains and sends it into the common sewer line that your city treats. Sewers are larger than drains, so sewer cleaning is typically more involving.

More often than not, the property owner and not the city is responsible for sewer line repairs running from the house to the public main in the street. This is often the case even when damage to the pipe is outside your property line – referred to as the sewer lateral. Sewer laterals connect your home to the main sewer line in the street, and they’re usually the homeowner’s responsibility. The public sewer main, on the other hand, is the city or municipality’s responsibility. Be sure to contact your local sewer department. You also want to check your homeowner’s insurance to establish if it covers the cost of repairing damaged sewer lines.