While you may not want to give them much thought, emergencies do happen from time to time. Whether it’s as simple as a power outage or a hurricane ripping through the area, it’s important to have a plan ready so that you can respond quickly to the situation. One key feature of many different emergency plans is plumbing.
The Role of Plumbing in Health and Well-Being
Plumbing is essential for delivering clean water and removing wastewater from our living area. Plumbing is often considered one of the cornerstones of our modern-day community as access to clean water is a critical part of overall public safety. There are many different ways that plumbing will affect your overall health and well-being.
Clean Water
The most obvious way plumbing affects your health and well-being is by delivering clean water. People need water to drink, bath, and clean their dishes and clothes. Your hygiene and safety are at risk without access to adequate plumbing. Waterborne diseases were the most common type of disease to spread before household plumbing became a modern-day convenience. Whenever disaster strikes, it’s important to have access to plumbing to maintain your health and hygiene.
Removing Waste
Plumbing is more than just delivering clean water for us to use. It’s also responsible for removing unwanted waste from our living spaces. This waste management system helps to protect against widespread viruses and odors that would otherwise affect our overall well-being and quality of life. It’s essential to have plumbing and sewer systems to dispose of human waste.
Sterile Medical Care
To create sterile hospital environments to ensure optimal patient care, there needs to be reliable plumbing at the facility. This will provide water for safely cleaning medical tools and machines. Plumbing helps to maintain hygiene standards, protect patient safety, and prevent the spread of infection in patients and medical staff alike. This idea carries to your home as well. If you or a family member have a wound that needs regular cleaning and care, clean water is required.
Food Safety
When it comes to staying nourished, food safety starts with having clean water. Clean water is necessary for food preparation, cooking, and cleaning up after the meal. By safely being able to prepare your food, you can reduce the risk of contamination and potential foodborne illnesses. Having temperature-controlled plumbing fixtures is also a necessity to prevent spoilage and bacteria growth while being able to store perishable foods.
Emergency Responses
Having a plumbing infrastructure in place is absolutely imperative for emergency response workers to do their jobs. Whether it’s needing water to extinguish a house fire or supplying clean water to eye wash stations to reduce injuries, access to water is a must. Effective drainage systems are necessary for these emergency responses. For example, proper drainage will help to remove excess water to prevent further property damage or public health hazards.
Removing Flood Waters
When flood water can enter your home, it can be damaging on so many levels. From water damaging your belongings to producing an environment that encourages mold and mildew growth, being able to respond quickly to flood water is an absolute necessity to protect your home and your health. Having a sump pump system that works to remove flood waters quickly from your home can make all the difference when an emergency happens.
Your plumbing can also be used to distribute natural gas to the various appliances throughout your home. A well-functioning gas line is imperative to operating items like your heating system, water heater, and stove if they are not electric. Having access to heat and hot water during an emergency is crucial to maintaining your health and protecting your home.
Tips on Ensuring Clean Water During an Emergency
As part of your emergency preparedness plan, ensure that you have access to clean water. One of the most common emergencies that people experience is a power outage. If you live in an area where your home relies on a well to provide clean water, a power outage will stop your well pump from functioning. It’s highly advisable to consider investing in a backup battery for your pump. This will ensure that your well pump can still operate and you’ll have clean drinking water even if the power goes out.
Access to hot water for things like bathing and cleaning is also necessary. Unfortunately, when the power goes out, your water heater is unable to function. A great way to ensure that you can still get hot water if your power goes out is to invest in a backup battery for your water heater. These are available typically with tankless water heaters as they use much less energy than the traditional tank-style water heater.
Another option to ensure that you can power items like well pumps and water heaters during an emergency is a generator. A whole-home generator can run on one of a few different types of fuels like propane, gasoline, diesel, and natural gas. This generator can provide power for all of your appliances so that you can continue to get fresh hot water during an emergency.
The Importance of Plumbing Maintenance For Emergency Preparedness
When an emergency strikes, you want to ensure that you have access to clean hot water, adequate wastewater disposal, and natural gas. Experiencing an issue with any one of these systems during an emergency can make things worse. To help prevent this unfortunate situation from happening, it’s important to get regular maintenance done on all of your plumbing components.
Having your water heater inspected and flushed out every year can help to ensure that it stays in good working condition. If you live in a region with hard water and don’t use a water softener, consider increasing maintenance service to twice a year to get rid of excess sediment buildup.
It’s also a good idea to have your drains cleared out every six months to a year. Using a service like hydrojetting is a great way to help remove debris from inside your wastewater lines to prevent future clogs from happening. Getting an annual inspection of your water lines can also be advantageous to catch issues before they turn into large problems.
If you rely on natural gas to power one or more of your appliances, then consider having a professional inspect your gas lines on an annual basis. This will help to identify any leaks, loose connections, or even corrosion from becoming bigger issues. This will also go a long way in ensuring your utmost safety from experiencing a toxic gas leak while an emergency is taking place.
Reliable Plumbing Repair Service
Huft Home Services offers reliable plumbing repair for the Sacramento, CA region. We can also assist with all your heating, air conditioning, water filtration, electrical, plumbing, home electrification, indoor air quality, home performance inspection, and insulation needs. Book an appointment by calling our friendly office staff today.
