Quality Plumbing Blogs

Even with the best upkeep and careful cleaning, mold and mildew manage to find a way to target the damp areas of your home. Bathrooms and basements are always regular targets where fungi can turn into more than just an unsightly nuisance.

What’s the Difference Between Mold and Mildew

In order to spot a problem area in your home, you first need to know what it is you should be looking for. Mold is typically green, brown, or black, and can grow rather quickly, often having a fuzzy appearance. Mildew is normally gray or white in color and develops into thin layers often resembling powder. Both mold and mildew should be cleared away to prevent future growth that may potentially cause additional problems.

Are Mold and Mildew Dangerous?

Both can be dangerous depending on the type and amount of mold or mildew you encounter. Most healthy individuals would likely experience minor respiratory issues, while those who already have respiratory issues like asthma run the risk of serious complications.

Many people who have seasonal allergies also have a reaction caused by mold or mildew, experiencing sneezing, coughing, sore throat, runny nose, and more.

How to Find Mold and Mildew?

Be sure to thoroughly investigate all areas of your home and not just those that you would normally consider damp. Luckily, mold and mildew clean up are fairly easy. By using a little bit of elbow grease and diluted bleach, a soft-bristled scrub brush will usually do the trick.

Remember, although it’s common to find slight mold or mildew in damp areas (like a poorly ventilated shower), mold or mildew found in parts of your home that aren’t normally damp is often the sign of serious trouble. Whether it be a leaking pipe or a rainwater seepage, an unexpected plumbing issue is often the source of mold or mildew build-up.

If you’re finding mold or mildew caused by an underlying issue, contact Action Plumbing today to find out more about how we can help you get your problem resolved quickly. Don’t ignore the signs of a serious problem. Action Plumbing is ready to help 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!

 

In today’s fast-paced world, there’s a lot of things we take for granted … and toilet paper is definitely one of them (until you run out, of course). It’s hard to think of what we like to call “the time before toilet paper,” but never-the-less, humanity’s pre-toilet paper existence is something worth considering. So … let’s take a stroll down memory lane and talk about the history of TP.

Because humans are the only animals with the dexterity to wipe themselves, leaves and sticks were the choice cleaning tools of many. However, what was considered to be primitive toilet paper depended greatly on where in the world you lived, as people searched out the most effective cleaning methods at their immediate disposal.

In ancient Roman times, people used a sponge attached to a stick when they frequented public toilets. Average folk used a sponge soaked in salty water, while the rich used rosewater and wool.

In the Arab world and India, many relied on their left hand for cleaning, which has prompted many historians to believe this to be the reason why we shake with our right hand.

Those lucky enough to live in Hawaii often used coconut shells (ouch!), and people who followed Islamic tradition wiped with clods of earth or stones. They would then rinse themselves with water and dry off with linen.

The Middle Ages brought the invention of the bidet, which was used for rinsing by both men and women. The tool of choice for colonial Americans, however, was initially the corn cob until the 1700s ushered in the invention of the printing press which made old newspapers readily available. Newspaper eventually gave way to the Sears catalog in rural America.

Toilet paper as a product didn’t make its first appearance until 1880 but was originally sold as individual squares instead of rolls. The first toilet paper was extremely coarse and is very similar to the toilet paper still in use today by the British. Americans, on the other hand, prefer the much softer toilet paper which came onto the market in 1907.

It’s clear to see why toilet paper has become such an important staple of our daily lives, and who knows what kind of toilet paper we’ll be using hundreds of years from now! One thing is for certain … toilet paper has come a very long, long way.

As if life in space isn’t hard enough, using the bathroom in a weightless environment is no walk in the park. Due to the lack of gravity, astronauts obviously can’t use water, which makes the tasks we take for granted here on earth that much more daunting.

In the beginning, astronauts typically wore diapers, as their time in space was only a short one. But as space travel advanced, there was an obvious need for an improvement with astronauts quickly became more and more disgruntled.

Luckily, some very smart scientists (Howard Wolowitz, anyone?) came up with the perfect solution involving a vacuum to make sure anything that goes into the toilet doesn’t come back out again. The new-fangled space toilet works differently depending on whether you’re making a number one or a number two.

For example, the waste is sucked away in a hose after urination. However, the toilet is used much the same way as a regular toilet when defecating, requiring the astronaut to pull a lever to have the waste sucked away by the vacuum.

This is a drastic improvement on how the process worked previously, resulting in happier astronauts who no longer need to don diapers or defecate in a bag, except during take-off and re-entry. During these times, the astronauts wear pressurized suits which still require the astronaut to use a diaper.

The entire process of defecation is a bit different when using toilets in space, and pushing alone often doesn’t get the job done. Even with a considerable amount of toilet training, astronauts still may need to chase their floating waste around the ship in order to collect it. But it’s clear to see that although space shuttle toilets are still tricky to use, they are a considerably better alternative than wearing a diaper 24/7.

Thankfully, the plumbing issues we face on earth are slightly less complicated, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t rely on an expert if you’re experiencing a problem. Contact Action Plumbing today for out-of-this-world plumbing services.