When is the last time you sat down and thought about how your home’s plumbing system works? Chances are, it’s been a long time since you’ve done it—if you’ve ever done it at all.

You should take the time to learn about your home’s plumbing basics. Your plumbing system plays a very important part in your home, so you should have some understanding of how plumbing works.

You don’t need to know all the ins and outs of your house plumbing basics. There are more than 120,000 plumbing businesses you can call on when your home’s plumbing system needs to be serviced.

At the very least, you should ask, “How does plumbing work?”, and attempt to answer it. Here is a breakdown of the plumbing basics that you need to know.

Water Supply Lines Welcome Fresh Water Into Your Home

When you turn on a sink or draw a bath in your home, you see fresh water appear before your eyes. But if you don’t understand plumbing basics, you don’t have any idea how it actually got there.

Fresh water enters your home through a water main, which is the main line that’s used to take water from your municipal water supply system for the purposes of using it in your home. From there, it travels into and throughout your home through water supply lines.

When most people think about house plumbing, they automatically think about the wastewater lines that are used to carry water away from a house. But long before that happens, it’s the water supply lines that do the heavy lifting when it comes to welcoming fresh water into a home so that you can use it.

Your Water Heater Heats Fresh Water as Necessary

Once clean water enters your home through your water main and your water supply lines, it’ll often make a pit stop at your home’s hot water heater. Your water heater is designed to heat some water up so that you can take hot showers, put hot water into a pot to cook with it, and more.

Not all the water that comes into your home through your water main needs to pass through your water heater and get warmed up. But at least some of it will end up there so that you don’t have to wait around for an extended period of time for water to heat up when you need it.

Fresh Water Is Delivered to Your Sinks, Toilets, and More by Your Supply Lines

The water supply lines that are a part of your plumbing system are in place to welcome water into your home. But they’re also in charge are distributing this water throughout your house once it comes inside.

Every single plumbing fixture that you have in your home has a water supply line hooked up to it. This includes:

• Sinks
• Showers
• Bathtubs
• Toilets
• Washing machines

If you ever experience any issues with your home’s water supply lines, it could make it difficult, if not impossible, for you to use these kinds of plumbing fixtures. Maintaining water supply lines is one of the many good plumbing tips for homeowners.

Your Drain-Waste-Vent System Removes Wasterwater From Your Home

Water supply lines are responsible for distributing the water that enters your home throughout it. But what happens to that water once it’s been used in a sink, shower, bathtub, toilet, or washing machine? How does plumbing work in a house then?

Well, once you’ve used water for one reason or another, it’ll then flow down a drain and enter what’s called the drain-waste-vent system.

This system is, of course, designed to take wastewater and remove it from your home. But it’s also set up to vent any sewage gases from your plumbing system so that they aren’t able to build up. Additionally, it works to keep your water pressure consistent at all times.

The drain-waste-vent system is the part of a plumbing system that usually presents the most problems. Clogged drains, for example, are one of the most common plumbing issues, and they’re always found in the drain-waste-vent portion of a plumbing system.

Your Sewer Line or Your Septic Tank Line Finishes Wastewater Off

After any wastewater created in your home passes through your drain-waste-vent system, it’ll find itself either in your sewer line or in a line leading out to your septic tank. Either way, this is exactly where it needs to end up to move away from your home.

A sewer line will carry wastewater out to the main public sewer system so that you don’t have to worry about it anymore. A septic tank line, meanwhile, will carry wastewater to your home’s septic tank where it will be treated and then moved out to a series of underground drain field lines.

It’s worth noting that you’re not out of the woods yet when wastewater reaches these lines. Both sewer lines and septic tank lines can experience problems that you’ll need to deal with if they rear their ugly heads.

But as long as you can get wastewater that far, it won’t usually present any big problems for your home anymore. Your plumbing system will have successfully introduced water into your home and then sent it packing later on.

Understanding the Plumbing Basics Gives You a New Appreciation for Your Plumbing System

You can’t see most of the plumbing pipes that run throughout your home. As a result, you probably don’t spend too much time thinking about how plumbing works.

But by getting a good grasp of the plumbing basics, you can gain a brand-new appreciation for your plumbing system. It’s actually a fascinating system that plays an integral role in the overall well-being of your house.

Explore the house plumbing basics some more on your own to see how they work. Take a look at the articles on our blog to read informative articles that break plumbing systems down even further.