An Adelanto relief valve pipe dripping out the garage wall often means pressure is building behind a working valve. What we check, and why the line is never capped.

A kitchen drain that clogs again after being snaked usually has grease and hard-water scale lining the pipe. How we look first and clean it in Adelanto.

A higher water bill with no visible leak in an Adelanto home starts with a meter test you can do yourself. Then we narrow down where the water is going.

Some newer Adelanto tract homes have a softener loop stubbed into the garage wall. How to spot it, and what installing a softener looks like with or without one.

A wet patch in the yard, slowly falling pressure, a hiss at the shutoff. How a long service line fails in Adelanto’s sandy ground and how we decide the repair.

Desert-hard Barstow water scales a tankless heat exchanger from the inside. How flushing and an inline scale filter keep it running, and the signs it is already scaling.

Why the galvanized gas riser at the meter rusts first on older Barstow houses, what a pressure test proves about a leak, and what to do first if you smell gas.

Brown water first thing in the morning in an older Barstow house. How to tell whether a filter, a softener or the old galvanized pipes are the real answer.

A dripping two-handle shower valve in an old Barstow house can often be rebuilt. When the stems are enough, when the valve has to go, and what opening the wall involves.

Swapping a kitchen sink and faucet in an older Barstow house is decided under the cabinet: the shutoff stops, galvanized stub-outs, the trap and the drain arm.