LESLIE: Pam in Missouri is dealing with some mysterious water noises. Tell us what’s going on at your money pit.
PAM: When I run water down the kitchen sink and after I stop running the water, that kitchen sink gurgles.
TOM: Well, your problem is very simple: you have to stop running water and flushing toilets.
PAM: Can’t do that.
LESLIE: Stop using the plumbing.
TOM: Alright, look, what’s going on here is your plumbing system is starved for air; you don’t have enough ventilation. And you know when you look at a house from the outside and you see the plumbing pipes sticking up through the roof?
PAM: Right.
TOM: Those are vent pipes. And what they do is they let air into the system so that when the water runs out, it’s replaced by air without gurgling. When your plumbing can’t get enough air, it gurgles like that.
And the solution here is going to be figuring out what’s wrong with the existing plumbing-ventilation system. You may have a blockage somewhere that’s causing this. There are ways to add additional vents if necessary but you’ve got to get to the bottom of it, first, and figure out why it’s blocked.
How old is your house?
PAM: It’s 14 years old.
TOM: Has it always been this way?
PAM: I don’t think it has always been that way. It seems like the more that we use – when I’m home on a weekend and use it a lot, it gurgles more.
TOM: I think you have to have a plumber take a look at that, because you don’t have enough air getting into the system.
PAM: OK.
TOM: Something is wrong with the venting and you may need to open that drainway’s vent pipe up somewhere else to get some more air in there.
Pam, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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