Having the confidence in the water you’re consuming can be easy with our friends at Liberty Pure Solutions. Doug Workman brings simple advice for making sure your water is safe and clean and tells Nestor why there’s an increased need for plumbing services in spring, the importance of preventive maintenance, and the impact of water quality on pipes and appliances – not to mention everything that powers us.
Nestor Aparicio discusses the importance of clean water with Doug Workman from Liberty Pure Solutions. They talk about the increased need for plumbing services in spring, the importance of preventive maintenance, and the impact of water quality on pipes and appliances. Doug highlights the common issues of low pH water in Maryland, which can cause corrosion, and the benefits of using acid neutralizers. He also mentions the importance of regular maintenance for sump pumps and the availability of moisture sensors to detect leaks early. Nestor shares personal experiences with water emergencies and praises Liberty Pure Solutions for their quick and reliable service.
Doug Workman of Liberty Pure S…e your water is safe and clean
Sun, Apr 06, 2025 8:29PM • 22:00
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Water safety, Liberty Pure Solutions, plumbing issues, water maintenance, low pH, water filtration, emergency services, water quality, preventive maintenance, water contaminants, sump pumps, water testing, water softening, water emergencies, water treatment.
SPEAKERS
Doug Workman, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Doug, welcome home. We are W, N, S, T am 1570 tasks of Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. We have been taking the Maryland crabcake tour out on the road. We’re powered up by great sponsors around here, like my friend Doug Workman, who’s about to join us talk about some clean water and liberty pure but our friends at the Maryland lottery give me the magic eight ball tickets. This week’s a really special week. We’re going to be back at Costas for the first time since we lost Mr. Costas. I don’t even know how it’s going to go. I’m probably going to cry. I’ll admit it, I sent a bunch of pictures over to Pete nick the other day. It’s been a rough couple weeks over in the east side. I would implore all of you, I’ll be there all Friday afternoon, holding court, telling stories. I don’t I don’t even know what I’m going to do, but it’s, it’s unchartered waters when a 25 year, 28 year sponsor of ours, we lose someone like that. So we’re going to come over, we’re going to honor him, we’re going to watch baseball, we’re going to eat crab cakes. We’re going to do all the things, drink free beer, all the things that he wanted us to do. We’ll do that on Friday costs. Then we’re at Beaumont on the 17th. We are at Cooper’s north on the 23rd which is up by this guy, and we’re gonna be back down to Coco’s on the 30th. Doug workman is here. I wear my liberty, pure gear. Sometimes it’s a hat, sometimes it’s a shirt. Sometimes it’s just bailing me out. My Water Heater blows up. Sometimes it’s Hey, Doug, five years ago, I got like, I’m on a well, what the heck do I do? And septic this, and water that, and softening that, and all of this stuff. How are you Well, Happy. Happy spring is spring a busier season for plumbing and well, what do people think more about water when spring comes?
Doug Workman 01:32
Think people are watering their lawns more than getting ready to jump in it, in their pools?
Nestor Aparicio 01:38
Well, yeah, I mean, I look we talk whenever I get together with you, it’s not out of fear, it’s out of love. But I always talk about Flint, Michigan, and water and my water, and when I travel how icky water tastes. I was pretty good in Toronto last week. It wasn’t bad, but down in Florida, at Epcot, no bueno. And, you know, I’m there at Disney, and they’re talking about, they talk about water at Disney. And clearly, when you’re walking into Disney park, you got to get filtered water because you’re not drinking out of the spigot. Um, I wanted to talk to you this week about maintenance and about, listen, I’ve had a couple of plumbing issues. My God, it’s April, right? Like, you know this. I mean, you got the 5am call from me. Thankfully, I know you. I had a water heater, blow a thin event, and, I don’t know, and there’s a bucket, and I’m supposed to put the sediment. And there’s a lot of things that go on when you live out on the farm and you have a well water but I think more than anything, it’s just being able much like having a lawyer, you count on an accountant, you count on my, you know, my website, and my Jessica Vallis, who keeps me running, having a plumber, having a water guy or gal or company, I think’s really, really important, because the one thing I know we’re using every single day, whether I’m making coffee in the morning or tea, whether I’m showering, I’m using the water where I live every single day. And there’s going to come a point. And I said this to you, I’ve needed you a couple of times. The sink filled up, and I have long hair now. My wife’s blaming it on me. I’m blaming it on her. I’m like, You got long hair too, you know? But, but I think we’ve all had a plumbing issue, right? I mean, everybody, and we all drink water. So I would just say, from a basic perspective, having a plumber on call that’s not somebody you heard about on television or 800 this or out of town that I see your trucks once a week. I pass your trucks on 695, I’m just thinking like every single house needs somebody like you at some point, sooner or later.
Doug Workman 03:37
Yeah, the blessing is we have wonderful customers here in Maryland, and we do have about 27 trucks, I guess, now on the road. So you and they’re all look the same. So it looks like we have a million, I guess. But we service a lot of people. They have, sometimes their emergencies. Hopefully they’re not. We can do a lot of preventive maintenance with, like you mentioned, the filtration system in your houses and acid neutralizer and a softener and a filter, and is
Nestor Aparicio 04:05
that better for the pipes too? I mean, because I when you, I mean you and I have known each other a decade. I mean I Matt Stover interview, maybe more the decade I got stuff me wearing Super Bowl, maybe it’s 1516, seven. We’ve known each other a long time, but I didn’t need you until I needed well service, and I needed, you know, I came in and I looked at the pipes, and the pipes were this, and the pipes were that, and and then you said to me, Well, dude, there’s been green water rolling through those pipes. It’s eating away at your pipe. I mean, so this is a really, like, foundational problem, right? Like, if you have an older house, or you’re buying a house somewhere, and you say, all right, maybe I need well water something, but there’s a whole preventative part of the pipes. And I think about Drano when, literally, I’ve had a couple of stoppages just in the last couple of years, but maybe my hair. Maybe it’s the sediment, maybe it’s the old pipes. I know you’ve replaced some of my pipes, but not all of them, but I would think like bad water is just bad all the way through the system, and not just human and you become the filter, but the fact that it destroys equipment, right? Destroys pipes. Yeah,
Doug Workman 05:12
you have low pH water, which most people in Baltimore County and Harford County and good part of Cecil County, all have low pH, which is acidic water, so it eats up the pipes. In the traditional visualization on that as you see a blue green stain, or more bluish green copper corrosion. And to fix that, you use an acid neutralizer. But a lot of people are on city water, and they don’t realize that they have also have pipes that might be 4050, 100 years old, and those pipes also get thinner and thinner and thinner over time. So you do have a lot of maintenance issues where you’ll, you know, go into people’s houses and you see five or six rubber rubber mats mounted to the pipes to keep the pinholes down to a minimum. A lot of times people have their entire houses replumbed, but mostly things like outside hose bibs. Water heaters are very traditional maintenance issues, and they’re good to catch before they start leaking all over the basement. But they’re typically a water heater. It’s going to last you eight to 10 years, and your toilets are typically going to last you 20 or 30 years. They get clogged up. They get cracks in them. They leak the seal underneath, leaks. There’s a multitude of things that can go wrong, and that’s kind of our our specialties to be the neighborhood plumber that can help you out when you need us, but also do the preventive maintenance. But when you have that emergency, we’re there to be able to fix it for you quickly. Yeah, I gotta think
Nestor Aparicio 06:42
about all the places I live. You know, I lived over by East Point mall in a row house, and then I bought a row house on cane street in a block into the city. I lived in White Marsh in an apartment for a little while. Didn’t have to worry so much there. And then I had a house. Bought a brand new house. Everything in the house was brand new. I lived there five years. Nothing broke, right? And then you move into a place that’s 30 years old. Then you move into a place that’s 45 years old. Then you take the years of being 56 which is where I am now. And I think it’s a little different when how many snakes I’ve needed, how many clogs I’ve had, how many floods I’ve Oh, the floods I’ve had, you know, and then, you know, how many fans have to blow? And I’ve had the guy, my buddy, John boswick, stuck the thing in the wall and said, Matt, you got mold, you know? So I’ve had, man, I’ve lived through all of that. Isabelle flooded my place in White Marsh, in my beautiful I mean, I said I had no plumbing problem there. I’m an idiot. I had the most massive flood ever that got me out of there the movie downtown. So I’m thinking, like, water’s moved me around, right like, in a general sense. And the last couple of years I’ve had you, and I’m, you know, I’m blessed to have you. You know that 30 days ago, I had an explosion, and I had to 530 in the morning, you’re in Delaware, and I’m texting you, and you’re like, back and and I’m like, Whoa, here we go. And, um, but when you need somebody, you need somebody, this is where I want to talk maintenance with you today, and I see your trucks and stuff like that. And I’ll just ask anybody in the audience out there, all five or 10 of you, if you have a plumber, need a plumber got a clog, what you do? My wife goes to this to the market and get some Drano or whatever the try. She’s very green, and she’s trying to do the greenest thing she can do, to get the hair out of the drain before I call you and get a bill from you and whatnot, but having you and knowing you and saying something went wrong, literally in my house at 512, in the morning, and I’m in the dark and I’m hearing Squish, squash, the worst sound you can hear in the darkness, um, when people call in emergency services, and you get to know them that way, they’re Calling and they’re on fire and the water’s coming down. Um, it’s not your first rodeo. And I guess that’s my point on this now,
Doug Workman 08:47
and a lot of people preempt it with alarms. Lot of your alarm companies now sell moisture sensors. So if you have the traditional places that leak, the water heater, the water tank, the underneath the kitchen sink, all the areas that are most common for having leaks, they put a water sensors, or they call them water bugs, and they’ll set, set an alarm off before you actually have a mess. So a lot of people preventively maintenance that matched over actually was one of the first ones that had us design a system that would prevent any water leakage from causing a problem. So when he had a leak, it would set off a little audible alarm. Said, Hey, come pay attention to me. I’m leaking. So it does. There’s some devices that also help with that, but most commonly is the water heater underneath the kitchen sink and where the water comes in the house. And lot of people don’t know where to turn their water off, which is, you know, a lot of over the phone stuff the emergency. You might
Nestor Aparicio 09:42
know a guy like that, yeah, I’m late. You may have met a guy who at five in the morning when the water is going everywhere, well, turn the water off. I’m not Schneider dude. That’s why I have you. That’s why I need liberty, pure solutions. And Doug workman here, because I’m not like Matt Stover, who’s, you know, running you. Know, charities, and thinking about insurance and thinking about all of those things. Um, yeah. I mean, it really from the alarm thing. When I mentioned my flood in oh three, I lived in White Marsh. So if you picture where the boomy temple by King Avenue, when you everybody’s been past my home a million times that I lived at because I could see 95 between my land and N 95 it’s called White Marsh. It was built on a marsh, and it’s right behind the Boomi temple. It’s a beautiful community, and I was the first resident there in the late 90s. The storm happened in oh three, and I was in newlywed, but I was out on the west coast with the Ravens. It was a sump pump failure, right, like and it was a battery in this I don’t it’s 22 years ago, and it only cost me, like, 15 or 20 grand, that’s all and insurance and the mess and like all of that. So I mean, I’ve had hard, hard life lessons with water and problems Doug, you know. And I think if you live long enough, you will to some degree, but like, you need to have you. You need to have somebody like you when there’s an emergency, let alone making sure the water’s clean, which we covered last time. We’re always going to cover before, because that’s the boot in all of this is, don’t be a filter. Buy a filter. You know, everybody here needs clean water. We all need clean water.
Doug Workman 11:13
And you talked about sump pumps a lot of times. Some pumps have a backup. So there’s a main sump pump, battery backup. There’s even a mechanical backup that you that people use in the event of a flood. Unfortunately, the sump pumps, if they’re not maintained, they’re not checked annually to make sure everything’s working right. Batteries aren’t replaced when they need to be replaced, when you need them, when they’ll fail, so it’s very important to keep an eye on those and keep them maintained, at least on an annual basis. Keep an eye on and make sure the batteries stay good. Make sure everything still works, because things move over time.
Nestor Aparicio 11:46
Doug workman is here. He tries to educate us, and I try to entertain and inform and enlighten. Because, I mean, there’s air, there’s, you know, water, you know, there’s a few things that we’re going to use. I mean, the coffee I’m drinking here right now on my cup. Thank you. Zeke’s coffee just it’s the water that came through the system that that you bring in. You mentioned low pH. Everybody’s low pH, what high pH being? I, I’m trying to understand perfect pH. I think I learned about pH balance when I was washing my hair in the 70s with those suave commercials or whatever. But I, I I even see, you know, water that you that that is sold in the market in bottles, talking about pH and balance. Um, educate me a little bit on that.
Doug Workman 12:29
Perfect pH is somewhere between seven and eight for domestic, typical domestic use. Uh, boilers, they like to be a little bit higher towards the eight side. But a pH, a lower pH of six, five or six makes the water acidic, which will dissolve the pipes. A high pH of nine, nine and a half is actually also caustic, which is the other side of the pH scale, it’s also corrosive. So you want to keep it right in the seven to eight range. And typical rainwater, believe it or not, is 6.5 so they talk about acid rain. Rain is actually distilled water. It’s evaporated up and then it recondensates and comes down, just like a typical distiller. And that water is typically 6.5 so even perfect rain water should have a little bump of the pH up in order to make it effective for use, for bathing laundry, to work right with the soap products and to effectively keep your pipes clean and all that, and keep them from being corrosive. So with boiler water there, it’s very specific. You have to keep it very accurate. With domestic water, you just want to be between seven and eight so you don’t get pinholes in your water heater. You don’t get pinholes in your pipes and your soaps and other products work properly. So
Nestor Aparicio 13:45
if we have effectively frightened anyone or everyone here, and they just literally, they don’t want to be the jack wagon that meets you at 530 in the morning with a flood, right? Like, I mean, there is a point where, like, no one wants to make a bill, spend the bill, do a thing. But they can call you right now. If they don’t have a plumber, they don’t have a water filtration. It’s just, if they’re wondering if they’re how clean their water is, that’s coming from, I don’t know, back River, pretty boy, liberty, or liberty or or lock Raven, all the water, uh, feeders that we have here. Um, typically, what does that look like when someone comes out and they say, alright, I’m just going to turn the spigot on. What water are you drinking? Drinking thing out of the out of the refrigerator, pulling that water out. What do you find when you find my parents in Dundalk just drinking out of a normal spigot?
Doug Workman 14:37
Well, typically, the the esthetic things that you’re going to notice is hardness, as we mentioned, pH, color, odor, chlorine, smell, those type of things just that are going to affect our our visual and our smell senses. Taking a shower, it’s no fun to bathe in pool water, so a lot of times people want those things removed, and then we can test down using independent. Lab like Aqua lab USA, up in Freeland, they can test for bacteria, metals, pesticides, nitrates, anything that the consumers concerned about. And obviously the big buzzword in in city water right now is is PFAs. But actually, 90% of the wells in Harford County that we’ve tested are failing even for PFAs, and that’s very common in the municipal water as well. City Water is just loaded with certain contaminants that we know. Are there byproducts of chlorine. So if they’re not filtering at least the chlorine out which they can smell, then it’s very easy to test the water. We do a free visit for any new customer. Test the water for free, basically on our handheld test kits that we can do while we’re in the house, advise them on what they what they could do to make their water better, and then try to meet their their needs where their budget is. Makes it us a little bit different. We don’t have a bunch of sales people running around. We have plumbers that actually know plump water treatment and plumbing very well. So we’re able to keep our costs down because we’re not paying a bunch of commissions. But our customers usually the first time we meet them, we can do that at no charge. If they’re just wondering about the quality of their water and what can be done better. Obviously, if they need an emergency service call, that’s something different. They want to meet us sooner rather than later, if the water’s flowing down the walls. But we’ve, we’ve got the full boat to educate them one at a time. It’s really hard to get all the information out on the radio or TV that they could feel and see.
Nestor Aparicio 16:35
I think the first time that we did this, you literally came to my place, and I thought you were like a pool boy, right? You had your little shaker, shaker, right? You put the little drops in, right? And that way that it’s pretty much like the pool when we were checking the pH in the pool when I was a kid. What color does it turn and you add it, you smell it, and it’s fine. I would say for that, the thing that frightens me the most are these are floods, and knowing I have batteries and backups now that it’s happened a handful of times to me, having that annual maintenance and having somebody that’s a grown up, not me, a real Schneider, somebody from Liberty, pure solutions, to come over and make sure that everything’s functioning the way it should be functioning. Because, you know, I have, what, two bathrooms, three bathrooms, a couple of sinks, hose outside, just a myriad of different places that things can go wrong.
Doug Workman 17:31
Yeah, this is the time of year. Everybody turns their garden hoses back on, and they realize they left it on over the winter, and the insides are frozen and split so they have water leaking in the in the walls. So that’s another thing that’s very common. Call is, hey, I turned my hose on. Now, I got a flood in my basement, but I can’t tell where the water’s coming from. Oh boy, particularly the outside hose bib. So very common calls for that and something that we’re god,
Nestor Aparicio 17:56
that’s awful. I mean, that’s like, you get up, you get a water. Oh my god, you know, like, that’s no fun. That’s not the right way to meet you. I don’t think right.
Doug Workman 18:07
Well, it’s always wonder. I always appreciate being able to come in and be in the Savior. You know, that makes you look good. But no, we’d rather they didn’t have to have emergencies. They’re no fun. Well, you probably
Nestor Aparicio 18:17
look good, pretty good in the cape. Doug workman is been my friend for a long time. He’s at Liberty pure solutions, um, they make sure your water’s clean. I can’t think of anything if you’re out there and you’re thinking about like, things we all share and have in common. We all breathe the air and we all drink our water and needs to be clean, and I know that mine’s clean. We Yeah, you have a new jingle going on in the commercials. I’m have to learn how to sing the song and do all that stuff. And I do appreciate it. You know, maybe at some point we’ll find a ball game or something through all of this stuff, or a crab cake through all that. Tell everybody how to reach you and how people find you. And I know out on the website, my goodness, there’s a whole bunch of FAQs, and you do a little blog, and there’s a lot of education and science out there. Who wants to read about science, but you can if you want to go out to Liberty pure on the
Doug Workman 19:03
website, yeah, the easiest way to get a hold of us is the local phone number, which is 410-527-1024, and you can talk to Ben or Lisa or somebody in the office, and they’ll get you right on the schedule if you have an emergency, if you just want a free visit to talk about what your Water quality is, or what the lack of water quality is, either way, give us a call and schedule a a free visit to come by and do water tests or get your water tested by Aqua labs up in Freeland, they charge, obviously, for testing. We don’t, because they’re certified and we’re not, but for the actual test part. So anytime one, 800 clean water is easy number to remember, but that sounds like we’re a big national company, but we’re, we’re right here in Phoenix, and we also have an office in Del Mar, Delmarva, down in Willards, Maryland. But either number, you can get us at 410-527-1024, or liberty, pure,
Nestor Aparicio 19:58
com, true. Story. Four weeks ago, I was up to my ankles in water at 512 in the morning. I put out the APB at 521 I had an emergency person on the line, and we figured it all out, and we bailed. And sometime around, I don’t know, a little after 7am uh, truck pulled up, and the guys with the Capes came out, the cape crusaders to to bail us out. Thankfully, I did a couple of fans, and it was more cement than it was, like wood or anything crazy. And I survived another trauma and another incident. And the older I get, the less freaked out I get by all of it because I know people like liberty, pure solutions, and my pal Doug workman. So make sure you find them. You can find them out on the front of Baltimore positive. You find the trucks driving around the beltway on the top side, and if you’re anywhere up in the north side by four corners, they’re always passing by somewhere on sweet air Road, making the water suite as well. Doug always good to have you on Happy spring time to you. We’ll stay in touch, and we’ll check in again soon. Take care Doug work, but keep my water clean so I have all of this and people like, Why do you have all this energy? Why have super special water? You know, I’m going to say this because we’re doing the crab cake tour over Costas. And I wrote up a bit of a eulogy, a bit of a tribute to Mr. Costas. And I thought this was kind of the story that I always felt special when I was a Costas, and it turns out he offered everybody free beer. And I feel that way, like about Liberty pure at five in the morning when I’m flooded out, like maybe they’re just treating me special. Nah, just if you got problems and you have emergency service, they’ll treat you special too. So make sure you know about them and keep them handy. Just in case you have a water incident. I am Nestor. We are, w n s t, AM, 1570 Towson, Baltimore. Luke and I are doing football. We’re doing baseball. We’re trying to figure out the Terps. It is springtime around here. We are, w n s t, AM, 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore. Positive. You.
