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SourKraut posted:Yeah, but I’d rather drop the ceiling 3” than go through joists. There are rules about where and how big your holes through the joists can be. You don't want your holes within 2" of the top and bottom. Can't be larger than 1/3 of the joist depth. And a few others that are easy to find online. Your remodel will be a lot less janky if you have a finished space with 8' ceilings versus 7' 9".  Heck, BCI joists come with knock out holes precut. No problem putting holes in joists--just follow the rules. Don't let BeastMasterJ scare you from beam touching. If you are replumbing your place, think about going with a manifold system. The Viega blocks get a bunch of crap from everyone in our area until they work with them. If you can place your water distribution central enough/functionally with a manifold--go for it. You'll use more PEX tubing but have less crimps/points for failure. The thing that sells most plumbers new to home run plumbing is the rough-in/pressure test. Problems are isolated so fast it takes less than thirty minutes to fix the myriad of little issues that are inevitably discovered when the system is pressurized the first time.
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Dec 3, 2019 00:25
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H110Hawk posted:I have a tankless water heater with one of the input scale filter thingers on it: http://www.catalog.falskenwatersystems.com/Model-FtHT-20-RevFlo-G-98-GPM-FAL-FtHT-20-REVFLO-G.htm (That brand, I think that exact one.)   I called them today to verify which filter unit I had as the plumber didn't check the box for me and ordered a new filter. Is this as easy of a DIY job as I think it is? Is there anything else I should do the maintain my tankless water heater while I'm trying to generate huge emergency plumbing bills for myself?
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Dec 3, 2019 01:13
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Yeah, they're just that easy to change. Water off is plenty. A nice install will have a valve on each side to make changing the filter easy. If that it yours, you have this. Turn both off and go for it. But definitely always have spare o rings before you open it up.
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Dec 3, 2019 01:15
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Motronic posted:Yeah, they're just that easy to change. Water off is plenty. A nice install will have a valve on each side to make changing the filter easy. If that it yours, you have this. Turn both off and go for it. Yup, that is mine. According to their site I get a new o-ring and some silicone lube in the box. I will find out tomorrow! Thank you!
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Dec 3, 2019 01:46
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H110Hawk posted:Yup, that is mine. According to their site I get a new o-ring and some silicone lube in the box. I will find out tomorrow! Thank you! You're all set then. You even appear to have the correct lovely plastic wrench. (you shouldn't crank it back on....that is for removal.....hand tight should seal it fine with a good o-ring).
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Dec 3, 2019 01:49
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Motronic posted:You're all set then. You even appear to have the correct lovely plastic wrench. (you shouldn't crank it back on....that is for removal.....hand tight should seal it fine with a good o-ring). They asked me where I wanted to store it so I wouldn't lose it. Now it's just a battle against UV, which I assume I will find out the wrench has lost. I assume if I manage to do something wrong it will become immediately apparent when pressure is added.
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Dec 3, 2019 02:00
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wesleywillis posted:IIRC the deal with joists is that you drill as close to the middle as possible so you lose as little tensile and compressive strength as you can. The rule is the middle third. So for a standard 2x6 you can drill a maximum of a 2" hole in the center.
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Dec 3, 2019 02:09
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H110Hawk posted:They asked me where I wanted to store it so I wouldn't lose it. Now it's just a battle against UV, which I assume I will find out the wrench has lost. I assume if I manage to do something wrong it will become immediately apparent when pressure is added. Yeah, I have no idea about that. Having plumbing outside is super weird to me, a dweller of the great salted northeast.
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Dec 3, 2019 03:35
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Motronic posted:Yeah, I have no idea about that. Having plumbing outside is super weird to me, a dweller of the great salted northeast. So boy houses have the plumbing on the outside and girl houses have the plumbing on the inside. The inside plumbing models you have to be wary of frigidity, so make sure you have the frost free option for your sillcocks.
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Dec 3, 2019 05:03
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Motronic posted:Yeah, I have no idea about that. Having plumbing outside is super weird to me, a dweller of the great salted northeast. As a dweller of the frozen great lakes and Detroit, home of the copper thieves this is an odd sight for me too. That whole unit would be gone in 24 hours. You'd be left with nothing but a sad face and a flooded yard.
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Dec 3, 2019 23:49
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Beginning this evening, the water pressure coming from my kitchen sink faucet is very low. Every other sink in the house seems to be fine. I popped off the aerator and it still seemed lower than I would have expected. Should I be looking at the cartridge and/or faucet hose? Anything else? It's not cold here so nothing would be freezing.
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Dec 6, 2019 06:07
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Thufir posted:Beginning this evening, the water pressure coming from my kitchen sink faucet is very low. Every other sink in the house seems to be fine. I popped off the aerator and it still seemed lower than I would have expected. Should I be looking at the cartridge and/or faucet hose? Anything else? It's not cold here so nothing would be freezing. Yep, my next step (because it's easy) would be to look at the faucet hoses and shutoff valves. They can get clogged with plaque and junk like your arteries. If you have a spare hose, hook that to the shutoffs and see if the pressure shooting it into a bucket looks right. However, if the pressure is bad on both cold and hot, you probably have an issue with the cartridge.
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Dec 6, 2019 16:23
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Thufir posted:Beginning this evening, the water pressure coming from my kitchen sink faucet is very low. Every other sink in the house seems to be fine. I popped off the aerator and it still seemed lower than I would have expected. Should I be looking at the cartridge and/or faucet hose? Anything else? It's not cold here so nothing would be freezing. Do you have a faucet that has buttons to change from regular to sprayer mode? Do you have a button that you can push that actually stops flow? I have a faucet that does both and I had the same issue where my pressure dropped only in the kitchen sink. Turned out, one of the buttons was pushed in slightly and not opening all the way back up.
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Dec 7, 2019 15:50
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So I've spent today on plumbing. Replacing two faucets in the hall bathroom, which started yesterday and paused in order to get more parts from a real plumbing place when I noticed that the p-traps were connected to the drain line in the wall with a fernco: So I pulled that off to find copper. Copper that someone else has soldered copper inside of, probably for the original install. Whoever installed this just said fuckit and put on a fernco, which made it come out of the wall too far, making a really suboptimal p-trap configuration. Into the walls we go to desolder at the 90, add some more 1"1/4 copper and a proper threaded fitting.  Oh wait....look at the old shut off valve. Better replace all of those with quarter turns while I'm in here. And make up some decent-ish access panels. And do it all again on the sink to the left.  I hate plumbing. So I make sure I only have to do the job once. Next up is adding a provent AAV to the other bathroom, since once of its sinks is at the end of a run that feeds into where those sinks drain, which is where the stack is located. It runs too slow, even after cleaning, so it's just gonna end up continuing to clog. I didn't bother taking any pictures because I was pissed, but the tailpiece extension came off in my hand when I disassembled the trap on the worst of those two sinks. The inside of the plastic pipe is all gray. Those two thing put together tells me the previous owners have been dumping lye down these things for years to keep them going. I replaced the tailpiece, ran some lye down and it's decent for now. But I'm gonna have to pull the vanity, get behind the wall, pipe in 1 1/2" to the side and put on a vent. While I'm in there I guess I'll be replacing 4 more lovely valves with 1/4 turns since I'll have to sweat them off anyway to get the vanity out. I want the last 7 hours of my life back.
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Dec 7, 2019 23:33
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No. you don't ! it's Experience!© Nothing better than undoing prior work. Last weekend, I finally went at this one outlet in the attic that was (as my son recently told me) the Cursed Receptacle. Everything plugged into it died; eventually, the thing scorched, and my son stopped using it. I opened it to find fabric weave on one side, and Romex coming in on the other. I tested for line, and found 110V...coming in on both. I pulled & stubbed the fabric weave into a box, found everything else in the house was good, and declared victory..
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Dec 8, 2019 04:08
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B-Nasty posted:Yep, my next step (because it's easy) would be to look at the faucet hoses and shutoff valves. They can get clogged with plaque and junk like your arteries. If you have a spare hose, hook that to the shutoffs and see if the pressure shooting it into a bucket looks right.
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Dec 8, 2019 20:35
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I wanted to mount some outdoor faucets off of my shed. The interior is exposed and it's slightly off the ground, so I have pretty good access for this. All my plumbing work to this point at this level has been a lot of exterior PVC line running; I can generally got the pipes right up to under where I want the faucets just fine. I want to know what I should be doing as a Good Big Boy Person for the interior plumbing, and what to do for punching back out for the faucets. I'm guessing there are some mounts I should use to make this more robust, and I'm wondering how to correctly go from the PVC pipes to brass exterior faucets. I'm also curious about what I should do after drilling through the floor studs in particular. I heard something about adding a plate across the stud so it maintains its strength. Second thing, while finding the water main to start the line, I discovered the previous owners took advantage of the trenching done for the line to plant a line of crepe myrtles right on top of the existing water main. We were betting that they had planted the crepe myrtles in rows beside the main, but one of the rows is in fact literally right on top of the main. We have an excavator rented right now with which we intended to rip out the trunks; it seems to have what it takes, but now we're kind of scared about doing this. I'm thinking now that we can still tug on them a bit, but I'll have to hang out by the bucket with some shears to snip at roots that are a little too cozy with the pipe as we yank whatever we can out of the ground. I'm asking if I really need to be worried. The water main is somewhere between 6" and 8" under ground. We're in Central Texas in a county jurisdiction, so I don't know how much anybody cared about code, and I'm not sure if it really even needed to go any deeper from experience.
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Dec 10, 2019 22:13
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Do you live somewhere it freezes? A yard hydrant may be a better choice.
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Dec 12, 2019 19:44
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kid sinister posted:Do you live somewhere it freezes? A yard hydrant may be a better choice. Something like that was my original idea, but my wife wants to water stuff near the Tuff Shed, and she has some notion some day of finishing off the interior and having plumbing run through it--her idea, not mine. We're in Central Texas where we'll go below freezing annually for a few hours. Rarely, we'll sustain a 24-hour freeze. We mostly just have to cover the taps around the outside of the house. I'm intending the run the plumbing underground pretty much right up to these taps. However, they're not very deep, but neither is the water main itself. If I'm looking at a really long freeze for some reason, I'm thinking I could just hit the cutoff where I am going to tap into the main, and then open the faucets. I ran plumbing to my outdoor kitchen at a similar depth and haven't had to even go that far (yet).
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Dec 13, 2019 06:26
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OK, I woke up to a wet basement floor. I took out part of the wall in my upstairs shower and there is all this blue poo poo and connectors. Also there are two leaks. One is on the side of this blue plastic running down in the pic here. The other is further up inside the wall and appears to be coming out of the female connector push lock thing? That leak is very small, a couple drops per minute. I have never used this stuff before so I don't really know how to repair it. Those black rings look permanent. Can anyone give me some pointers, please?
The Dregs fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Dec 13, 2019 |
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Dec 13, 2019 15:25
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My kitchen faucet is leaking from the swivel base. I'm guessing that's a big oring? I'd just like to have the parts on hand when I take it apart.
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Dec 13, 2019 15:42
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Speaking of outdoor spigots, am I the only one who has trouble with those through the wall anti-siphon silcock valves? I'm dutiful about always turning them off on the inside and draining them fully every fall (I live in cold, cold New England), and yet they still seem to wear out fast? I have to replace them every 3-5 years, they always start leaking. Mr current one leaks bad enough that eventually it will fill the hose up tight.
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Dec 13, 2019 15:51
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Squashy Nipples posted:My kitchen faucet is leaking from the swivel base. I'm guessing that's a big oring? I'd just like to have the parts on hand when I take it apart. My own take is it doesn't matter that the base itself leaking water, but rather that water is getting into the base in the first place. The leak is probably further up. I had a detachable kitchen faucet that was leaking inside itself while I was using it. It turns out the head attaches to the hose inside with a basic threaded fitting, and the way I was using it had slowly loosened the connection. It was a simple act of twisting it back into place.
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Dec 13, 2019 17:30
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Squashy Nipples posted:I have to replace them every 3-5 years, they always start leaking. Mr current one leaks bad enough that eventually it will fill the hose up tight. Yeah, I'm not really a fan either. Mine always get issues with the thin membrane valve for the anti-siphon. Considering I drink out of my hose, I'm not really worried about a teaspoon of hose water possibly being siphoned back into my house supply. They're also expensive. The next outdoor spigot I do on my house will just be a standard hose bib valve with a nice ball valve w/ waste port in the basement to drain it for the winter.
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Dec 13, 2019 23:02
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Squashy Nipples posted:Speaking of outdoor spigots, am I the only one who has trouble with those through the wall anti-siphon silcock valves? I'm dutiful about always turning them off on the inside and draining them fully every fall (I live in cold, cold New England), and yet they still seem to wear out fast? You replace what? The seat washer? Don't hulk out when you tighten them down. The rubber will last longer. Check out the valve seat the next time you take the stem out. Make sure there isn't any crap in there that could keep it from making a good seal: old rubber bits, globs of solder, cracks...
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Dec 14, 2019 03:26
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Also, be sure the sillcock is pitched downwards, towards the exterior. If it's pitched up, water can stand in the unit & freeze.
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Dec 14, 2019 06:50
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:My own take is it doesn't matter that the base itself leaking water, but rather that water is getting into the base in the first place. The leak is probably further up. Sounds reasonable, thanks. I tried taking it apart last night, and was stymied by lack of access to the set screw. But it was late, and I was grumpy, I'll get it today. kid sinister posted:You replace what? The seat washer? Don't hulk out when you tighten them down. The rubber will last longer. Check out the valve seat the next time you take the stem out. Make sure there isn't any crap in there that could keep it from making a good seal: old rubber bits, globs of solder, cracks... I just replace the whole thing, ie. solder on a new one. Like the other guy said, it's internals that wear out. I can take it apart, clean it, lube it up with oring lube, and that usually buys me one more season... and then it just leaks again. PainterofCrap posted:Also, be sure the sillcock is pitched downwards, towards the exterior. If it's pitched up, water can stand in the unit & freeze. But of course! hands you a jar of Grey Poupon Since I do this, I technically don't have to winterize the valve at all, but since I have the internal ball valve shut off, I do anyway.
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Dec 14, 2019 15:53
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Squashy Nipples posted:I just replace the whole thing, ie. solder on a new one. Like the other guy said, it's internals that wear out. I can take it apart, clean it, lube it up with oring lube, and that usually buys me one more season... and then it just leaks again. The internals shouldn't "wear out". They're brass. It's the rubber that can just be replaced, unless you got frost damaging your sillcock every winter. Is this a regular sillcock or a frost free one? Vacuum breaker?
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Dec 14, 2019 18:29
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So yeah, the orings were worn, but the valve cartridge wasn't in great shape, either. I've never worked on a kitchen faucet before, but I have a Kohler, so it was pretty easy. I got the seal kit and the valve for $19 shipped Amazon Prime, can't really beat that. kid sinister posted:The internals shouldn't "wear out". They're brass. It's the rubber that can just be replaced, unless you got frost damaging your sillcock every winter. Is this a regular sillcock or a frost free one? Vacuum breaker? It's the kind that self drains? With a long tube to pass through an insulated wall? Anyway, this one is only 3 years old, I'll take it apart and have a look.
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Dec 16, 2019 15:40
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I'm looking to replace my toilets, looking at Menard's I'm noticing some variation in the size of the outlet hole in the floor. Is that correct, and if so how do I know what size outlet my existing toilets have so that I don't need things replumbed?
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Dec 17, 2019 00:12
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I am redoing the plumbing under my kitchen sink...replacing the fine-thread brass supply with PEX and also redoing the current drain situation, which is currently a rubber coupling loosely connected to some sort of metal drain flange....  First, how do I deal with the drain? Can anyone tell what material that pipe is? Or the tee? The pipe is definitely metal but doesn't seem quite like the cast iron waste pipes in other parts of the house, but I think the tee might be cast iron. It looks like some sort of flange is threaded into the tee. Am I safe trying to unscrew it and replace it with something else that will adapt correctly into PVC for the p-trap? Or am I at risk of cracking the T-fitting there and having an angry wife and an expensive emergency plumbing repair? Second, I am going to rip out those brass supply lines and have new PEX come through the floor. I need to hook up the sink and also the dishwasher. Is there a "standard" way to handle the dishwasher+sink setup? Should I have two cold PEX supplies coming up from the floor, or just one and use some sort of T? I am going to install quarter turn stop valves, should I have one each for the sink and dishwasher, or have a T after the stop valve?
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Dec 17, 2019 02:20
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Ugh the spout in my shower is doing a show drip. Usually turning the water back on and off fixes it, but not always. It was just installed a few months ago. This seems like a cartridge issue, I’ve already emailed delta about it since they have lifetime warranties. Anyone else run into an issue like this so soon? Spring Heeled Jack fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Dec 17, 2019 |
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Dec 17, 2019 03:46
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Take out the cartridge. I bet a little glob of solder or some other crap got stuck in the cartridge. It probably just needs to be cleaned out.
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Dec 17, 2019 09:04
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Spring Heeled Jack posted:Ugh the spout in my shower is doing a show drip. Usually turning the water back on and off fixes it, but not always. It was just installed a few months ago. If you had a plumber do this work, call them up and ask. I bet they send someone out free to fix it, and they will have a stack of cartridges in the truck. 90-days they should 100% give you a good will warranty on the labor, 1 year on a shower fixture replacement I would hope it would be free or really cheap if it's the issue Kid Sinister said.
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Dec 17, 2019 14:54
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mcgreenvegtables posted:First, how do I deal with the drain? Can anyone tell what material that pipe is? Or the tee? The pipe is definitely metal but doesn't seem quite like the cast iron waste pipes in other parts of the house, but I think the tee might be cast iron. It looks like some sort of flange is threaded into the tee. Am I safe trying to unscrew it and replace it with something else that will adapt correctly into PVC for the p-trap? Or am I at risk of cracking the T-fitting there and having an angry wife and an expensive emergency plumbing repair? I just dealt with similar in a bathroom, right down to the fernco. I can't really tell what the last metal pipe coming out might be, but it may be copper. My solution was to put a 1 1/4" male NPT at the end of both sink drains, which is just what you want. If they didn't do this, it probably because of something like another piece of copper being sweated into that final pipe, or they were just to lazy to get the p trap exit in line with the drain. You're gonna have to open that up and see what's going on, and be prepared to remove that last piece and replace it with something saner. mcgreenvegtables posted:Second, I am going to rip out those brass supply lines and have new PEX come through the floor. I need to hook up the sink and also the dishwasher. Is there a "standard" way to handle the dishwasher+sink setup? Should I have two cold PEX supplies coming up from the floor, or just one and use some sort of T? I am going to install quarter turn stop valves, should I have one each for the sink and dishwasher, or have a T after the stop valve? If your current pex/supply setup is all home runs back to a single manifold then you should do that. If this is just a replacement I'd T the cold off in the cabinet and put a quarter turn on each feed so you can turn them off individually. I'm in this very situation right now with a bad dishwasher. It would have been a bigger pain in the rear end if the only way I could turn the cold water off was to the sink and the dishwasher at the same time, because I would have had to find a cap for the dishwasher supply outlet.
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Dec 17, 2019 17:34
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Motronic posted:I'd T the cold off in the cabinet and put a quarter turn on each feed so you can turn them off individually. This is how my new house was done.. PEX to under the kitchen sink, then T'd off to dish washer and sink. Each side of the T has its own shutoff.
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Dec 17, 2019 22:40
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kid sinister posted:Take out the cartridge. I bet a little glob of solder or some other crap got stuck in the cartridge. It probably just needs to be cleaned out. Took out the cartridge, no dirt/obstruction that I could see, however I noticed the nut that screws in and secures the cartridge was a little looser than it probably should have been. I tightened it up when I reassembled, so we shall see if the drip shows up again.
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Dec 18, 2019 02:26
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Motronic posted:I just dealt with similar in a bathroom, right down to the fernco. I can't really tell what the last metal pipe coming out might be, but it may be copper. My solution was to put a 1 1/4" male NPT at the end of both sink drains, which is just what you want. If they didn't do this, it probably because of something like another piece of copper being sweated into that final pipe, or they were just to lazy to get the p trap exit in line with the drain. You're gonna have to open that up and see what's going on, and be prepared to remove that last piece and replace it with something saner. Great, thanks. What threading/fitting standard should I be looking at for Ts and stop valves after the pex? I could do a pex tee, and a bit more pex to each stop valve, but that seems uglier and more complicated than just coming out of the PEX into something I could just thread together with no extra pieces of pipe. Maybe something like this? https://www.brasscraft.com/product/12-in-nom-comp-x-38-in-o-d-comp-x-38-in-o-d-comp-5/ mcgreenvegtables fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Dec 18, 2019 |
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Dec 18, 2019 02:50
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mcgreenvegtables posted:Great, thanks. What threading/fitting standard should I be looking at for Ts and stop valves after the pex? I could do a pex tee, and a bit more pex to each stop valve, but that seems uglier and more complicated than just coming out of the PEX into something I could just thread together with no extra pieces of pipe. Woah....look at that thing. That's kinda cool. I'm not sure I like it in theory as compared to two standard valves, but it's definitely a thing if the fittings go in the right direction for you and you're trying to save some space. But yeah, I'm assuming 1/2" pex coming in and your typical supplies on that side for faucets and dishwashers are going to be 3/8" compression. The valves are going to come with/be pictured with a nut on the 3/8" side as well as a compression ring that you will throw away (put in your plumbing supply box) because every modern supply line that you're gonna buy will just screw right on to that 3/8".
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Dec 18, 2019 03:06
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Motronic posted:Woah....look at that thing. That's kinda cool. I'm not sure I like it in theory as compared to two standard valves, but it's definitely a thing if the fittings go in the right direction for you and you're trying to save some space. They make those dual stops in a straight configuration as well. I don't use them. I will 3/4" inside the cabinet and branch off individual 1/2 to the DW and faucet with a 3/4 x 1/2 x 1/2 tee. Wanna run your dishwasher AND sink at the same time with no pressure loss? I gotcha lady! No call backs for this guy.
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Dec 18, 2019 04:25
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