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Our soon-to-be new house (yay!) runs on well water. There's a drought on. The well is doing okay right now, but I would rather minimize water usage, since the drought isn't going away any time soon. I'm looking at an on-demand water recirculating pump; the brand that got the best online reviews was Taco Genie. I don't want a continuous system because it uses so much electricity. I'm perfectly willing to wait a minute before the on-demand system has gotten the water hot. My plan is to go to a local plumber, ask which recirculating pump they recommend, and do that. Are there reasons this is a bad idea? The house dates to 1931, so running new plumbing loops isn't going to happen. e: I have to have an electrician anyway to replace a Zinsco subpanel (yikes!) so installing an electric socket under the sink won't be a problem.
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Jun 24, 2021 21:14
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 10:42 |
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SourKraut posted:Yeah, and copper's "surprise" tends to be pinhole leaks, which... while they suck, is not usually "house flooding"-level of catastrophic. I can't help remembering Buffy's anguished "Full copper repipe!"
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Jun 28, 2021 18:26
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other people posted:I don't think I want to bother with a whole-house water softener system unless someone can convince me they are worth it.
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Aug 6, 2021 15:30
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Motronic posted:Yeah, beach/shore water is like that. You can certainly get systems to inject/mix a mineral package back into the water, but I hope you have a lot of money and like doing/paying for maintenance. Aha! We just moved to a house by the shore and now it all makes sense.
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Aug 8, 2021 00:25
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We're in a new-to-us house that dates to 1931. The last owner did a lot of upgrades, apparently competently. However. We've noticed that when we run the clothes washer, when it's draining there are blorp noises in the downstairs bathtub and sink. No fluid rises to the surface; it's just burping. Should I be worried? Should I be calling a plumber?
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Aug 26, 2021 23:56
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We need to move our propane tank, which powers our heat, and upgrade its size so we can put in a generator. Does it make sense to buy a tank rather than renting it from the company?
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Sep 8, 2021 19:29
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So, turns out the well in our new house has iron bacteria. The previous owners had scrubbed all the sinks clean, but I checked the inside of the toilet tank and there was the tell-tale brown biofilm. Is there a reason I should care? The water tastes fine, and not only did the well itself test free of e.coli and coliform, but the water from the well goes through a UV purifier before it comes to the house. Are there long-term reasons to try to treat the bacteria?
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Sep 11, 2021 01:40
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Your basement has Morgellons.
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Oct 7, 2021 23:29
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Previous owner of our house put in an upstairs half-bath, for which we are very grateful. Unfortunately they used a $70 buck Cato low-flow that's 1.28 gallons without any pressure assist. This is bad. It clogs like a mofo. It's a California house, so the replacement needs to also be 1.28. The last replacement toilet I installed in another house, a Glacier Bay dual-flush, is not legal now because it's 1.1/1.6. Does anybody have a 1.28 toilet that flushes reliably? Are there brands I should look at? Is Toto my only hope?
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Nov 13, 2021 21:02
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PainterofCrap posted:Wait it out.
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Jan 3, 2022 01:34
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FISHMANPET posted:While there are safety reasons nowadays to not do balloon framing, the reason it went out of style was the loss of easy access to 20-30 foot boards needed to balloon frame. Yeah, this house was built in logging country. Old-growth redwood logging country.
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Jan 4, 2022 04:37
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Slugworth posted:Yeah, I just moved into a house with my first garbage disposal ever, and I don't 100 percent get it. There's been a small handful of times it's been sort of convenient, but I've just never really thought to myself before "God, I wish I could just scrape this plate into the sink instead of the trash".
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Jan 23, 2022 21:09
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Motronic posted:In a previous place that had this it wasn't worth it to go full on shocking the well but I did put in a filter just past the pump that I would use to dump a bottle of peroxide in (with the filter out of the canister), run the water until I could smell peroxide at all fixtures, and then let it sit for 20 minutes. When you turn the water back on it spits and sputters and black death comes out (so take off the aerators - they will get clogged). That would resolve it for several months. Shorter time periods the warmer it was outside.
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Apr 25, 2022 16:47
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Motronic posted:Maybe? I know people who have cured it with the right well treatment. I know people who have gotten the same treatments and it doesn't last because the water coming into their well is being repeatedly re-infected. I don't know that there is any way to be sure even for the well company. Ah, well, home ownership. In related news, the pipes have been making burpy noises every time we run the washer since we moved in. Son just came upstairs last night to say that the water is actually bubbling up into the bathroom sink. Aiiieeee. Plumber call.
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Apr 27, 2022 18:01
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So, PO put a box around the hose bib for reasons unknown. The box is set up so that you can't actually turn the lever (old-fashioned two-lever knob , like a propeller) fully in either direction, even though the PO cut a notch into the box to make it move farther. I thought I'd seen devices you could attach to the hose bib to lift it into the air, so it's 3 feet off the ground for instance. I can't figure out the right google search term. Does a thing like that have a name? No, I am not prying that box apart. Let it keep its mysteries.
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May 20, 2022 19:00
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Motronic posted:Not-the-right-thread-content: I've been throwing all of my peels into a ziplock bag that I keep in the freezer. When it gets full I make vegetable stock out of it.
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May 26, 2022 20:36
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tater_salad posted:Lol you own a home you'll never be done with drywall  It's beadboard instead, in sizes that haven't been made for decades. 
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Jun 23, 2022 04:06
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Slugworth posted:That's a lot of little plastic nubbins for something meant to apply force.
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Jul 9, 2022 16:30
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I'm glad you saved that tile; it's awesome.
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Jul 11, 2022 18:27
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(xpost from Home Ownership thread) Holy CRAP. So, our saga starts when the downstairs sinks, shower, and toilet gurgle every time the washer drains. Not when you flush the toilets, not when you run a shower, just when the washer drains. We call in the local plumbers who put a water jet down the washer drain, assure us it's draining normally, and leave. We call the local septic tank people; they look at the septic system, say it looks as if it had just been cleaned out the month before, and recommend the local specialist in drain unplugging. He came today. He had to dig a hole into the septic system because there is no cleanout. A lot of turning on showers, sinks, and the washer follows. It turns out that our house, built in 1931 next to what was then private land and is now a state park, has two drain systems. One of them serves only the toilets. The other, a greywater system, runs under the house, and as far as we can figure runs somewhere into the state park, possibly into a dry well.  The septic system is small, and the leach field (as far as we can guess) is tiny; the back yard where it would be is ~~ .05 acre. The sewer specialist thinks that it's likely that the reason that only the toilets run into the septic system is that the septic system/leach field aren't large enough to support a four-bedroom house. (Fortunately, only three of us live here. But still.) The pipe that everything but the toilets drain into is galvanized iron and runs under the foundation, so it's been there a good long while. The pipes that feed into it were done relatively recently (PVC pipes) by an amateur who didn't know what they were doing and used the wrong fittings. Holy gently caress, I wasn't remotely expecting this. I'll be calling a septic engineer (who I am assured will not report us to the county) to investigate the size and condition of the leach field and what can be done. Holy poo poo. "Full copper repipe."
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Jul 14, 2022 00:15
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The previous owners of my house moved the well, because the old well and septic system were right next to each other. My sewer and well drain into each other After the custom of Christendie A dreadful flux has afflicted my mother! The wrath of God has afflicted me.
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Jul 14, 2022 04:15
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PainterofCrap posted:Oh I don't know, this GE is still going strong after 83-years
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Nov 26, 2022 06:28
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We're on a well in a drought-prone (not after this winter, but we need to stay prepped for the future) area of California. We have a builder's special nozzle on the downstairs shower. It gives forth a single narrow jet of water that isn't great for, say, washing your legs or rinsing your hair. Does anybody have a favorite low-water-use nozzle that has a wider spray, or gives the impression of more water? The Moen that has the laminar-flow thing isn't legal in California.
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Feb 26, 2023 19:17
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StormDrain posted:What are the requirements for gpm where you live?  This isn't even about my ethics; Moen and Delta won't ship to a California address.e: Wirecutter likes the Kohler 22169-G-BN Forte Showerhead; anybody used one? Arsenic Lupin fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Feb 26, 2023 |
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Feb 26, 2023 20:33
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I want to set up small scale irrigation piping from my outside faucet. No timer, just me. Am I correct in thinking i want a backflow preventer on the tap?
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Feb 27, 2023 06:49
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sharkytm posted:Absolutely, and a vacuum breaker if you don't have one already.
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Mar 1, 2023 03:37
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Motronic posted:And if I recall, Aresnic is on a well. So all it would take is the right sequence of events of losing power and running down the pressure tank to have water pressure and level in the pipes low enough to siphon a hose into their indoor plumbing. Yeah, I am. I'll probably have a local plumber do it because incompetence, but in what order do the vacuum breaker and backflow preventer go? E; there are companies that make period appropriate fixtures. If nobody shows up with links, I'll post them in the morning. Arsenic Lupin fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Mar 3, 2023 |
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Mar 3, 2023 05:36
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Nitrox posted:My suggestion would be to separate your hard water and soft water, so you're not replacing salt or filters more often than necessary. Hard water is fine for flushing the toilet or watering plants. May not be physically possible to separate those depending on your plumbing setup and accessibility. You should all have a glance at Auden's In Praise of Limestone, a poem I love, about the importance of geology to memory. quote:Dear, I know nothing of
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Aug 13, 2023 05:17
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Plumbing: I will hide my sins with silicone sealant
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Dec 10, 2023 03:06
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 10:42 |
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You can often find Moen faucets at Costco; I have one very similar to that (but with the handle on the side).
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Mar 1, 2024 21:16
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