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Well if he's that bad, who knows. You can't, like, SEE water flowing past this floor drain, can you? As in, there is no trap? 
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May 19, 2017 18:59
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It's especially normal for floor drain traps to dry up in winter with low humidity. I have self-priming traps at work, but the ones in certain spots don't get used at all and my apprentice has to go around with a bucket once or twice a month or the building stinks.
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May 19, 2017 19:23
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Bad Munki posted:Well if he's that bad, who knows. You can't, like, SEE water flowing past this floor drain, can you? As in, there is no trap? No, I can't thankfully!
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May 19, 2017 21:08
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Poured like 3 gallons of water down there. Took the little grill off it and it looks like this.  Pipe is pretty deep into the ground, with a curve at the very end. Flushed the toilet and it didn't smell like poo poo, but it doesn't always do it, so who knows. Does that all sound normal?
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May 19, 2017 23:12
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Thats a floor drain . Is some of the water you poured staying in it?
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May 20, 2017 00:11
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It is not.
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May 20, 2017 00:21
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BusinessWallet posted:It is not. It could be offset with a 45 so you may not be able to see the standing water.
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May 20, 2017 00:28
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So here are the water lines to my shower.  What's the deal with the pvc ends going down at the t's? Water hammer prevention? Plumber too lazy to grab right angles? I would like to get rid of them, as they are the perfect level to hit me in the head.
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May 25, 2017 18:41
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Brute Squad posted:So here are the water lines to my shower. I'd guess "future proofing" for some project that never happened. What's with that weird metal ducting in the back... that doesn't really look correct.
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May 25, 2017 23:26
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Brute Squad posted:So here are the water lines to my shower. wow that's an abortion of plumbing. I'm sure that a plumber didn't install that. Most likely a weekend warrior.
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May 26, 2017 01:10
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devicenull posted:I'd guess "future proofing" for some project that never happened. The HVAC's guy's idea for the forced air send to the register in my bathroom. Located directly right in front of the middle of the tub. The 2x4's behind all that? That's what's holding my toilet up. Turd Herder posted:wow that's an abortion of plumbing. I'm sure that a plumber didn't install that. Most likely a weekend warrior. Probably true. My landlord hires some of the best and worst 'handymen' in town.
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May 26, 2017 01:57
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How much tension are those flexed pipes under? I'd worry long-term about that snapping. Before my time in a previous building something like that let go right into a motor control center and blew it up. Might not want to store any MCCs or other valuable poo poo right there.
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May 26, 2017 02:51
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They've got some swag to them. I've been meaning to put up some hangers for them.
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May 26, 2017 03:21
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Is there a good reason to have both a hot water heater and a boiler in a house? Because this house has them both. The upstairs has forced hot air through a gas furnace, the finished basement has a hot water radiator system. Is the boiler for the cellar heating, and the hot water heater is for general water usage (shower, faucet, etc...)? The boiler is super old (probably 20+ years), and the heater is 8-9 years, would it be a good idea to combine these two somehow?
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Jun 8, 2017 22:50
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SouthShoreSamurai posted:Is there a good reason to have both a hot water heater and a boiler in a house? You are right that the boiler will be for the hydronic heating and separate from the domestic hot water. The heating water loop is a closed system that isn't suitable for use as domestic hot water for a few reasons. However, if you're planning to replace both they do make indirectly fired domestic hot water accessories for hydronic heating boilers so that you have one boiler doing both through a heat exchanger. I don't have any experience with residential stuff like that, but local contractors should be able to tell you if it's suitable for your setup.
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Jun 8, 2017 23:17
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Do AC questions go in here? I'm getting a fault on my Trane compressor unit. 11 blinks of the red fault LED = Liquid Temperature Sensor Fault (Out of Range - Open or Shorted) I thought it just overheated because I hadn't cleaned it in a few years, but it's been off for 14 hours now, and when I unplugged the power and replugged it, it didn't reset. Suggestions please?
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Jun 13, 2017 15:01
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Problem solved! Wire running to the sensor was faulty.
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Jun 13, 2017 17:42
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Please tell me your best macerating toilet horror stories before I make a horrible mistake trying to put a half bath in my basement. Or tell me they are fine I guess but that would be less entertaining. If they are fine, are they even really cheaper to install? If I let someone tear up the basement floor and re-pour concrete there is it going to leak groundwater forever?
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Jun 26, 2017 19:45
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frumpus posted:Please tell me your best macerating toilet horror stories before I make a horrible mistake trying to put a half bath in my basement. They're fine. The hard part is doing what you mentioned: chopping up the floor to put in the toilet drain. Another option is to put in a wall hung toilet. The problem with those is that they're expensive. Running the ceiling vent outdoors can be a pain sometimes. I assume there's a stack nearby? You're more likely to get leaks from the toilet itself in 5-10 years when the seals need replacing.
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Jun 26, 2017 20:01
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kid sinister posted:They're fine. The hard part is doing what you mentioned: chopping up the floor to put in the toilet drain. Another option is to put in a wall hung toilet. The problem with those is that they're expensive. Running the ceiling vent outdoors can be a pain sometimes. I assume there's a stack nearby? Yeah the plan would be to put this basically right by the stack.
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Jun 26, 2017 20:11
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Just realized you said the stack was going through the floor so your best bet would be to take up the floor and run it correctly. Why make something mechanical that you don't have too. And ground water will go through the slab even if you don't put a hole in it. Worse case you have to put a ground water sump later on. And the wall hung toilet with tank isn't the expensive part. The Carrier to mount it will cost you an arm and a leg. ($500 roughly for this one) http://www.roofdrainexpress.com/smi...CFURufgodLLAJUA Turd Herder fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Jun 27, 2017 |
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Jun 27, 2017 02:44
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I've got a fun one here, I'm putting 14 Tesla Model S battery modules into an electric vehicle conversion, and want to use the built-in propylene glycol coolant lines they came with. I'm an electronics guy but I'm brand new to plumbing. Here's there inlet/outlet for coolant on each battery module, it turns into a hollow yellow "tape" that weaves across all the individual battery cells:  With the rubber covers removed:  They accept 5/16 quick connects:  I also have a gently caress-off huge Tesla 12v pump (bigger than a fist, and it has an integrated passive heatsink on the other side), I have to measure the inlets on it but I think they are nearly an inch:  Now, I think I would overpressure the system if I tried to run that one pump to force coolant through all the batteries in series, right? I think what I'm supposed to be doing is to use something like this 32-port PEX manifold and get coolant to all the batteries in parallel. This manifold is two 1-inch inlets, and 32 1/2-inch outlets:  My concern here is that when we salvaged these batteries, some coolant inlets were bent slightly. There's no damage but I think some may be "pinched" a bit, and it might affect the flow rate that ultimately goes to each battery and cause an imbalance. Is there some kind of flow regulating valve/device I could maybe put on each battery inlet to balance the flow rate across everything? What about measuring the flowrate? Any kind of cheap combination in-line valve to both see and adjust flow? Once I have all that sorted out, the last thing to do is add my 250 watt in-line heater into the system, and a radiator/fan on the outside of the whole battery pack. Then I'd use a valve to control whether to send the coolant through an internal heating loop (when charging in the winter), or through the radiator/fan on the outside of the pack (when charging in the summer):  Am I loving anything up already with this plan or does it seem like I'm on the right track? Zero VGS fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Jun 27, 2017 |
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Jun 27, 2017 23:09
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You'd want to hook them up in parallel. Pressure drops over distance and the temperatures of each battery would be more uniform. Look into pressure regulators. Calculating flow rate is a bit trickier. And you got the right idea for diverting cooling from the pump to either the heater or cooler. Use a 3-way ball valve and a tee to do it. Maybe add some check valves if either the heater or cooler doesn't like being backfed slightly.
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Jun 27, 2017 23:57
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There should be some glycol suitable flow-meters on Grainger or McMaster Carr. Ones that would work in your application may not be especially cheap. My cooling tower just uses a conical sight-glass with a weight to indicate flow, and I think is the cheaper variety.
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Jun 28, 2017 00:35
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A person I know on social media recently shared the damage to her water heater.After lighting struck the gas meter   Sounds like very minimal damage to her house. I imagine if that was LP it would have ended differently.
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Jun 28, 2017 00:58
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Thanks for the tips... What about flow indcators like these?:  They are for PC liquid cooling so I have no idea if they'll tolerate glycol or what pressure they'll put up with. Alternatively, these look much more durable:  Could I put something like those in-line pressure guages on the exit ports of each battery, and use ball-valves back at the manifold to adjust and get everything evened out? I assume if all the battery exit pressures are the same, the flow rates are mostly the same as well? I don't have to scientific or anything, as long as the all of the batteries are getting a somewhat even share of coolant it should be fine, I just don't want a battery to be 90% or 100% blocked up and not know about it.
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Jun 28, 2017 01:38
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Turd Herder posted:A person I know on social media recently shared the damage to her water heater.After lighting struck the gas meter  Thanks for the reminder to replace my water heater's line with rigid piping (which is code in my locality)
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Jun 28, 2017 01:43
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Quick toilet question: I'm about to replace the fill valve on a toilet. I noticed that the line from the shut-off valve to the toilet is hard piped, rather than a flex line. How much of a pain is this going to be? Are there any tips/tricks I should be aware of? Is there an argument to replace it with a flex line while I'm working on it, or should I leave it be?
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Jun 28, 2017 12:48
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Hard pipe should still have enough 'give' to do what you need to. If not, just remove the tank. Generally just held on by 2 or 3 bolts, doesn't significantly alter the difficulty of the project.
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Jun 28, 2017 16:40
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There is a small pvc pipe in my back yard that is leaking. It is where my sump pump drains water from the crawl space. What is the easiest way to determine what size sleeve I need to get to replace the leaky section since the pipe is in the ground?
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Jun 28, 2017 23:34
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Rubiks Pubes posted:There is a small pvc pipe in my back yard that is leaking. It is where my sump pump drains water from the crawl space. What is the easiest way to determine what size sleeve I need to get to replace the leaky section since the pipe is in the ground? A shovel
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Jun 29, 2017 18:45
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I guess I didn't think about just cutting out a small section of pipe and taking it with me, duh
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Jun 29, 2017 19:10
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Hay guys. So I have this super-crusty floor drain in my basement. It's been 100% clogged since I bought the house but I haven't done a lot to fix it so far because it's just super gross and I didn't know where to begin. I finally started trying to get a better understanding about what exactly is going on so I soaked up the small amount of standing water (it rarely has much if any water in it, and I think when it does have water it just evaporates over a few days rather than really draining at all). I then got a skinny piece of metal to try to find any opening, which there doesn't seem to be. There's a pretty hard resistance about 2 inches down the drain. Feels like it's probably rust. I tried somewhat gently tapping into it with the metal stick, it seems like it broke up a little bit of it but I didn't want to go any further for risk of breaking the entire pipe. But what I found really strange was that I noticed several little balls of mercury sitting in the bottom of the drain. Any idea how that could have happened or where it came from? The only time any water really gets to the drain is if I spill something in the laundry room, or sometimes a small amount of water will leak in from the walls if there's a ton of rain. Should I be worried? Jaypeeh fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Jun 29, 2017 |
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Jun 29, 2017 19:12
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My adventure continues... I found some cheap flowmeters that seem solid, since they are sealed up hall sensor versions: http://www.ebay.com/itm/G1-2-Water-Flow-Hall-Sensor-Switch-Flow-Meter-1-25L-min-For-Industrial-Control-/332061407772 They claim to be B1/2", and I'm reading that the thread pitch can be different than NPT, but in this case there's a site that implies that at 1/2" diameter, they are identical, is this correct?: http://pipeandhose.com/?q=node%2F2
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Jun 30, 2017 00:49
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Jaypeeh posted:Hay guys. So I have this super-crusty floor drain in my basement. It's been 100% clogged since I bought the house but I haven't done a lot to fix it so far because it's just super gross and I didn't know where to begin. I finally started trying to get a better understanding about what exactly is going on so I soaked up the small amount of standing water (it rarely has much if any water in it, and I think when it does have water it just evaporates over a few days rather than really draining at all). I then got a skinny piece of metal to try to find any opening, which there doesn't seem to be. There's a pretty hard resistance about 2 inches down the drain. Feels like it's probably rust. I tried somewhat gently tapping into it with the metal stick, it seems like it broke up a little bit of it but I didn't want to go any further for risk of breaking the entire pipe. But what I found really strange was that I noticed several little balls of mercury sitting in the bottom of the drain. Any idea how that could have happened or where it came from? The only time any water really gets to the drain is if I spill something in the laundry room, or sometimes a small amount of water will leak in from the walls if there's a ton of rain. Should I be worried? You could rent a snake and try to snake it. I'd suggest getting it operational because if something happens ( a washing machine hose burst). The floor drain will help with a lot of the damage.
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Jun 30, 2017 01:00
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DaveSauce posted:Quick toilet question: When you say hard piped, do you mean a rigid supply line that connects to the angle stop with a nut or do you mean a rigid tube that is fused to / a part of the angle stop? Those are very different things and easy for the layperson to confused. If it's a rigid supply with a nut connecting to the angle stop just swap the rigid supply for a SS braided supply while you're doing the project. If it's a one-piece just plan on replacing the angle stop and supply.
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Jun 30, 2017 07:37
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I have no idea if there is an AC thread anywhere, and this is the closest I can find. I'm hoping someone can diagnose over the internet an issue I'm having with the AC in my new apartment that management is dragging their feet on. Due to the heat thats making GBS threads all over the US right now, our AC is being slammed and it hasnt been doing a good job keeping up. It doesn't stay cool, even though its running (the fridge pipe is cold which is weird though i dont know if its cold [i]enough/i]). One thing that can help is that approximately every 5-6 seconds something in the compressor/condenser rattles for a second, shaking the pipes all throughout the walls and into the blower. Im sure this is related to the poor cooling, and my guess is that there's something thats failing to start (the compressor fan?), rattling as it tries to do so, and once the controller detects theres an issue cuts power, only to retry it a few seconds later. Does that sound possible, on the off chance anyone has the knowledge?
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Jun 30, 2017 12:28
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Jadunk posted:When you say hard piped, do you mean a rigid supply line that connects to the angle stop with a nut or do you mean a rigid tube that is fused to / a part of the angle stop? Those are very different things and easy for the layperson to confused. I actually have no idea. I assumed that there was only one way to do it if it's not flex...the tube being fused to the valve seems like a really poor design. I mean, leak free I'm sure, but sounds like a maintenance nightmare. I'll have to take a look at that...the house was built in 1999 if that helps...not sure if there's a time period where one was fashionable over the other. I'd just as soon not rip out half the plumbing to the toilet just to replace the fill valve. edit: to clarify, I'm not home right now so I can't look at it. I'm sure I could tell pretty quick if it was a one-piece versus a compression fitting. I'm leaning more towards not messing with it and just replacing the fill valve. With that, I did some looking it looks like there's going to be a gasket on the tank side of the rigid pipe. Should I replace this when I replace the valve? Is this something I'll need to size/find separately, or will it come with the new valve? DaveSauce fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Jun 30, 2017 |
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Jun 30, 2017 13:08
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Watermelon Daiquiri posted:I have no idea if there is an AC thread anywhere, and this is the closest I can find. I'm hoping someone can diagnose over the internet an issue I'm having with the AC in my new apartment that management is dragging their feet on. Due to the heat thats making GBS threads all over the US right now, our AC is being slammed and it hasnt been doing a good job keeping up. It doesn't stay cool, even though its running (the fridge pipe is cold which is weird though i dont know if its cold [i]enough/i]). One thing that can help is that approximately every 5-6 seconds something in the compressor/condenser rattles for a second, shaking the pipes all throughout the walls and into the blower. Im sure this is related to the poor cooling, and my guess is that there's something thats failing to start (the compressor fan?), rattling as it tries to do so, and once the controller detects theres an issue cuts power, only to retry it a few seconds later. Does that sound possible, on the off chance anyone has the knowledge? HVAC thread It should be stickied. This is a split system correct? Are you getting airflow from your vents?
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Jun 30, 2017 14:22
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Turd Herder posted:You could rent a snake and try to snake it. I'd suggest getting it operational because if something happens ( a washing machine hose burst). The floor drain will help with a lot of the damage. yeah I would definitely have to use something high-powered to fully unclog it I think, I'm just worried because whatever has solidified just an inch or two into the drain feels almost rock-hard and there's not even the slightest gap to insert anything into. I think I'd almost have to drill a hole through it just to get it started.. but I fear rust may be the only thing holding the pipe together at that point and the whole thing could just crumble. Sigh, I may just live with it for the time being. Still not sure why the hell there is mercury sloshing around in there though.
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Jun 30, 2017 18:28
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